Donski Posted August 2, 2005 Posted August 2, 2005 Hello to all, new here, I hope you can help. I bought a motherboard that claims to have the ability to connect 4 IDE drives over 2 ribbon cables, plus two SATA drives for a total of 6 drives. Right now I have 2 DVD-RW drives connected to one ribbon cable and an SATA drive with my OS. This is basically how it looks when it works,,, Channel 0 - Primary Master - Samsung DVD-RW Channel 0 - Primary Slave - Samsung DVD-RW Channel 1 - SATA Master - Maxtor 120 gb SATA HD When I plug a third DVD drive into the second IDE socket it looks like this,,, Channel 0 - Primary Master - Samsung DVD-RW Channel 0 - Primary Slave - Samsung DVD-RW Channel 1 - Secondary Master - Hitachi DVD-ROM Channel 1 - Secondary Slave - None Channel 2 - SATA Master - Maxtor 120 gb SATA HD It bumps my hard drive from channel 1 to channel 2. In my BIOS I checked and it says in the boot sequence that it's set to boot to the Maxtor drive but it still doesn't boot. I have a DFI Motherboard, 865PE-TAG with the Pheonix awardbios v6.00pg. Anytime I plug something into both IDE channels while I still have my SATA drive connected, it won't boot to anything, not a floppy, not a CDROM, not even another hard drive. It searches for the first bootable drive, listing each CD drive along the way that didn't have a bootable disc, and as soon as it finds something to boot to it locks up. The only time I can get it to work using both IDE channels is when I have my SATA drive disconnected. I've checked the boot priority (sequence) to have the Maxtor on top. I set the first, second and third boot devices properly. Under Integrated Peripherals/On-chip IDE device, I've tried setting On-chip serial ATA to auto and enhanced. In enhanced mode it will bump the sata drive to channel 2 and read none for both slave and master on channel 1 but still won't boot. Every setting I've tried appears that it should work but doesn't. I still can't get it to boot using more than 2 channels. I tried to update the bios, and yes I disabled the bios protect. Right now I have version v6.00pg and I downloaded v8.33 and v8.60a from the DFI website. I can't remember which one off hand but one of them said it was the wrong bios for my system. The other one seemed to go through all the motions as if it were flashing the bios properly but afterwards when I checked it, it still says version v6.00pg and everything was reset back to it's defaults. And still no better. One reason I choose this board was so I would be able to add my extra hard drives to it, but it won't let me. If anyone can help, thanks in advance. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
red930 Posted August 2, 2005 Posted August 2, 2005 Yes, we can help, but could you do us a favor...click on the link to update your sig with what you have. Use mine as an example. Pertaining to the BIOS versions...the V6.00 you are seeing is just the Phoenix/Award version, not the version of the BIOS you flashed. The actual date of the BIOS will be located on the bottom left corner of the monitor during POST sequence when it is counting RAM, identifying CPU, listing optical drives, etc. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donski Posted August 2, 2005 Posted August 2, 2005 Pertaining to the BIOS versions...the V6.00 you are seeing is just the Phoenix/Award version, not the version of the BIOS you flashed. The actual date of the BIOS will be located on the bottom left corner of the monitor during POST sequence when it is counting RAM, identifying CPU, listing optical drives, etc. You're right, I guess the flash did take. The date is now 3/29/2005, before it was something in 2004. But I'm still having the same problem. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
red930 Posted August 2, 2005 Posted August 2, 2005 Have you tried running the drive from either of the SATA ports? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donski Posted August 2, 2005 Posted August 2, 2005 Have you tried running the drive from either of the SATA ports? Yes I have, but still no go. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
red930 Posted August 2, 2005 Posted August 2, 2005 How about setting-up one of the Samsung drives on the secondary with the Hitachi as slave on the primary? If that does not work, try a different brand of DVD player to see if that is the problem. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donski Posted August 2, 2005 Posted August 2, 2005 I've tried one samsung on primary and one on secondary, both master. I've tried one as primary master and one as secondary slave. I've tried using a regular hard drive as secondary master, and yes I changed the boot sequence to try to boot to the sata. None of these work. If I disconnect the sata drive, I can boot to the other hard drive as secondary master. Now I'm thinking that maybe something is wrong with the motherboard. It always locks up whenever it tries to boot to a drive when either channel 2 or 3 is enabled. Maybe it's not a software issue but a hardware defect. Next thing I might try is to buy another motherboard, same make and model, throw it in and see if that one works. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
red930 Posted August 3, 2005 Posted August 3, 2005 Try removing the 2nd set of 512 Corsairs... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donski Posted August 3, 2005 Posted August 3, 2005 Next thing I might try is to buy another motherboard, same make and model, throw it in and see if that one works. Well, I tried that and this motherboard gives me the same problem. I cut this out of the manual,,, On-Chip Serial ATA Setting This section is used to configure the serial ATA drives. On-Chip Serial ATA Disabled ...............Disables the onboard SATA. Auto ...................The system will detect the existing SATA and ...........................IDE drives then automatically set them to the ...........................available master/slave mode. Combined Mode .....This option allows you to use both IDE and ...........................SATA drives; allowing a maximum of 4 drives. ...........................You must manually set the SATA drives’ master/ ...........................slave mode in the “Serial ATA Port0 Mode” ...........................and “Serial ATA Port1 Mode” fields. Enhanced Mode .....This option allows you to use both IDE and ...........................SATA drives; allowing a maximum of 6 drives. SATA Only ............This option automatically sets the SATA drives ...........................to Primary Master and Secondary Master ...........................modes. Since both drives are in master mode, ...........................you cannot set the IDE drives to Master mode. ...........................The “Serial ATA Port0 Mode” and “Serial ATA ...........................Port1 Mode” fields will not be configurable. What gets me is "Enhanced Mode". It says maximum of 6 drives, but with the problems I've experienced I can't see any way of doing that. Both Enhanced Mode and Combined Mode seen to be working the same, as "Combined Mode". So far I see it as false advertising. Does anyone else out there have one of these boards? And have you been able to get it to work? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
red930 Posted August 3, 2005 Posted August 3, 2005 Have you set it to SATA Only? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donski Posted August 3, 2005 Posted August 3, 2005 I've tried removing the 2nd set of Corsairs. I've tried auto mode, combined mode, enhanced mode and sata only. I've tried exchanging the DVD drives with hard drives. Still nothing works. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
red930 Posted August 3, 2005 Posted August 3, 2005 It almost seems as though there is a sequencing error in the BIOS which could be corrected by re-flashing. I know this may sound as a st00pid question, but I have to ask anyway...Do you know how to flash the BIOS? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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