P35C-DS3R - IDE Recognition Failure

[a4092940]

see posts below :)

[a4092940]

Re: P35C-DS3R - IDE Recognition Failure

...and again

[spec]

Re: P35C-DS3R - IDE Recognition Failure

....I don't know why the above post is such a mess.

Many apologies

Mike

Hmm, better space each section out with a few lines to make it readable, you can edit your post...

Also, please give complete system specs (including any overclock you may have done). Best to update your signature with system specs, so it's always in the post...

Now, please state how many drives are attached to system and which port, SATA / Gigabyte Sata. Is anything set in RAID mode ?

Are you able to see your DVD drive in the BIOS ?

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: P35C-DS3R - IDE Recognition Failure

Flash your board! F2 is pretty old isnt it?

Have you installed the newest .Inf drivers for your board? I suggest you do that from here and then flash to the newest bios using Qflash (hit END at boot time) with a floppy or usb stick. Bios is in the BIOS section, and .inf downloads are in the drivers section

http://www.gigabyte-usa.com/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2642

*NOTE* this is rev 2.1 page you need to be sure to use the correct page for your board revision, it is in the bottom corner of the board under the PCI slots. Or you can look on your box

[spec]

Re: P35C-DS3R - IDE Recognition Failure

Any luck with your DVD drive ? I'm assuming you've got it working by now :)

[a4092940]

Re: P35C-DS3R - IDE Recognition Failure

First of all....thanks for your interest!
...and second of all, I've been away from the internet for a couple of days and have been unable to reply. Let's start again, hope you can still help.

My gigabyte P35C-DS3R has been having trouble recognising my IDE DVD Drive. With the power and the IDE cables plugged in, the drive will open, but it isn't recognised in XP or is Vista, and so no data will transfer from or to it.

Here's what I've tried so far -
- BIOS Settings - auto drive detection, manual drive detection, altering the instruction interfaces to SATA, RAID and IDE
- Making the drive Master, Slave, or Cable Select on the IDE cable (and when on cable select, using drive jumpers to select master or slave)
- Trying my DVD drive in another computer (it works)
- Trying a new and an old IDE cable in another computer (they work)
- IDE port checking - plugged in the power and data cables to an old IDE HD and also an old IDE CD Drive. The CD Drive didn't even power on (even though my DVD drive did this...strange), yet the HD spun up. They both remained unrecognised in both XP and Vista, but the CD drive without power is a mystery
- SATA port checking - when plugging in one of my SATA HDs to certain ports on the mobo, the BIOS reported that I had somehow installed an additional SATA HD of the exact same specifications in another port. This of course wasn't true and it wasn't recognised in XP or Vista if I ever managed to get that far past the POST. I had to set that port to 'None' in the BIOS or it was reported everytime I booted up and caused resets, crashing etc. When trying either of my SATA HDs in some of the other SATA ports, the system sometimes didn't boot at all depending on which port I used.

Therefore...
1. The SATA and IDE controllers/connectors/ports on the mobo have somehow been damaged -- OR --
2. I'm in need of a BIOS update (currently running version F2), although I'm wary of doing this having heard of numberous problems associated with flashing this board; http://forums.tweaktown.com/showthread.php?t=25051 -- OR -- ?!?!
-----------------------------------------

My board is revision 1.1 (I'm now aware this part of the forum is for 2.1 ), and my BIOS is version F2. I'll update the BIOS as a last resort due to the known issues with the process on the p35c-ds3r,but as 'Lsdmeasap' suggests, I'll update all the drivers and use Qflash. I just guess I'll have to regretfully get a new board if this fails and confuses you all like it has me!

As of yet, I haven't performed any overclocks, and I can't see the DVD drive in the BIOS. The only drives which I can see are my two SATA HDs of 250 and 500GB. Whilst performing the checks I mentionned above and just using one of these disks to confirm port stability, only two of the 8 SATA ports (6 orange SATA and 2 purple gigabyte sata) were fully functionnal. The other ones caused hanging at POST, no boot (''system disk cannot be found'', no testing of CPU or RAM at the top of the POST screen), and in one port, the appearance of the exact same drive apparently plugged into a different SATA port, hence more POST hanging and ultimately self-reset or no boot.

I haven't touched the gigabyte sata ports at all (aside to establish that they also are failing to recognise the drives), I aren't using any kind of RAID setup, and so my 2 HDs are therefore in the SATA0 and SATA1 orange ports, both working at SATAII data rates.

-----------------------------------------

System specs as requested (I'll soon add them to my sig)
- Case = Antec 900
- Mobo = GA-P35C-DS3R
- CPU = Intel E6750 Core2Duo (1,333FSB and 2.6Ghz)
- RAM = 2GB OCZ Reaper 'heatpipe' (DDR2 and 1,066Mhz)
- Graphics = EVGA 8800GTS 320MB
- Sound = Onboard
- PSU = OCZ GameXtreme (850W)
- HDs = 2 SATA Seagate Barracudas (250GB, 500GB),
- Opticals = 1 IDE Pioneer dual layer +- DVD RW
- Additionals = Wi-Fi card, eSATA bracket

I should be speedier with my replies now I'm back at a stable internet source. Thanks in advance

[spec]

Re: P35C-DS3R - IDE Recognition Failure

Ok, we can probably look at the other SATA ports later, if 2 are working now, just let them be for now.

When you tested the IDE hard drive, you mentioned that you couldn't see the harddisk in Windows, but were you able to see this in the BIOS ?

I think, you should clear your CMOS first. Then, remove all device except your 2 hdd's.
Boot to BIOS, make sure both are visible then boot to windows, check everything is ok, then shutdown. Now configure IDE harddrive/DVD as master and attach to IDE channel.
Boot into BIOS and see if you can see the drive.

[a4092940]

Re: P35C-DS3R - IDE Recognition Failure

I'm afraid that I didn't see the test IDE HD Drive in the bios or in xp and vista. It just spun up but wasn't recognised, presumably because the power cable being attached was making it show mechanical signs of life. The same outcome occurs for the subject IDE DVD drive in question, yet the test IDE CD Drive didn't even power on.

I'll try your suggestion but I'll have to then reset some of the drive settings to 'none' in order to avoid the drive replication problem which I mentionned. I'll give it a shot anyhow.

Another thing...I've got a card reader which shows up as 4 'devices with removable storage' in windows explorer. In Vista there are only these 4, yet in XP I have these four and then there's also a duplicate of one of them. This is categorised as type 'CD drive' instead of 'removable disk' but I can't access it and just get the error of there being no media inside. To make things even more confusing, this duplicate is even there when no IDE cable is plugged into the mobo!

[spec]

Re: P35C-DS3R - IDE Recognition Failure

I'll try your suggestion but I'll have to then reset some of the drive settings to 'none' in order to avoid the drive replication problem which I mentionned. I'll give it a shot anyhow.

by setting to master, I meant, try only master for the IDE HDD not for your existing drives... just to be sure....

[a4092940]

Re: P35C-DS3R - IDE Recognition Failure

by setting to master, I meant, try only master for the IDE HDD not for your existing drives... just to be sure....

I see what you mean Spec, I was stating that I'd have to prevent the BIOS from creating a duplicate of my drive by setting the drive discovering option to none instead of auto or manual (thereby preventing it even having an opportunity to make info up about a drive that isn't there).

What I should have if my system was working correctly, is SATA Ch0 Master (500GB HDD) , SATA Ch1 Master (250GB HDD), and IDE Master (DVD Drive). Do you suggest I should place my two SATAs as Ch0 and Ch1 slaves before clearing the CMOS, booting to BIOS, checking the SATAs are there, booting to OS and checking that they're present/working in XP/Vista, shutting down, then attaching the DVD drive as master and looking in BIOS and OS? I'll also try the DVD drive as slave again to see if it makes any difference

[spec]

Re: P35C-DS3R - IDE Recognition Failure

yes, exactly as you have written above, with the exception of changing the SATA drives to slave, no need to do that, both can remain as master...
Also I will suggest you to enter the BIOS and use detect to check if the BIOS is able to read the drives.... Good luck...

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: P35C-DS3R - IDE Recognition Failure

SATA drives do not have master and slaves. the jumper on the back is used to limit speed to 1.5Gb/s or SATAI

Remove them to enable SATAII 3Gb/s

Do you have USB legacy storage detect enabled? If so disable that, and also disable USB keyboard and MOUSE while you are there, see if that helps

[spec]

Re: P35C-DS3R - IDE Recognition Failure

Yes, you can follow the approach as given above, but at least place your primary (boot) HDD as master.

[a4092940]

Re: P35C-DS3R - IDE Recognition Failure

Ok then, here's a step by step...

1. Two SATA HDs set as standard (hence masters) at SATA ports ChO and Ch1
2. Clear CMOS - fine, but when restarted, BIOS created a duplicate of my 500GB drive at Ch4 (master by default)
3. Set Ch4 Master to none in the BIOS & disabled USB keyboard, mouse, and legacy support as suggested by LSDmeup
4. Boot to OS (this works now Ch4 is set to none) - my 2 SATA HDs are present and can be accessed
5. Shutdown, attach IDE DVD drive as master
6. Check BIOS - DVD drive not visible
7. Check in OS - DVD drive not visible

8. Attach IDE DVD drive as slave
9. Check BIOS - DVD drive not visible
10. Check in OS - DVD drive not visible

Both SATA drives still functionned fine when DVD drive was attached

hmmmmmmmmm........

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: P35C-DS3R - IDE Recognition Failure

You still loose me when you say SATA "Set as" there is no set as when it comes to SATA, so what are you doing that leads you to mean that?

And ok, I am kinda confused by this dvd drive now as well. Have you tried a different cable? Have you tried a old dvd/cd drive that HAS NOT been giving you a issue before to see if it is the cable or controller for sure? And have you set the dvd drive to CS and tried that?

Did you install the latest BIOS, and have you installed the newest Intel .inf files?