GA-EP45-UD3R - cannot boot from USB Flash Drive

[hushdrops]

Hi - luckily i am not having any major probs with my new GA-EP45-UD3R setup (dual channel OCZ 2x2GB operation is fine) -

but i cannot boot from a couple of USB flash drives (one win98 sys files, the other Ubuntu 8.1) .

this is my 1st Giga board, i don't see a "flash drive" option , i do see "USB HDD" as an option - which i have put 1st in the boot order - but i cannot boot from a flash drive (I can boot to CD b4 the HD).

i have installed the latest (F4) BIOS.

should there be another boot selection / option that I'm missing?

thanks for any info

[godto]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3R - cannot boot from USB Flash Drive

did you enable legacy USB ??? and also .. set the USB as priority before harddrive

[hushdrops]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3R - cannot boot from USB Flash Drive

did you enable legacy USB ??? and also .. set the USB as priority before harddrive

yes Legacy USB is enabled & the priorities are: USB HDD, CDROM, HD .

i have never had an issue booting from a flash drive on many PC's (work and home) until now.

can anyone confirm that "USB HDD" is the correct selection for Giga boards (maybe the UD3R has an issue since it's a new board?).

thanks

[godto]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3R - cannot boot from USB Flash Drive

your and my board is about the same ... i have ep45-ud3p ...
but under option choose device .. there is USB-FDD , USB-zip , USB HDD ... do you have that ???

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3R - cannot boot from USB Flash Drive

You do not need USB Set as first device at all. What you do is be sure legacy USB storage detect is enabled, and leave your USB Stick plugged in and reboot. Then at boot hit F12 to choose boot device, choose HDD/Hard drive and on the next screen you will find your USB stick listed as a option choose it and you will boot right to it

[hushdrops]

boot from USB Flash Drive option - not present

your and my board is about the same ... i have ep45-ud3p ...
but under option choose device .. there is USB-FDD , USB-zip , USB HDD ... do you have that ???

godto: yes i have "USB-FDD , USB-zip , USB HDD" as well as USB-CDROM as boot selections - but not "USB Flash Drive" as an option (as I have used on many other boards <MSI, Intel>).

I chose USB Floppy & USB HDD (not that I expected them to work) at boot (F12 to choose boot device) - as expected no booting from the flash drive took place.

I'm really surprised that there is NOT an option to boot from a USB Flash Drive in the Gigabyte board's BIOS (especially at this date / time <age> - boards for the past couple of years have had this as a standard feature).

That's why I thought I was missing out on the boot from flash drive option (or that the UD3R's BIOS hasn't been refined yet).

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3R - cannot boot from USB Flash Drive

Like I said, choose Hard drive at the F12 boot screen then as long as you have your USB Stick plugged in when you reboot and Legacy USB Enabled you will see your USB Stick on the next screen after you choose hard drive.


Boot device order or priority page has nothing to do with this.

You will see your USB stick by name or by actual chips name on the USB Device.

Are you still having a issue? I can post image for you if you like

[hushdrops]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3R - cannot boot from USB Flash Drive

Like I said, choose Hard drive at the F12 boot screen then as long as you have your USB Stick plugged in when you reboot and Legacy USB Enabled you will see your USB Stick on the next screen after you choose hard drive.


Boot device order or priority page has nothing to do with this.

You will see your USB stick by name or by actual chips name on the USB Device.

Are you still having a issue? I can post image for you if you like

Problem solved - I did as you said - ran my persistent Ubuntu 8.10 x64 install (which worked well with the p45 based Giga board btw, all drivers were fine <AHCI, realtek 8111c etc.).

I have never had to go thru the above process (your suggestion) in order to boot from a flash drive - it's always been an option in the BIOS or the flash drive would always appear when choosing a boot device (F12) - strange to have to choose the HD, then the mass storage device - but at least it works, maybe the flash drive option will simply be added to tbe boot devices in future BIOS updates (kinda cooler just to have your boot media in place and the board to automatically know to boot from that device - from the order chosen in the BIOS setup (i.e. - if a bootable flash drive is placed, it will auto boot to that device).

Thanks for your suggestion - I'm all good to go now (funny - had no probs with other issues like running my OCZ 1066 memory in Dual Channel mode right away using all default / auto settings <two 2GB sticks in slots 1&3 - was stuck in single channel mode after following the manual's instructions to use slots 1&2 but found the correct info here - seeing so many people not able to boot at all, especially with OCZ mem had me worried but all is well - plus with no voltage mods i'm up to 3.4GHz simply by raising the FSB to 357, running cool too with Xigmatek HSF.

So far I'm happy with my new update - though my e4300 at 3.4GHz on a 650i board - really seems about the same as this so far - hopefully when encoding DVD's the new speed will be apparent - hoping to get near 4.0GHz. Still have to get used to the Intel drivers / chipset - for instance I can't see that DMA and / or NCQ is enabled via device manager as I have done for years with NForce based boards, just will have to do a little research.

Have burned DVD's just fine with my Optiarc 7200-s (AHCI slipstreamed XP install, 7200-s hooked up to Intel sata port #2 , AHCI, native enabled) - that was something i was going to be worried about - no probs though - finally can get rid of everything IDE (burner).

One issue - my 9800GT and the built-in Realtek NIC are both sharing the same IRQ - that's something I may have to post about on here if I can't get it sorted out on my own.

thanks again, nice board.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3R - cannot boot from USB Flash Drive

Nice to see you got it. It is listed as USB-HDD and you can put that as first boot device and I think you would still have to choose HDD then usb by name.

Ya, not sure why it is like that, But I know that is the only way I get it to work. I think maybe they do that on purpose, because like some other boards/systems if you leave your USB Stick in it will always boot to that. Like a Dell does and often has people lost as to why they cannot boot their PC

You have to install your system with AHCI drivers and AHCI enabled to use NCQ, if you did not know. If you did that and just havent found where you see it at then ignore me! HAHA

I think those are fine with the same IRQ, but if you hit Control + F1 on the main page of the BIOS the screen will flash and then go into your PnP/PCI page of the BIOS you will find manual IRQ controls

Post back anytime if you need some help, I am always happy to try

[hushdrops]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3R - cannot boot from USB Flash Drive

You have to install your system with AHCI drivers and AHCI enabled to use NCQ, if you did not know. If you did that and just havent found where you see it at then ignore me! HAHA

I think those are fine with the same IRQ, but if you hit Control + F1 on the main page of the BIOS the screen will flash and then go into your PnP/PCI page of the BIOS you will find manual IRQ controls

Post back anytime if you need some help, I am always happy to try

Lsdmeasap, Yes I slipstreamed XP install (nlite) with latest intel drivers (annoying to wait for the countdown at bootup for ahci, but that's ok) - I just don't know where it "see" the current status of all drives (NCQ enabled for instance) - with NForce boards, under device manager, you choose the controller and you will see the SATA Ports, on each Port if you click you will see the drive on that port and it's status.

In device manager with the Intel IHC10R SATA controller item - there's no info (no tabs with the Ports listed as with the equivalent item for the NForce boards). Is there a utility that will show the status of each drive (on each port of the IHC10R SATA controller) ? I didn't install the Intel Storage Manager deal yet (just the driver <slipstreamed at XP install>) - perhaps that will show the info (I"m not using RAID, just AHCI mode, so I figured I didn't need the storage manager app, guess I'll check it out).

I just set this new system up a couple of days ago.

Thanks for the info on manually setting IRQ resources - I was about to search around the BIOS for that info. No probs with the built in NIC and 9800GT sharing the same IRQ (3D Mark runs fine, no probs) - but I'd just feel better it they weren't sharing the same IRQ - I always go overboard and try to have everything as "perfect" / clean as possible (lots of free IRQ's, so the sharing bothers me).

Thanks again.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3R - cannot boot from USB Flash Drive

Ahh ok! Sorry I missed that I guess!

You can check with Everest Ultimate in Storage, ATA Section. Or you can just see if your drives are removable. Click the safely remove icon and if you can remove your drives then it is enabled. Should be anyway since you installed with the driver and have AHCI enabled in the BIOS

You may also check with intel Matrix Storage Manager (And yes you can stop it from startup ask me how if you cannot get it stopped) >>>
Download Search Results




But you will not need to do all that >>>

How do I enable NCQ?

Native Command Queuing is enabled at the firmware level of the hard drive and cannot be altered by the end user, which means you have support as long as all the other requirements are met. If all requirements are not met, NCQ will not be utilized.

SysOpt Forums - View Single Post - NCQ Enabled

Also see here
Answer


And here

How do I disable NCQ (Native Command Queuing) on my SATA hard drive?

Answer

Serial ATA hard drives have NCQ enabled by default and are not capable of being rendered disabled. In order to disable NCQ you must disable NCQ on the host controller that the drive is plugged into. This can be in the form of a BIOS or driver setting, or a different revision of driver for your SATA host controller.

Answer

So you are good to go, whether you can find it or not. But Matrix software will show you, as will everest and SiSandra and PC wizard (Freeware)

[hushdrops]

Sis Sandra indicates NCQ is active

[quote=Lsdmeasap;269606]Ahh ok! Sorry I missed that I guess!

You can check with Everest Ultimate in Storage, ATA Section. Or you can just see if your drives are removable. Click the safely remove icon and if you can remove your drives then it is enabled. Should be anyway since you installed with the driver and have AHCI enabled in the BIOS

You may also check with intel Matrix Storage Manager (And yes you can stop it from startup ask me how if you cannot get it stopped) >>>
quote]

thanks for the info, i can see in SiS Sandra that NCQ is enabled on all of my drives (incuding optiarc burner) - hadn't installed that or many other apps yet (new build), was just used to seeing the info in Device Manager on the NForce boards.

Oddly enough though, even though Sandra shows SATA 300, NCQ for all drives - they do not appear under "safely remove devices" - only flash drives appear there. wish i had more time to continue my setup (gotta work though), so far so good though.

thanks again Lsdmeasp

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3R - cannot boot from USB Flash Drive

Hmm, well that is odd. You sure your drives actually support it?

Maybe your slipstream actually installed two drivers and they conflict?

[hushdrops]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3R - cannot boot from USB Flash Drive

Hmm, well that is odd. You sure your drives actually support it?

Maybe your slipstream actually installed two drivers and they conflict?

NCQ is def supported (very popular WD and Seagate drives) and all of the apps (Sandra, Everest, Intel Stor Mgr) show so.

However these all just show that the DRIVES support NCQ - they don't show that it's def enabled and working (ie - all drivers are setup correctly and it's actually fully working, they just show that the drive supports NCQ and it's enabled via the drive's firmware) - any way to tell if it's NCQ capable and def working?

Performance is great (HD Tach, Crystal Disk Mark, HD Tune) and few apps are written to take advantage of NCQ anyway (better suited for server use - multi-threaded access) & I don't need to remove my drives, so no huge deal if it's not actually fully working I guess anyway really though.

thanks for your info

[hushdrops]

sum up the whole NCQ Intel deal

basically i just wanted to see where in Device Manager that I could enable / disable NCQ for each hard drive.

with NForce boards, this is done in Device Manager (open the controller's properties) , it's not the case with Intel based boards

From research, the only way to disable NCQ is to set your controller to IDE mode in the BIOS - otherwise since NCQ is enabled on nearly all drives in their firmware by default, NCQ will be enabled automatically (when native sata / ahci is enabled in the BIOS, there's no place in Device Manger to enabled / disabled NCQ in Device Manager).

I'm using the latest driver from Intel (AHCI) that was avail when I slipstreamed my XP install 8.6.0.2007 (Sept 2008) - taken from the Intel site (later drivers than avail on the Giga site <8.5.x.x) .


---------------------------------
Here's some more info for anyone else interested in this (there are lots of questions out there - asking about the same thing, I like the NForce chipset settings in Device Manager, apparently so do others:


To disable NCQ your drives must be in AHCI (native SATA) mode. You then need to go into your BIOS, change your SATA mode to [COLOR=blue! important][COLOR=blue! important]IDE[/COLOR][/COLOR].

If you are already in IDE mode, you must change to AHCI mode in the BIOS, and then reinstall Windows.

TIPS on how NOT to reinstall windows after making the above changes that I found:

You do not need to reinstall windows if your board has another HDD controller. If you have 2 [COLOR=blue! important][COLOR=blue! important]SATA [COLOR=blue! important]controllers[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] (like the INtel and a Silicon Image) and 2 drives do the following.

Attach your secondary drive to the SI controller, leave the boot on the Intel controller set to IDE.

Boot into windows, and when prompted install the Silicon Image SATA drivers and shut down. Now, move the boot drive to the SI controller and the second drive to the intel controller. Set the Intel controller to AHCI mode in the bios and make sure the boot order is set to boot from the boot drive which is now on the SI controller.

Boot into Windows, and install the Intel AHCI SATA drivers (you can get the on the INtel website).

Shut down, and put the boot drive on the INtel controller with the second drive, and leave it set to AHCI. It will boot and all will be happy.

You will notice a speed increase for sure.

Keep in mind that if you want to use Ghost, or access the drives from DOS you will have to switch back to IDE mode on the SATA controller. You can switch back and forth as you desire with no consequences.