IDE and SATA drives in same box

pawz7 · 03 Jun 2014

Hello folk. We have a problem getting a fairly old PC desktop (born about 2005, mobo Foxconn 925 XE7AA), to see both SATA and PATA IDE drives. The SATA drives are seen, but when we put the IDE in, that is not seen. We have tried it on Cable Select, Master and Slave, switched cables, cursed and scratched heads - still not seen. We also seem to have lost sight of one of the optical drives, and that remains invisible even after we took the IDE out again. The main system, on SATA of course, is Windows 7, the IDE is simply a storage drive which worked perfectly on the XP machine we have migrated from. Any ideas on what the solution might be please?

Windows Sniper · 03 Jun 2014

On the motherboard, have you tried setting the IO to AHCI mode for the SATA devices?

I know there are multiple modes available, but i can't remember which is which without checking it

pawz7 · 03 Jun 2014

no, don't think so! will have to check that out, thank you. At present we are thinking of trying to get BIOS to detect it manually.
That didn't work, changed it to LBA but the CHS details do not appear on the drive label so could not put them in, could have guessed just to see if it would then recognise the drive I spose, but himself did not want to do that, him being a retired electronics engineer, he likes to do things by the book, whereas I am the what happens if... sort.

We went through the BIOS options and the only one that we found could possibly be a solution, was to 'combine' the PATA and SATA channels or controllers - didn't work, except that when we took the IDE out and started up again, Windows told us it was loading a driver for the optical, so that is now active again. We are going to sleep on it and see what else to try tomorrow. Push comes to shove we could copy the data over to a SATA - but we would rather solve the enigma...

pawz7 · 03 Jun 2014

ah, we see about the AHCI now being automatically enabled when RAID is turned on. I had disabled RAID in BIOS, before we tried the IDE drive, because it was bringing up a RAID screen in POST, and as we are a couple of old fuddy-duddy's wot don't do RAID, I saw no reason to keep it, plus it would make POST quicker. Perhaps that was a mistake! I shall turn RAID back on tomorrow and then we will try again... thank you :)

Windows Sniper · 03 Jun 2014

Now that is really strange,

When enabling a SATA controller, it usually lists 4 options, AHCI, PATA, NONE or something else.

Basically PATA makes it work in the IDE fashion, however you will notice slower read speeds and will need to set Master/slave relationships.

None turns it off. (I think)

AHCI should enable hotswap and a couple other features which doesn't necessarily need RAID config.

When enabled, you should be able to suppress RAID alerts at POST by entering the config for it, something like Shft+F2 i think. There may be an extra option in there to suppress RAID altogether.

Have you tried checking for a BIOS update for the MOBO?

I know from Exp that this works, since my NAS box has IDE channels for the DVD and SATA for the HDD...

gregrocker · 03 Jun 2014

Sometimes RAID is a generic setting fo SATA but if it pops up as a RAID controller during POST then it is likely a hardware RAID which you don't want.

If set to AHCI will Win7 still boot? Are the IDE drives now seen?

If not try all other settings, check cable integrity with another cable.

pawz7 · 04 Jun 2014

Windows Sniper said:

Now that is really strange,

When enabling a SATA controller, it usually lists 4 options, AHCI, PATA, NONE or something else.

Basically PATA makes it work in the IDE fashion, however you will notice slower read speeds and will need to set Master/slave relationships.

None turns it off. (I think)

AHCI should enable hotswap and a couple other features which doesn't necessarily need RAID config.

When enabled, you should be able to suppress RAID alerts at POST by entering the config for it, something like Shft+F2 i think. There may be an extra option in there to suppress RAID altogether.

Have you tried checking for a BIOS update for the MOBO?

I know from Exp that this works, since my NAS box has IDE channels for the DVD and SATA for the HDD...

Sniper, would I find these four options in BIOS? Don't recall seeing that, but will look again. I think we found something pertinent ( we thought) in Integrated Peripherals. perhaps we were in the wrong section.

If we set it to IDE, would that turn SATA off? We set it to 'combined'. We have yet to put the HDD back in to see if that solves the problem.

Noted about the RAID config Shift+F2 - ta.

We did check the FOXCONN site for BIOS updates. None available, also missing a couple of drivers, one being for Storage Controllers I think - would that have a bearing? No drivers at all available on the Foxconn website for this board.

Greg, yes, we did swap cables. No change

Windows Sniper · 04 Jun 2014

pawz7 said:

Sniper, would I find these four options in BIOS? Don't recall seeing that, but will look again. I think we found something pertinent ( we thought) in Integrated Peripherals. perhaps we were in the wrong section.

If we set it to IDE, would that turn SATA off? We set it to 'combined'. We have yet to put the HDD back in to see if that solves the problem.

Noted about the RAID config Shift+F2 - ta.

We did check the FOXCONN site for BIOS updates. None available, also missing a couple of drivers, one being for Storage Controllers I think - would that have a bearing? No drivers at all available on the Foxconn website for this board.

They might very well be in the Integrated Peripherals, unfortunately i cannot say for sure since all BIOS Firmware is different, How to Change SATA to IDE in BIOS | Chron.com . Try using this guide.

If you set the Sata to IDE, it will mean that the Sata controller will treat the drive as IDE, meaning you would need to set Master/slaves status on it.

Combined mode should allow for it to use both sata and IDE, that was the 4th option that i couldn't remember yesterday :O

RAID Controller, NP just be aware it may be different keys.

As for the drivers, it is very possible that windows can't find the correct drivers for it / or the two modes are clashing for some bizarre reason. Make sure you check your Device manager for any missing drivers!

Driver Install - Device Manager

pawz7 · 04 Jun 2014

it is in DM that the missing drivers are noted. I might be able to get the hardware ID's of those and look for info on the web,there is a site that tells you who the vendors are, if I can remember where to find it. It seems likely that there is no Windows 7 equivalent for them as Foxconn are not offering any. Anyway, for now we have found another way forward with the PATA problem, which is to transfer all the stuff on the PATA to an equivalent sized SATA, which operation is currently underway as I type. In other circumstances we might have pursued the BIOS solution, but my own old Dell is also needing attention as it is getting a lot of BSD's and whatever I have tried for some weeks now, has not resolved it, so that is rising to the top of the list of priorities. Thank you both for your help - it really has been useful, and we have learned a bit more about RAID, AHCI and SATA because of you.