Hi, Just upgraded my mainboard to an Asus x58 sabertooth. I have a crucial real ssd that is sata 6gb/s. I installed windows 64 bit with no problems. Then I plugged in 2 x samsung f3 1tb drives into the regular sata ports. These were a mirrored pair in my previous install, and windows saw them straight away and restored the pair to single drive as they had previously been set. After restarting the bios wouldn't allow me to set this drive as a boot device. I fiddled with some settings and now boot up wont see it at all. I plugged it into the regular sata ports and windows booted fine, so it cant be the drive. What can I do, if anything to take advantage of the S-6GB/s ports? At the end of the day, I wanted this board to use SLI, but it would be nice to have 8 sata ports. Other hardware installed is: i7 920, 2 x 570gtx, asus xoner dx2, 6gbs ddr3. Thanks for the help.
Which drive wouldn't it see as the boot drive? The SSD? Did you set the boot priority to the SSD? Did you accidentally disable the SATA 6Gbps controller or change its setting from IDE to ACHI/RAID (or visa versa)? Does removing the two F3 1TB drives open up the SATA 6Gbps controller again?
Thanks for the quick reply, this is what I did to create my current problems. Firstly I installed to the SSD with no problems. Then when I added the 2 F3s and restarted from my desktop, I got to post and I get a message saying there is no bootable media, so I restart, this time hitting f8 to go to select boot menu and the drive is still there. After this I restart and go into the bios as I couldn't live with having to manually select a boot device. This time the drive has gone from the drive list, however I can see it under the EZtools section. I set it to 'super' instead of normal (maybe I shouldn't have done this). I've also fidgeted with changing all the settings from IDE to raid, to every mode and I cant get it back to how it was. I've reset the bios with jumpers, I've unplugged the F3s, I've even tried reinstalling windows7, and it wont see the drive. I hate when computers make your head spin!
No, you only have to select the boot device once then it'll have saved it. It won't appear in the core BIOS list of drives because the Marvell BIOS is separate: when your PC boots it boots the main motherboard BIOS first then the Marvell SATA 6Gbps BIOS second. That's just how PC BIOSs were designed 20+ years ago unfortunately. Setting it from IDE to RAID will cause Windows to look for other types of drivers and it won't work - you need to set it back to IDE. Ideally it should be ACHI to be honest otherwise you don't get the advanced features and full speed of your SSD. ASUS don't set IDE automatically for fail-safe reasons (it can't guarantee everything plugged in is ACHI compatible). Plug in your SSD and start again: Go into your BIOS and set the SATA 6Gbps setting to ACHI in the advanced tab. Install Windows, plug in your other two drives. Then go back into the BIOS and under the 'boot' tab there should be a list of hard drives - put your SSD at the top by pressing the + button. F10, save, quit. Job done!
Man, thanks again; this is now elevated to the level of driving me insane! I've been in a loop for the last 30 mins trying to get this drive to work. I've made sure, as per the manual that the Xpert' mode in the bios is set to normal for a single drive, and that the cable is plugged into the specified sata port on the mainboard for single sata 6gb/s use. I've tried ACHI mode, but this defaults the SSD back to super speed which is for a pair of SSDs only. I've booted to the windows 7 disc and it wont see the drive in any kind of mode, I've tried letting windows pick up drivers from the Asus disc. This all started when I plugged in the 2 samsungs and then fidgeted with the disc mode in the expert settings in the bios. Could switching have modes done something to the disc? Is it worth booting into a linux disc and formatting the disc?
This from asus after lots of emails and testing, it seems its a compatibility issue with the crucial realssd Dear Valued Customer, Thank you for contacting ASUS Customer Service. My name is Rocky and it's my pleasure to help you with your problem. Hello, Generally, the motherboard could support most devices from some famous manufacturers which are complied with the specification of the motherboard. But in actual operation, maybe there would be some compatiblity issue happen. Our RD department are still doing their best to design new BIOS for the motherboard which is expected to meet the maximum satisfaction of the required supports. And we will release the new version once we get one, then you may make the BIOS update for a test. So please pay close attention to the download page and wait patiently. About the time interval of the BIOS, you may refer to the previous versions. And sorry for any inconvenience.
Reset the BIOS to its default settings and put the Drive Xpert in Normal mode with the Samsung discs removed, then see if the Win 7 disc picks up the SSD again. If not, plug it into the normal SATA ports and just live with not having 50MB/s off your read bandwidth
I'm just waiting on some parts before I put the sides on the machine, when I do I'll try a few things including your suggestion. I've also read that it can be down to the SSD not having it's own power line; I mean it being daisy-chained with the rest of the drives. Other than that, I'll have to wait for a bios update from Asus. I can't complain, it's very fast on the normal bridge. However it is a source of bemusement that there is only, to my knowledge, one SSD sata iii available, that being the crucial realSSD range, and they have compatibility issues with the marvell controller.
Even more ironic that it's Marvell's SATA 6Gbps controller, and Marvell who develops that part of the BIOS on your ASUS board and a Marvell controller in the SSD too.
I just put my crucial c300 in a asus sabretooth mother board its working of the sata 3 port running fine. in ide mode does this mean it wont trim unless I switch to ACHI?
