First SATA drive - not working

[Giles Orr]

On 9/28/07, Lennart Sorensen <lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 28, 2007 at 12:43:18AM -0400, Giles Orr wrote:
> > I recently had my /home/ hard drive crash and burn ... that will
> > probably be the subject of another post.  The good news is that my
> > backup regime worked (mostly).  So this question is about the new SATA
> > drive I bought to replace it, but ... I've never dealt with SATA
> > before.  I bought a 500Gb WD on College Street.  I have a Gigabyte
> > motherboard with an Athlon 2700+ on it which has two SATA connectors.
> > The drive will not register in the BIOS (or with the OS the one time I
> > tried).
> >
> > Steps I've tried:
> >
> > - I've reseated the SATA cable at both ends (ad infinitum)
> > - I've tried both SATA connectors
> > - I've reseated the SATA drive power
> > - the BIOS lets me select "IDE" or "RAID" mode for SATA, I've tried both.
> > - the BIOS has three sets of two IDE drives, although only two PATA
> > connectors: on the idea that the last of these are for the SATA drives
> > (am I right?), I went in there and told it to auto-detect.  No joy,
> > although it takes much longer to say "no drive" when this new one is
> > connected.
>
> Which motherboard is it?
>
> You do NOT want IDE as the mode for SATA.
>
> Gigabyte has a stupid tendancy of making you hit a function key in the
> bios to get to advanced settings, and they generally don't like telling
> you about it anywhere easy to find.
>
> > - the drive is powering up and spinning, it can be heard and felt.
> > - after the "press DEL to enter BIOS" message there's a SATA detection
> > and "User mode" message: this has its own key, and I can enter it but
> > do nothing because it detects no drives.
> > - I have several computers, but all are older and none of the others
> > have SATA to connect to.
> >
> > It seems to me that there are several possibilities:
> > - the drive is bad
>
> Not that likely, but could be.
>
> > - the cable is bad
>
> Could be.  Try another one.
>
> > - the mobo SATA is bad
>
> Seems unlikely but could be.
>
> > - the drive is larger than the mobo SATA chip can handle
>
> The limit is LBA48 so not possible.
>
> Most likely is a misconfigured bios or a bad cable.
>
> > Do I return the drive?  Do I buy a PCI SATA card and cable to put in
> > one of the other computers?  Do I whack the mobo or the drive with a
> > hammer?  Suggestions are most welcome, as I'm thoroughly chumped (wait
> > ... Is that "stumped" or "chumped?").
>
> So far I have never had issues with SATA as long as I had the SATA
> controller set to its native mode in the bios.  Would be nice to know
> which chipset you have on that board.
>
> Most decent computer stores should be able to at least if you bring the
> drive back, plug it into a test machine of theirs to tell if they can
> detect it or not.  And if their machine can't detect it either, then
> they should just exchange it.

Thanks to everyone who posted suggestions.  I tried another cable, no
joy.  Today I took the drive back and the store showed that the drive
itself is fine.  So we're down to a very limited number of options.
When I told the store guy the motherboard I'm using (Gigabyte
7VT600-P-RZ - and I do have the most recent BIOS) he said that he'd
worked with that generation of Gigabytes and the drive WON'T be
recognized by the BIOS: you have to boot into the OS and load the
right drivers (he uses only Windows).  So I went home and put the disk
back in the computer and booted Debian testing kernel 2.6.21-2-k7 and
... no luck.  The chipset is apparently the VIA Apollo KT600, and the
sata_via kernel module is loading, but I don't see a new drive.  I
don't even know how it would be designated ...  Is it /dev/sd? ?  Is
there any program I should run?  I don't see anything that looks new
or different in /var/log/messages , although I have to admit I'm not
an expert and I didn't use a fine tooth comb, but ... there doesn't
appear to be a new drive.

Thanks for the help so far.  Anyone got further ideas?

-- 
Giles
http://www.gilesorr.com/
gilesorr-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org
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