ECS K8T890-A/Sata drive help

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kwspony

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This is my first post and my first PC build. I am having issues of course.

Mobo ECS K8T890-A
AMD Athlon 64 3500+
2 sticks Kingston 512mb DDR400
2 Plextor opticle drives
Ultra 400w power supply
Radeon 8500 video card
2 160gb western digital SATA drives that run 300mb/s

My mobo will NOT see the sata drives at all. I have tried flashing the BIOS and just about everything else I can think of. There is no operating system on the drives either so I can't load any drivers.

Anyone have any advice for me? Thanks.

Karl
 
In the beginning of the process of installing Windows XP, you are given an opportunity to press F6 and install third party drivers. This is where you use floppy diskettes to install the SATA/RAID drivers you need for your SATA hard drives. Did you do this already?
 
I dont have a problem with ECS. A P965 board for 945 prices. With 2 PCI-e for corssfire support.
 
Yes, I have installed the drivers during Windows install but it still stops saying it doesn't find any drives. The BIOS doesn't show the drives either. I know they are running because the get warm after a few minutes. I tried flashing the BIOS last night but still nothing. I think I am going to try and hook up an IDE drive to see if that makes any differance.

On a side note, I am beggining to dislike ECS as well. I have sent their tech dept an email about this last week and still haven't gotten a reply.

I will keep trying though. Only because I am a stubborn person.
 
"On a side note, I am beggining to dislike ECS as well. I have sent their tech dept an email about this last week and still haven't gotten a reply.

I will keep trying though. Only because I am a stubborn person."

Once you know ECS you will never go back to ECS... That should be their motto. Reset your bios to the defaults. Make sure the SATA controller is enabled. You do not need any 3rd party SATA drivers unless you are going to set up a SATA RAID Array. XP's native drivers will allow you to boot from a SATA drive, as long as the drive is seen in the bios
 
ECS just told me that I need to put a jumper in the drives to get them to 150mb/s rather then the 300mb/s that they run at. I will try that too.
 
According to Western Digital some 1st generation mobo's won't work with 2nd generation SATA's even though the drives are supposed to be backward compatable. We'll see when I get home.
 
More Issues

With the sata's throttled back to 150mb/s the BIOS now sees them. But windows won't load. It makes it to differant points in the install then gives me the BSOD, IRQL not less then or equal. Also got a 0x0000001a error which is a memory error. I have 2 512mb Kingstone sticks. The bios sees them fine. The ECS manual doesn't list my particular stick as being compatable. Even though the bios see's them is it possible they won't work?

If I don't install the sata drivers during windows install(f6) windows won't see the drives. I do have a sata controller card on the way. Maybe this will help.

Another thing, maybe I am not getting the raid array set right. When I do go and try to set one up the raid utility says the "hdd is not enough" I have 2 160gb drives. Anyone have any ideas? I am considering a new mobo.
 
Well, my system is up and running fine now. I did have to get some new memory. I tried a SATA controller card. I had issues with my bios seeing it and since I had issues with the ECS mobo and the SATA's I decided not to use the controller. I added a Creative X-FI platinum card and soon to be arriving a Klipsh 5.1 speaker system. Thanks for all the help!!!! Hope you all have a Merry Christmas!!!!!!
 
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