[Resolved] resolution for disappearing Maxtor drives? (post #12)

[red930]

There also appears to be problems with the latest Maxtor Diamondmax 10 Sabre 2 (SATA 300) drives on NForce 4 boards.

 

If you have a new Maxtor Diamondmax Sabre 2 drive on an NForce 4 board and it's working or not can you please post the model number, firmware revision and so on below.

 

I ordered 2x Maxtor Diamondmax 10 SATA2 (SATA300) Sabre 2 300GB Drives, model number: 6V300F0

They appear to have different firmware revisions - it's printed on the drive's label where it says Code:

 

One drive has firmware: VA101610 (MFG Date 3 Nov 2005)

The other drive has firmware: VA111610 (MFG Date 24 Nov 2005)

 

These drives DO NOT work on an ASUS A8N32-SLI Board using the nvidia controller but DO work using the SIL3132 controller on the same board. Other drives (e.g Maxtor Diamonmax 10 Sabre 1 SATA 150 with BAN1E00) do work using the onboard nvidia controller.

 

Here's a link to more info on this specific topic

 

http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?p=3703152

[srg86]

Hi

 

This is my first post on these forums so Hi to you all.

 

I've got a nForce4 Ultra-D s939 motherboard on it's way to replace my old nForce2 based Athlon XP system.

 

Currently, as my second drive, with all my data on, I have a DiamondMax Plus 9 80GB (6Y080M0, Code: YAR50BW0, nort sure about the R but I think it's right) hard disk (The main windows drive is a WD Caviar SE 80GB).

 

Has anyone reported problems on the Plus 9 or is it just on the 10 or 11. Maxtor's knoweledge base has only said it's on the 11, but you're all having troubles with 10s.

 

thanks

srg

[wickette]

I think I posted in the wrong place this is where I posted what is going on with my WD 160 on the IDE 1 and this is really all NUTS there is no answers anywhere as yet I have been on this thing for over 1 week now... still NO fix..

 

http://dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php...7259#post347259

[wickette]

Well the SATA drivers always showed they are the Raptor's but guess what I found the problem over a week of no sleep lol....

I had norton installed with GOBACK... I reinstalled norton back right away but not GOBACK so today I was going to make this work or shoot it with my 38.. So i reinstalled GOBACK last night.. TOday I replugged in the D: drive the WD 160 and bingo GOBACK started up and the drive appeared..

Brother, when it comes to files and folders, software im not very smart, I have always been better with the hardware stuff seeing how I had worked for General Dynamic's and WaveTech but it is up and running now.. I just have to figure out now how to reinstall all my important stuff to make it all work.. DOH this is where I will have a lot more trouble..

Talk about feeling stupid.. lol

Now on to the next system to build... can anyone tell me why most of you use SLI as to the other LanParty's.. Yes, I will want it to play DAoC and games.. too.. but with this one I am going with nvidia 7800 over my ati eax850xt..

Thanks

__________________

[Ventura_20]

Can someone also send me the firmware update aswell please..

 

send to [email protected]X (remove the 8 X's)..

 

Thanks in advance.

[BLJ]

Can someone also send me the firmware update aswell please..

 

send to [email protected]X (remove the 8 X's)..

 

Thanks in advance.

 

 

not if you don't read a few of the last pages of the threads - and i think by then your need will have 'disappeared' anyway ;-)

 

cya

[spindaft]

First of all hi, this is my first post in this forum.

 

As many of you I have had problems cold booting with a Maxtor SATA HD so I looked around for a solution. Only thing I came across that seems to work (although I wouldn't dare try it) is this one from another forum, don't think it s been posted here yet. If it has, sorry about redundancy.

 

Applies to all Maxtor DiamontMax & MaXline SATA drives! (Mine is 300 GB, 7200 rpm, 16 MB Cache SATA on Gigabyte 7N400 Pro 2 rev. 2)

 

Many people including me, can not recognize this drives or their motherboards are recognizing them hard, and mainly have problems with detecting them when cold boot.

 

All this drives have feature calld "Staggered Spin-up Detection". This feature is for servers &/or more than 2 drives to power up one by one, this makes the power supply's work esier when turning on such a system. This also makes it possible to run machines with multiple HDD's with lower power supplyes. They are cheaper also. Anyway this feature must bi off (Disabled) on PC's, or when there are one or two HDD's on the system.

 

By the SATA specifications the SATA HDD power cable is with 4 pins on the PSU side & 15 pins on the HDD side. By this specifications, Pin 11 is reserved (not used), and should be grounded or pulled low.

 

These series of Maxtor SATA HDD's are using this pin 11 for turning that feature on & off. When it is on, the HDD is waiting for more initializations more time that any standard Sata controller, Bios & motherboard will wait. So when it is off, the HDD acts like normal PC SATA drive.

 

Because this pin 11 is reserved for future use by SATA specifications, many SATA power cable manifacturers leave this pin going nowhere instead of grounding it (because it is not supposed to be used), but in our case it automatically enables the feature. So this drives auto sense if pin 11 is connected to power, not connected or grounded.

 

IMPORTANT: If Pin 11 is not connected or connected to power supply, that means that "Staggered Spin-up Detection" is enabled, & your HDD will NOT be recognized or not recognized all the time by the bios!

 

SOLUTION: Pull ot the power cable from the PSU & the HDD, and count 11th Pin, start counting from the side with the adge. Ground this pin to your case for example (to some screw)

 

More Info: http://www.maxtor.com/_files/maxtor/...tion-pin11.pdf

 

FOund this in another forum

Cheers

[BLJ]

First of all hi, this is my first post in this forum.

 

As many of you I have had problems cold booting with a Maxtor SATA HD so I looked around for a solution. Only thing I came across that seems to work (although I wouldn't dare try it) is this one from another forum, don't think it s been posted here yet. If it has, sorry about redundancy.

 

 

 

FOund this in another forum

Cheers

 

 

Hi there,

thanks for your info, but apparently the link doesn't work ;-)

could you please post a working link?

 

thanks

cya

 

PS: btw.: My cold-boot problem disappeared with FW 1B70

[spindaft]

Sorry about the dead link.

 

This one should work:

 

http://www.maxtor.com/_files/maxtor/en_us/...ction-pin11.pdf

 

Can u tell me how u went around flashing ur HD. Tried it with dload.exe in DOS but the thing couldn't detect the drive.

[BLJ]

to which controller was the harddisk connected?

 

it may work with the Sil controller but it won't work with the NVRAID (NF4) Controller...

 

i've flashed it on an Abit NF7-S (Sil 3112).

cya

[Pentium4]

LOL ALL Have just been having the funniest phone calls all day with Maxtor, these guys are ABSOLUTE muppets. I never realised what idiots they were, and from now on I WILL NEVER BUY A MAXTOR HARDDRIVE EVEN IF THEY PAID ME £1000 NOT A CHANCE!!! They've insulted my intelligence, theyve hung up on me and in the end ive told them exactly what i thought of them. Have been asking for the latest firmware revision from the my 2 Maxtor Diamondmax 10 160GB drives, you'd have thought that was pretty simple - OH NO!!! They simply don't want to give it me, and they started asking what IT qualifications i had etc LOL. Well DUCK THEM AND DUCK THEIR HARDDRIVES!

 

Have tried both my Asus A8N Sli Deluxe and my DFI Lanparty SLI D boards. The only way it worked with the original firmware revision BANC1B70 was on the Asus's Silicon Image controller. As soon as you hook them up to the Nvidia SATA controller and then load the controllers' drivers in the setup to windows (F6) BSOD during format at 4% every time without fail, i originally wanted them in raid 0 but i even tried each of them as single drives and yet again 4% BSOD:

 

IRQL_NOT_LESS_THAN_EQUAL

 

Stop Code 0x000000d1

 

NVATABUS.SYS

 

The only way to make them work on the nvidia controller is to not load the (F6) controller drivers when installing windows but then you cant run in Raid 0. I have tried every Nvidia chipset driver, slipstreamed CD's, Operating Systems, and my PATIENCE!

 

So i have my old Abit IC7 here and since the incompetant dik wods at Maxtor won't send me the firmware i've just downloaded the ones the kind fellow uploaded and am just about to flash them and setup this pc in raid 0 finally after too much messing around ultimately down to both Nvidia and primarily Maxtossers.

 

I asked about 6 of their "technical support" idiots the following questions:

 

 

Why is there no mention of the incompatability issue when running Diamondmax 10 drives with the original BANC1B70 firmwares on your website?

 

"There are details you couldn't have looked properly just goto maxtor's site and use the search and type Nvidia"

 

He was lying lol

 

 

Because of this issue why not release the current firmware revision on your website so people don't have to deal with loosers like yourself?

 

"That's an easy one, simply because everybody would be flashing the wrong drives, not everybody is an experienced user, then we would be getting RMA's back"

 

I firstly said I am an experienced user, which then he replied OK what IT qualifications i had so i let him know I'm a microsoft certified trainer. I carried on, all the mainboard manufacturers release bios upgrades, not to forget DVD Writers, Graphics cards the list is endless, you simply incooperate some checking code into the DOS flash utility that only allows the flashing to commence when the firmware matches the drive. Then he started to say i was wrong, and i continued to say NO IM RIGHT, release the firmwares on the website if you cant get the drive to install windows on current hardware and then even when there is a problem they don't allow you to have the firmware - complete jackasses!!!

 

 

Every single person i spoke to shifted the blame over to Nvidia, which more than likely is the root of the problem, but it makes you wonder about the product testing of Maxtor drives, I mean the Diamondmax 10's came out just before Nforce 4 boards so considering you couldn't even install windows using a full format with these drives and their original firmware revisions on Nforce 4 boards without getting the BSOD and i've tried a billion times now with every microsoft operating system pretty much, they can't possibly have even tested that.

 

So please if anyone is reading this, join in with me and do not, and I mean DO NOT buy a Maxtor drive in future go with other companies that aren't complete bottom bandits.

 

I've said my words and apologies for my obsanities but now I feel calm and relaxed.

 

I would like to thank DFI Street forums and the Godlike user that uploaded the latest firmware revisions that made it possible for me to get this PC live and kicking.

[spindaft]

Hi there,

thanks for your info, but apparently the link doesn't work ;-)

could you please post a working link?

 

thanks

cya

 

PS: btw.: My cold-boot problem disappeared with FW 1B70

 

Ty for YOUR info, I fashed using my old nF2 board with those same firmware and worked like a charm.

 

Thanks you mate.