Gigabyte answers

[mdkoh]

I had a problem with a Gigbyte board GA-8IK100 ver. 2. Wrote Gigabyte twice about it finally getting a response on the second e-mail.

Apparently if you are using a single SATA drive on this motherboard you have to set it up as though you are using a RAID configuration. When the OS is loading intially you have to F-6 during boot up and load ICH5R RAID driver. This apparently activates the SATA ports. The driver is available on the Gigabyte website but they give no supporting documentation to expalin what it is for.

The Gigabyte board documentation, and the Gigabyte website make no mention about this issue. The board is a great board, seems to be very stable and fast. Sad that they cannot bring this issue to light or give better support for their products. I do have to day that at least I got a response from them. It has not been that way with other motherboard producers.

I hope this might help others who decide to buy this board and use the new drive technology that I did.

 

[Hitman`]

windows xp is a nice OS, and supports just about all the hardware out there, the problem is xp cannot cache every driver out there, and during setup, they do a good job of loading common RAID drivers, but xp setup cant have them all, especially for newer boards.

 

[iss]

Gigabyte usually has pretty good documentation. regardless this is not a gigabyte issue (as far as how SATA is enabled) all intel 865 and 875 chipsets use softraid and require the same set up routine as you describe. if you dont follow it then your SATA drive is merely recognized as a ATA 100 drive.