GA-78LMT-S2P - Not getting past POST with 500Gb HD installed??

[Gravelrash]

Hi,

I am building a new PC with new components and I have a problem with the PC freezing on POST.

I have a new WD5000AAKS (Western Digital 500Gb Caviar Blue HD). When I attach this to the mother board the PC will freeze on POST on the following message

"AMD Data Change.....Update New Data to DMI"

If I disconnect the drive the PC will boot onto the CDROM.

So I have tried a older 320Gb Seagate drive and the same thing happens.

I have tried changing the SATA settings in the BIOS to ACHI, IDE and RAID and the outcome is the same. I've upgraded the BIOS to FC, again the problem is still there. I have also tried all the SATA ports on the m/board and the result is always the same. Just to be sure I tested all these drives on another PC and they work with no errors.

Now the strange bit....if I install a old 80Gb SATA2 (Hitachi) drive in addition to the WD and make sure the Hitachi drive is the first in the boot priority order the PC will boot and allow me to install the OS onto the WD drive. The OS will run fine on the PC while this second HD is installed. As soon as I disconnect the 80Gb drive or change the boot priority order so the WD is first the system will freeze again on POST.

This has me baffled, any help would be gratefully appreciated.

Cheers, Rob

[Vezina]

Looks like some kind of incompatibility.

Set the jumpers or the HDD firmware settings to SATA 1/2 speeds.
Manufacturer website should help you achieve the goal.

On WD drives there is a jumper for setting a different SATA speed.
You can find a jumper on an old CD-Rom or old PATA HDD as the drive itself has none attached from factory.

It also could be a case of a dieing SATA controller which means you need a new mobo.

[Gravelrash]

Thanks for the reply.

I've now sorted the problem, there was something funky going on with the LG DVDRW and the onboard SATA controller.  Putting SATA port 4/5 back to IDE mode and plugging the DVDRW into one of those ports sorted the problem.  I remember very early SATA DVD ROMS used to have this issue but I would have never of suspected it to be a problem in later drives.  Anyway, one for the knowledgebase.

All working fine now 

[shmorf]

THANK YOU FOR POSTING!!! This fixed boot error I was having!