Unknown Device - but it's identified?

[Quill]

This is really strange.

I've constantly had problems with audio quality, pops, clicks etc. so today, having some time, I thought I'd try and fix the problem.

First port of call was to check the drivers, that's when I noticed this strange information in Device Manager. For some strange reason, Windows 7 has lost information about my SATAII HD and my SATA DVD. It now sees them as unknown, but still correctly identifies them.

It sees them as ATA disks and not SATA, so I'm missing the advanced properties. I know for a fact they were identified correctly before, because I checked to see if the write ahead caching option was enabled.

After seeing this I installed the latest Intel chipset drivers, but it made no difference.

I'm not really sure what to do with this or how to troubleshoot. If you have any ideas I'd be most appreciative.

Thanks

 

[Night Hawk]

You are seeing that due to not looking in the correct location while in the device manager. Note where the 5 sata drives here are named off in the "disk drives" and what is still seen in the IDE - ATA/ATAPI controllers section.

 

[nate42nd]

I wonder if you have another controller on your motherboard and Se7en can't ID it. My Gigabyte has the ICH10R and also a proprietary Gigabyte controller. When I get home I can see if mine is doing the same thing.

 

[screwballl]

I have the same problem (but not in W7, I have it in XP and Vista)...
GA-EP35-DS3P
Samsung SH-203N (TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S203N ATA Device)

For one, my IDE/PATA port has died on my motherboard, I have tried going through Gigabyte but they sent it back saying everything is fine... so I just do not use anything PATA anymore, only SATA.

Second, the problem I have that matches yours is not in W7 but actually in XP and Vista x64 (I have 3 OS for now).

What I did to fix it was 2 things:
1) removed some stupid EA DRM crap from a game that was causing problems on my computer (Spore or CnC3)
2) download and install and update the firmware for this drive. I currently have Firmware SB01, it was SA00 before. You can get the firmware from the Samsung website.

Now for my IDE problem, here is what it shows in my XP right now:

the letters change everytime I remove it from Device manager or restart the PC

 

[Night Hawk]

Hve you gone through the Windows updates at all as well as going to Samsung? You were downloading a firmware for drive update while the red marked item is a sata/Raid controller found at the chipset manufacturer for the board or through the MS updates at times.

 

[Quill]

Thanks for the replies:

You are seeing that due to not looking in the correct location while in the device manager. Note where the 5 sata drives here are named off in the "disk drives" and what is still seen in the IDE - ATA/ATAPI controllers section.

Unfortunately, the 'Disk Drives' section has disappeared and left just the two 'Unknown' sections.

I wonder if you have another controller on your motherboard and Se7en can't ID it. My Gigabyte has the ICH10R and also a proprietary Gigabyte controller. When I get home I can see if mine is doing the same thing.

The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS23R it has both te Intel and Gigabyte SATA controllers. I've never had the need to use anything but the Intel controllers.

What I did to fix it was 2 things:
1) removed some stupid EA DRM crap from a game that was causing problems on my computer (Spore or CnC3)
2) download and install and update the firmware for this drive. I currently have Firmware SB01, it was SA00 before. You can get the firmware from the Samsung website.

Everything is as up to date as I can find. I will look at the firmware though.

This really has me puzzled, everything seems to be working correctly. Performance hasn't changed and everything but Win7 correctly identifies the DVD and HD...

 

[Night Hawk]

The odd thing right off the bat however is the missing "disk drives" section in the device manager there! It sounds like something in Windows is.... missing for some reason?!

 

[Quill]

The odd thing right off the bat however is the missing "disk drives" section in the device manager there! It sounds like something in Windows is.... missing for some reason?!

That's exactly what I don't understand. I'll probably reinstall in a day or so, I just wondered if anyone had an idea why this may be happening...

 

[Night Hawk]

I ran into a similar problem like that sometime back only with XP not 7 when setting up a dual boot with Vista. Something never went on fully and wasn't noticed until everything was already on at the time.

When first seeing gadgets enabled on the 32bit back in Februrary the installation was somehow trashed by a 3rd party gadget where something always hung when shutting down or simply going to reboot! On each of those you know the end result! reformat, clean install time!

Since that is an entire section not being seen in the device manager the first thought would be a repair install to see that part of Windows replaced. A repair takes awhile like upwards an hour depending on how many programs you have on and how large those are.

That can save the time needed following a clean install if it turns out that wasn't necessary for seeing everything go back on. It sounds too much like something wasn't unpacked fully to the drive during the installation or was later removed from the registry if all files are intact.