GA-MA69GM-S2H SATA problem

[Justfax]

Hi - I've just built an HTPC using this board with WD 'Green power' SATA hd (750Gb) and Pioneer SATA DVD drive. Processor is AMD. The hd is connected to the top right sata port on the board and the optical is connected to the top left port. According to the numbering on the board this equates to Sata ports 0 and 1 (?). When I boot up and go into set up IDE Channel 0 Master and Slave are shown as None. Channel 2 Master is shown as the HD and Channel2 Slave is shown as the optical drive. Neither are 'flagged' as SATA. Channel 3 master/slave are shown as none.
I have installed Linux (Ubuntu).
My first question please is whether or not the configuration information described above is correct or indicates a problem? The hd appears to be working correctly but the optical drive is not recognised by the OS. I am unable to determine at this stage whether or not the non-recognition of the optical is a hardware fault or is an OS issue and I am currently trying to reinstall the OS (Ubuntu) using a usb stick. This leads to my 2nd question which is that I am unable to get the MB to boot from a usb stick. I have enabled usb legacy storage and I have set usb-zip as the first boot device but nevertheless the board continues to boot from the hd.
My Bios version is 1.0 , I have not tried upgrading to 1.5 as yet unless I'm sure that will help.
Would appreciate any advise you can give please.

[fatony]

Re: GA-MA69GM-S2H SATA problem

I don't have the same board as you but in the Integrated Peripherals page of the bios there is a setting called "OnChip Sata Type" this should be canged from Native IDE to AHCI.

[Justfax]

Re: GA-MA69GM-S2H SATA problem

Hi fatony - thanks for the suggestion but I have already got the "OnChip Sata Type" set as AHCI (in fact I have tried all the settings in that parameter and the boot continues to just go straight to the hd).

[VorLonUK]

Re: GA-MA69GM-S2H SATA problem

My first question please is whether or not the configuration information described above is correct or indicates a problem? The hd appears to be working correctly but the optical drive is not recognised by the OS.

When you set the bios to AHCI mode, your Sata drives on that controller will disappear from the Standard setup page in the bios.

You will see them then being supported by the Intel Ahci Bios which appears after the main POST screen.

[Justfax]

Re: GA-MA69GM-S2H SATA problem

Thanks VorLon. That makes sense except that the 2 devices still appear in the standard set up page although whatever combination of the 4 sockets I plug them into I can't get them to appear as channel 0 master/slave. Apologies if I'm not making sense but for example I've got a similar h/w setup on an ASUS board. That also has 4 sata ports. The hard drive is plugges into sata port 0 and the optical into sata port 1 and the 2 devices then appear in the boot setup page in the first 2 channels. With the Gigabyte board no matter which of the 4 ports I plug the 2 devices into I can't get them recognised as the first 2 chanels. I don't know whether or not this is an issue but I have a suspicion that that is what is causing linux not to find the optical drive.
Also, do you have a view please on why I can't get the board to boot from a usb pendrive?
Cheers

[VorLonUK]

Re: GA-MA69GM-S2H SATA problem

I'm not familiar with your board, but know when I select AHCI mode on my main Controller IC9r all my drives bar those on the Jmicron controller disappear from the bios Standard option page.

However, there have been problems with AHCI and some Distro's and even some not recognising my Jmicron controller.

I use Sabayon, Mandriva, Mint as they seem to give the most out of the box support.

You could test things though by disabling AHCI in the bios, ie going the default setup route.
I assume your AMD chipset (like my Intel) will invoke a secondary bios when you enable AHCI, purely for drive support and as to how a Linux Distro might read this I'm not sure.
Even in Vista AHCI support is a bit confusing in device manager, as everything is there but not clearly defined.

So i would disable AHCI and I assume you aren't dual booting? and see how things are then shown in your Linux Distro. You could always use the LiveCd option on another distro to compare.
I think then if things make more sense that you may have to assume that the AMD AHCI bios configures things in a way that are transparent to the OS.

As for booting from the USB drive, you need to check out the sticky post on this forum. (I think it's under flashing the bios with Q-Flash and using a bootable USB stic The principle is the same.
Mandriva sell a bootable USB stick with their Distro, so you may find some more info on their forums about booting with Linux via USB.

I know Slax small distro's used to boot fine from USB.