Replacing DVD drives - IDE to SATA

[tommy3]

Hi,
Over the past few months, I've rebuilt my desktop, which was all IDE.

It is now all SATA, except the 2 DVD drives. A small problem prompted me to replace one of 'em, so I decided to replace both - to make the machine all SATA.

The drives arrived today. Sony AD 7261 & Samsung S222. The first thing I noticed was - No jumpers.

Do I just instal 'em & they sort 'emselves out ? There are no drivers/discs with either drive.

thanks for reading.

 

[TVeblen]

Yes, just plug them in.

In SATA there is no master/slave hierarchy. Every drive is treated equally and is just "a drive". It is left to the OS to sort out any drive functions.

 

[tommy3]

O.K guys - no probs - but I expect you all knew that.

I installed the drives & so got rid of the IDE adapter, ribbons and modular power cables. This alone freed up a PCI slot & cleaned up the interior.

The MB SATA connectors are banked as 1,2,3,4 and separately 5,6. I left the HDD's on SATA 1 & 2, & decided to put DVDs on 5 & 6, to keep 'em separate from the HDD ones.
For some reason, although both DVDs showed up in BIOS, the Samsung wasn't recognised by the system. I connected them to SATA 4 & 5 & now all is o.k.

Am a bit disappointed by the spinning noise from the Samsung unit, when it was supposed to be quieter than most.

Now, I just gotta remember how to set up an internal modem for dial-up connection !? Due to losing an expansion slot, I had to change the modem to a different fitting. I don't suppose for one minute, that my old setting will just jump up & be recognised,,,,,, of well, I can dream.

Hope this helps others in a similar quandary.

 

[TVeblen]

From what you are describing you have 2 SATA controllers on your motherboard. An Intel controller with 4 SATA ports, and a separate controller with 2 (by Marvell, or other company).

Optical drives are real touchy in SATA mode. They are really a legacy component in terms of their speed in the system. That is why they have more trouble on the secondary controller.

 

[tommy3]

That's interesting - I had no idea. The M.B is new this week & I didn't study its features too well.
It is an Asus M5A78 (AMD) which replaced an Asus M478.
The 'old' one has 6 SATA slots together, so was probably a different set-up.

Both booklets say "SATA connectors 1-6". If they are separate controllers, does that mean that 5 & 6 are used for something different ?

 

[TVeblen]

I just looked at your MB. I was wrong. It just has one controller with 6 SATA ports.

So why didn't the optical drive work in ports 5&6? We may have to chalk that up to the 'flaky-ness' of SATA optical drives, or just a bad connection.

 

[tommy3]

Thanks for taking the time to look into it.
As I said, one of the new drives worked,,,, & the other did show up - somewhere.
As you say, the technical term -flaky-ness- abounds.

all the best

 

[DeaconFrost]

SATA optical drives aren't flaky at all. It's just an interface, so if they are designed for the interface, they'll work fine. Perhaps what TVeblen meant was that early on, some SATA optical drives didn't show up to some burning apps when the SATA ports were set to AHCI, but that's largely a thing of the past.

I've been using Samsung burners for a few years now and they are some of the best drives on the market. If they are loud, then either there's a drive issue, you were using a cheaply made disc, or it wasn't mounted securely in your case.

I would be more concerned with why your last port(s) didn't pick up the drive. That would make me concerned, since it was a nice board.

 

[1Bowtie]

One possibility is the port was not enabled in bios.

 

[TVeblen]

Perhaps what TVeblen meant was that early on, some SATA optical drives didn't show up to some burning apps when the SATA ports were set to AHCI, but that's largely a thing of the past.

Hey Deacon - I have run into SATA optical drives that have a hard time being recognized by the system. Granted, few and far between. But for reasons I have never figured out the system seems to "run past" the drive during a cold start (for lack of a better explanation). The drive does not get enumerated. But then it does on a restart. If I put in a different drive then all is OK.

I'm guessing that with today's fast booting systems the older controllers in these optical drives are too slow to communicate with the BIOS in time. But it could just be bad luck and a defective drive too.

Whenever I run across people or parts that puzzle me I guess I just categorize them as "flaky" and move on .

 

[stormy13]

SATA optical drives aren't flaky at all. It's just an interface, so if they are designed for the interface, they'll work fine. Perhaps what TVeblen meant was that early on, some SATA optical drives didn't show up to some burning apps when the SATA ports were set to AHCI, but that's largely a thing of the past.

Easy fix to that is to set the controller the drive is connected to to IDE mode. In tommy3's case in addition to being able to set the controller to IDE mode if AHCI is enabled, he can also set ports 5 and 6 to CD-ROM,

 

[DeaconFrost]

Hey Deacon - I have run into SATA optical drives that have a hard time being recognized by the system.

I've had issues like that with one particular system, and it turned out it was a P45 Intel board from Gigabyte. I had been using the JMicron controller for the optical drives, and a Windows Update for the driver was making them disappear. I solved the problem by not using the JMicron crap controller. The Intel ones never gave me any issues.

Easy fix to that is to set the controller the drive is connected to to IDE mode.

True, at the time, that was the solution, but now, with Windows 7, I haven't experienced the issue. CDBurnerXP would never detect my drivers in AHCI mode.

 

[tommy3]

DeaconFrost:
SATA optical drives aren't flaky at all. It's just an interface, so if they are designed for the interface, they'll work fine.
That's rather a sweeping statement. Millions of things that are "made for a purpose" don't work, in all fields.

Perhaps what TVeblen meant was that early on, some SATA optical drives didn't show up to some burning apps when the SATA ports were set to AHCI, but that's largely a thing of the past.
In my case, I wasn't using a Burning App, or anything else. I was merely installing & setting up.

I've been using Samsung burners for a few years now and they are some of the best drives on the market. If they are loud, then either there's a drive issue, you were using a cheaply made disc, or it wasn't mounted securely in your case.
I have nothing against Samsung, & have a 1tb HDD in the same machine. I have removed a Sony Optiarc & LG IDE drives & installed the Sammy & another Sony SATA ones. What I'm saying is that, I am surprised at the amount of 'spinning' or maybe 'motor' noise coming from this particular drive - far louder than the others, fitted in the same case. The desktop case has two bays to fit these things in, which I use, along with fixing screws. I was using a 'test' disk that a friend made some time ago, on a verbatim disk. The same disk didn't cause the same noise in the Sony - nor has it whilst trying several other disks over the past few hours.

I would be more concerned with why your last port(s) didn't pick up the drive. That would make me concerned, since it was a nice board.
When I connected to a different MB connector, it worked well enough. This leads me to think, maybe; a bit of dirt in the plugs, dodgy connector/lead/plug etc.

In the end, anything can fail, whether cheap, expensive, made for the job or anything - including the nut holding the spanner !

I'll monitor the noise & consider whether its bad enough to complain about.

Many thanks for your input.

BOWTIE + TVenblen:
When Windows first booted, up popped the notice saying 'looking for drivers' etc. That showed both drives, but whilst the Sony got the green tick - the Sammy didn't.
I looked in Device Manager where that also only showed the Sony.
In BIOS it did show both drives.

As soon as I plugged 'em into slots 3 & 4, they were both recognised.

In the end, and through trial & error, they are both up'n'running.

Thanks to you all for your help & advice.

 

[DeaconFrost]

That's rather a sweeping statement. Millions of things that are "made for a purpose" don't work, in all fields.

The context was that they are flaky as compared to IDE optical drives. SATA optical drives are no more or less reliable than IDE ones. It was a comparison between the two interfaces.

 

[tommy3]

sorry mate,,,,,, no offence meant.

 

[DeaconFrost]

None taken...just making sure we're all on the same page.