HDD not booting after installing on AHCI enabled m

Hardware HDD's & SSD's
1

Heya guys,


I recently bought the ASUS M5A97 Pro, installed an ssd on it, installed Windows on the ssd, everything fine up till now. Thing is, before doing all this, I had an older mobo that was set to use SATA in IDE mode, not AHCI, like the new one.


The old HDD that was installed on the old mobo doesn't boot along with the ssd, on the new mobo, even though I connected it to a SATA port that was set to run as IDE SATA, and the ssd to AHCI SATA. Despite this, the HDD only boots if the ssd is not connected to the mobo...


What I tried to do: boot live Ubuntu from a USB stick, delete the Windows and Linux(+ swap) partitions from the HDD. I succeeded in deleting the Windows partition, but the Linux refuses to be deleted, for some reason 0.o


So now I'm left with is an HDD that has an "Unknown" kind of partition after trying to delete Linux off it. Btw, the Linux partition isn't mountable anymore, so I did fuck smth up, I just don't know what...


What I think the problem is: when I installed Windows on the HDD, the mobo wasn't set to AHCI, and now, when I try to boot it off an AHCI enabled mobo, it doesn't recognize the disk (weird thing is, I DID set the specific port to use IDE, but it still doesn't work)


Also: both the ssd and hdd are partitioned using MBR.


So my question is: Why on Earth doesn't the HDD, which is connected to a sata port set to IDE, not AHCI, get recognized when booting up( I mean it's not even listed as "connected" in the BIOS)?


Sorry for the awfully long post, but I had the explain the whole weirdness that's happening...

2

Changing from ACHI to IDE (and vica versa) tends to scupper things up. Normally you need to reinstall the OS for it to be recognised properly.


As far as I know on most motherboards, you can't set the mode separately for each drive. Try setting everything to ACHI (that should work fine for both SSDs and HDDs, but you will need to reinstall the HDD's OS.)


I think your problem is that it's trying to boot in AHCI mode even though you might have a setting for IDE.

3

Well, thing is, I don't need an OS on the HDD, I just wanna use it for storage.


Also, this mobo's sata ports are divided into 2 groups: 1-4 and 5-6, so I CAN use IDE and AHCI at the same time. The ssd is connected to port one and the HDD to port 5.

4

Why not just run both of them in AHCI? Just format the drive and you should be fine.

5

Format? WTH no! That's where all my anime, music and games are... And why can't I get rid of that Linux partition?

6

first off, the swap partition is like the paging file in windows, if your ram fills up, it will write to your paging file / swap partition (virtual memory).

now... for the drive modes, you should be using AHCI for everything. it makes your drives get better read / write for normal hdd's. however winblows likes to fuck up if you change it sometimes.

AHCI has NCQ, which is why you want it... however if windows is failing and the windows repair tool (found on the boot cd) doesn't work, just run your drives in IDE.


[img]http://forum.crucial.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/2868i6492854BDADE9DF9/image-size/original?v=mpbl-1&px=-1[/img]

7

When you add another hard drive to the mix (directly via the SATA ports), you have to set it up using disk management, which I would guess requires some priming (maybe a light format?). The file system isn't plug and play, unless you get an enclosure and connect the hard drive via USB. Add to that the fact that you're trying to run two modes (AHCI and IDE) at the same time.

8

Uhm.. what's a light format? I tried googling it but got nothing...

9

Stormsabre101 said:

Uhm.. what's a light format? I tried googling it but got nothing...

when you get a new drive, you need to format it with NTFS.

10

Ok... but thing is I can't format it because I have data on it... First of all, how do I make it recognizable for the BIOS? I already set all the ports to AHCI, but still nothing.

11

Stormsabre101 said:

Uhm.. what's a light format? I tried googling it but got nothing...


quick format, it's an option for when you add a hard drive via disk management

12

look, back up any data that you put on your new hdd...

now quick format (or normal format if you want to wait a long time) your new hard drive.

now it will be recognized in windows....


if you right click on my computer in the start menu and go to manage, mmc should open. click on disk management and your ssd should show up there. its being detected by the bios, it just doesnt have a file system on it right now.

13

Looks like people misunderstood things. My SSD is the one that has Windows on it, nothing wrong with it, works just fine and I'm very happy with it. My old (and only) HDD is the one that's not recognized. The HDD is partitioned as follows: 31gb: Linux+swap (which I tried to format but didn't work), 30gb free space (not partitioned in any way, just free HDD space) and the rest is NTFS with VALUABLE (for me anyway xD) data on it.

14

Then I would suggest a cheap SATA enclosure with USB interface. Connect it to your PC and it should become plug & play. My old C300 SSD came with a SATA-USB connector. I connected this thing to an old laptop hard drive and I was able to see the files in the drive. The connector was able to power a 2.5" drive on its own but for a 3.5" you'll need an enclosure that would be able to provide enough juice to the drive for it to run.

[img]http://cdn.macworld.co.uk/cmsdata/news/28737/Apricorn.jpg[/img]

15

[s]What kind of motherboard do you have?

If it's one of those 1366 boards with non-intel SATA ports for SATA6bits, don't use them. They suck for SSD's. [/s]


EDIT: Someone teach me to read whole threads before I reply, please.


Anyways.. When I installed Windows 7 on my newer SSD, it refused to install unless I had another HDD connected, and if I don't have that HDD connected when booting, the Os wont load. :) I suspect the crappy sata 6bit port I used at that time..

16

GreenSLi said:

What kind of motherboard do you have?

If it's one of those 1366 boards with non-intel SATA ports for SATA6bits, don't use them. They suck for SSD's.


EDIT: Someone teach me to read whole threads before I reply, please.


Anyways.. When I installed Windows 7 on my newer SSD, it refused to install unless I had another HDD connected, and if I don't have that HDD connected when booting, the Os wont load. :) I suspect the crappy sata 6bit port I used at that time..

Maybe you installed the bootloader on the HDD... But that can't be my problem, cause I only had the SSD connected when I installed Windows..

17

I even tried updating the HDD's firmware... still nothing... I've read that the Samsung F3's are known to have problems with SB850 southbridges, but mine's SB950... Any ideas?

18

I did it! The firmware could not be updated from the same computer tho, that's what set me back a little, because I thought the firmware update actually didn't work/didn't do anything, but once I connected the HDD to another mobo, it worked like a charm and now I have a functional HDD again, running in AHCI, along with my SSD.


I'll post the link to the site I got the firmware from, for anyone who might have the same problem: [url=http://www.jack-brennan.com/samsung-firmware-update-for-p67-and-sb850/]Firmware update link[/url]


This patch works for the following models of Samsung HDD's: [b]F3[/b] HD323HJ / HD502HJ / HD503HI / HD103SJ / HD105SI)and [b]F3EG[/b] (HD153WI / HD203WI). Again, it won't work unless you plug the HDD into another computer.