AN-M2HD SATA issues and USB boot issues

[CellZapper]

Hi

I purchased this AN-M2HD around christmas time to build my "main" HTPC system. I also purchased a Foxcon MCP61SM2MA-ERS2H for a second room lower spec system. I also use a legacy KT7A Raid in this mix (used for VHS Video copying). All running Win XP Pro SP2.

The foxcon and kt7a have no apparent issues.

I use a Seagate ST350060XS-RK e-sata (external) drive and a scan sata to esata cable on the foxcon, and the Seagate supplied Promise esata pci card in the kt7a.... no apparent problems....both systems allow hot install and removal of the seagate drive.

The Foxcon reports its system drive and the seagate as removable....The AN-M2hd does not.

The AN-M2HD (bios ver 16) however did not allow hot instal and removal of the drive using the scan sata to esata cable (the seagate drive worked well when attached), so I installed AHCI, I don't remember this changing anthing reported on the system..the system drive is not removable ...However I had to stop "playing" at this time due to more pressing WORK .

I am now back to playing with it, BUT on trying my seagate drive (I dont remember trying it after moving to AHCI) the AN-M2HD won't see it...it hangs if added before boot ups... it hangs if you add it on the live system. The hangs are temporary 20 seconds or so...

I have installed an LG GGW-H20L sata blu ray/hd dvd writer no problems noticed so far.

In XP Hardware manager NVidia driver shows the system drive (WD 500GB) on port 0 and the HD DVD on port3 but no other device....it is not seeing the seagate esata. I have tried other ports and the ports are not damaged.

The seagate drive continues to work well on the other systems.

Any assistance would be welcome.

My second (minor irritation) is that the AN-M2HD insists on attempting to boot the card reader drives attached to the USB, this causes considerable delay at boot time if there are no cards present in the slots. I use a ACCURATUS combined USB keyboard and mouse and need USB support at bios time if I am not to use a PS2 keyboard.

How do I stop the bios attempting to boot the cards ?? I HAVE tried various bios setting to no avail.

Thank for any help....

I thought the Abit Mobo would be the best unit it has disapointed me, the cheapy foxcon was trouble free

Sorry for such a long post..

Regards Chris

[CellZapper]

A Further additional issue... I have a phantom 5 1/4" floppy.....as well as the expected 3.5" unit.

The floppy is a mitsumi combined floppy and card reader...floppy on fdc1 cable and card reader on internal usb.

The 3.5" floppy does not seem to behave as far as floppy media change is concerned??

Again the same model floppy/card reader on the other 2 systems works just fine.........looks to me like loose ends in the bios on this mobo.

Regards Chris

[BUFF]

this may be 1 of those cases where unless you have the exact same hardware to play with you can't really make suggestions.
I can say that I had a mitsumi combined floppy card reader on my AN-M2HD when I had 1 & had no problems with it either regarding floppy media changes or the mobo trying to boot from the USB drives on the card reader.
What have you currently got your boot priority settings as?

[CellZapper]

Hi BUFF
BIOS V16
Boot priority is set
1. SCSI-0 : PO-WDC_WD5000AAKS-00TMA0
2. USB-HDD0 : Generic storage device 930
3. Bootable add in cards

I have tried several variations in the order to no effect.

First bootable device Hard disk
2nd ..................... CDROM
3rd....................... Disabled
4th........................ Disabled

Integrated Peripherals.....IDE/SATA....onchip sata mode = AHCI
USB. keyboard / mouse = BIOS

The Bios only reports one 3.5" floppy ....floppy 2 is not seen. (at least the bios knows the truth).

Another problem that has cropped up recently is that on startup the system ALWAYS checks the C: drive........The "one of your hard drives needs to be checked etc " message ...never any problems.

And this last few days the system won't shutdown without complaining about Windows explorer requiring to be stopped and then a request to send an error message.

Do all my problems point to a driver issue. I am running NVIDIA 10.1.15 (ish I didnt write it down),
I have seen else where on this forum comment not to use the Nvidia driver as it is trouble, but my feeble attempt to get XP to change to an MS driver results in the message that the driver I am using is the best for my hardware, any advice on how to get XP to swap to an MS driver would be useful.

Both my other system are running MS drivers.

Thanks Chris

[CellZapper]

Hi I LIED

The foxcon IS running Nvidia drivers.
Hardware manager shows Nvidia MCP61 serial ATA controller driver date 28/6/2006 ver 5.10.2600.677 (I think, numbers are bit dificult to read on a TV screen).

[CellZapper]

Hi

I think I can confirm the seagate sata issue is at AHCI bios level.... powering on and booting with the seagate esata drive attached and powered ....

The Phoenix AHCI bios hangs for 2 or 3 seconds on screen (don't remember seeing this bios screen with the seagate not attached, must be very fast) it has found the boot drive and has the start of the report line for drive 2 (the drive type number missing).

It does not report the hddvd at this stage (may be as its last).

The sytem then boots or goes into BIOS (pressing DEL), bios does not report presense of the drive (where would I find it anyway, BIOS does not seem to report devices attahed to the sata bus).

I need to use this seagate drive...
Is there an easy way to remove AHCI from XP or am I stuck with a reload of XP.
Having said that a reload of XP may fix my other problems

Thanks for any help
Chris