Asus P5N-MX; how to change from SATA to IDE

[Saintor]

My SSD firmware updater needs to do it in DOS. To be recognized in DOS, my HD has to be interfaced temporary in IDE.

I went through all menus and submenus, but I didn't find way to do it in BIOS. Any clue?

 

[TVeblen]

To be recognized in DOS, my HD has to be interfaced temporary in IDE.
/QUOTE]

It does? I that hard to believe. Where did you get that information?

You can't update the firmware while the drive is running the OS. So you need to run the executable from outside the OS.

One way you can do this by booting from your W7 installation DVD and performing the operations to access the System Recovery Options and then choosing the option to open a DOS prompt (Command Prompt). Then you navigate to the EXE (on the USB stick, I assume) using DOS commands.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/668-system-recovery-options.html
See if that works for you.

 

[Saintor]

This comes from OCZ readme file.

The System used to do the SSD Updater need to be configured for IDE mode. Setting SATA to AHCI mode will not work in DOS mode and may prevent SSD from being detected.

1. Reboot System and enter BIOS Setup.
2. In BIOS Setup, configure SATA to use IDE (mode). (This is to allow SSD to be able to be detected in DOS mode)

Oddly I was able to update my SSD back in December using the same procedure. However I can't remember how I did (!).

I think that I changed settings in order to use AHCI and that might be the cause of my problem (my OCZ not being detected). Anyway this OCZ Vertex lus is more trouble than it is worth. Very disappointed.

 

[TVeblen]

Well that is news to me. You learn something new every day.

If you let us know the Brand and version of your BIOS we may be able to help you find that.

On my AMI BIOS the setting is on the MAIN Tab > Storage Configuration > Configure SATA As . Then it toggles AHCI & IDE.

 

[bobkn]

I believe that boards with that vintage of nVidia chipset don't support AHCI.

You don't need to switch away from AHCI mode because you aren't in it.

 

[stormy13]

I followed this guide when updating mine,

NEW! - Bootable tools for OCZ SSD's

with no need to change anything. Also from the guide,

AHCI mode is recommended for the firmware update process. Some systems have successfully updated the firmware with IDE mode, however, this cannot be guaranteed to work on all systems. Since you are not booting into Windows, altering the AHCI/IDE setting of your bios will not effect Windows in any way. Change it before you boot Linux, then change it back after your update if you were running IDE mode before.