Marvell 88SE9128 won't detect 2TB HDD

[Max]

I currently have a Ga-P55a-UD6 and a Ga-P67A-UD7-B3.   Neither will identify or communicate with Seagate 2TB hdd's  when plugged into the Marvell 88SE9128 SATA controllers present on both motherboards, both ok with smaller hdds on the Marvell controllers, both ok with 2TB hdds on non Marvell SATA controllers.
I am using Windows 7 ultimate edition on both systems, and the problem occurs with both IDE and AHCI mode.

I would like to access the 2TB hdd's via ESATA and external caddy's in both cases.  The Ga-P55a-UD6 is ok (uses Jmicron for ESATA) but the
Ga-P67A-UD7-B3 (uses a Marvell 88SE9128 for ESATA) will not identify or communicate with them.
Can anyone solve this problem?

[Dark Mantis]

Hi Max and welcome to the Gigabyte  Forum.

Have you made sure that you have the correct settings in the BIOS for the ESATA ?

[Max]

Dark Mantis
I believe so, works fine with a variety of hdd's up to 1.5 TB

[Dark Mantis]

Have you made sure that you are using the latest BIOS ?

If it is working on other drives then I can't imagine why it wont work on the Seagates.

[Max]

Dark Mantis
I am using the latest BIOS.
It works with everthing I have tried except for two Seagate drives, one a 7200rpm series 12 drive, the other one of the newer 5900rpm green hdd's, Both are 2TB. and both work fine on any other controller I have.

[Dark Mantis]

Are you using the same cables to connect them ? If so try swapping them.

Check with Seagate and see if there are any known problems or firmware updates for the drives.

[Max]

The problem is not the cables, I have swapped them.
I would like to hear from anyone who has successfully used 2TB hdd's with a Marvell 88SE9128 controller.

[Max]

Dark Mantis
 Thank you for your input, my previous post was not intended to exclude people who had not used 2TB hdd's with a Marvell 88SE9128 controller.

[Dark Mantis]

Fair enough. I can't really think of any scenario whereby the other drives would work but the Seagates not. This is the first time this problem has come up on the forum. They are definitely not over 2TB ?

[absic]

Fair enough. I can't really think of any scenario whereby the other drives would work but the Seagates not. This is the first time this problem has come up on the forum. They are definitely not over 2TB ?

No DM they are over 2TB. Could it be that the Marvell chip needs an update to allow access to the bigger drives?

[Dark Mantis]

Hi Absic, I couldn't see anywhere that he says they are over 2TB. He keeps listing them as 2TB.

If they are over 2TB then he needs to be using EFI with the GPT instead of MBR.

[absic]

As you say DM Max has said they are 2TB not over that but you and I both know that a 2TB can be either just under or just over when it comes to actual capacity.

As the Marvel controller is working with drives upto 1.5TB my best guess would be that the problem is with the Marvel 9128 chip not recognising larger drives, which is why I suggested what I did. 

[Max]

Dark Mantis
They are a ST2000DL003 and a ST32000641AS both nominal 2TB hdd's.

absic
lets not quiblle over the definition of terabyte, be it 1,000,000,000,000 or 1,099,511,627,776 these are 2TB drives and are either equal to or less than 2 terabytes.  I strongly suspect that the Marvell chips are the problem, hoping that a firmware or driver update will fix it.  The Ga-P67A-UD7-B3 is a newish board, and 2TB hdd's have been around for ages.

Of course if someone out there is using a Marvell controller with a 2TB drive this could sort the matter out.

[Dark Mantis]

Yes I do agree that in theory they could be over 2TB in reality but the system should still deal with them as 2TB. If they are true 2TB drives then it probably is as you suggest that the Marvell driver needs an update. I cannot believe this is the first time someone has tried to use a 2TB disk on this controller though.

I'm afraid that I can't prove the problem as I don't have access to a drive of that size.

[F5BJR]

*
for the ST2000... i have found a firmware update :

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?Tab=search&Module=selfservice&TargetLanguage=selfservice&DocId=218171&NewLang=en

Pierre