installing SATA 3GB HDD on a SATA 6GB mobo - GA-970A-UD3 AM3+

[dirtyferret]

just built a new PC using a gigabyte 970a-ud3 AM3+ mobo. Used a crucial m4 64 GB SSD drive for the OS, loaded windows 7, drivers, etc., everything works fine. took my two samsung F3 500 GB HDD from my old PC, installed them into my new one and the don't appear in BIOS or in Windows 7. The HDD are formatted, filled with data and work just fine in my AM2+ mobo but the SATA 6 ports don't see them. The ports do see my DVD drive though. I left all the BIOS selection in their default mode but did check to make sure SATA 3GB support was enabled (it was). Anyone have any experience with this issue or thoughts on how to solve it? The new mobo has no SATA 3 ports.

[absic]

Hi there,

If the hard drives are definitely working OK on your old system but they are not being seen on the new motherboard the first thing I would do is check that the firmware is upto date as there have been some issues with Samsung F3 HDD's and newer motherboard chipsets.

Check here for further information: http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/faqView.do?b2b_bbs_msg_id=308  (thanks go to forum member Tux4 for the heads up on this one.)

[dirtyferret]

thank you very much for the reply!  I believe you are on to something as I took an olde seagate HDD of mine (SATA 3Gs) and installed it.  The mobo was able to pick it up.  Unfortunately I lack the know how to follow the directions

i tried to make my USB stick into a DOS-boot stick but windows 7 won't let me check that box when I right click and select"format"

[F/W Patch Procedure]
1. Please unzip attached file to Bootable media (USB,CD, Floppy...etc).  - I downloaded the zip file and placed it on a USB stick
2. Please connect Target HDD to Primary / Mast. - lost here
3. Booting the system to DOS mode by bootable media.(which with this F/W flash program).
4. Please run " Patch ".
5. When FW Flash successfully message display , please Power Off system, to make F/W flash complete.

[absic]

Hi again,

You need to make sure the USB stick is formatted as FAT32, not sure why you are having a problem formatting it but maybe you could try a different PC (not a MAC) and see if you can get the thing to format properly.

Once you have done that you need to copy the extracted file from the Samsung Download onto the USB stick and this file is called F3.

Remove all other drives from the motherboard and connect  only one of your Samsung Drives.

Plug the USB Stick into the PC, restart and press F12 to go to the BOOT Menu

Select USB HDD from the BOOT menu and press the enter key

The Firmware update should run automatically.

Once the update has completed shut down the PC

Restart and the Samsung HDD should now be seen.

Repeat the above steps for your second drive.

Once you have updated the Firmware on both Samsung drives you can then put your PC back together.

[dirtyferret]

thanks for all your help absic

i basically tried what you stated on my first attempt before I posted my second reply.  I then followed your directions to the T and still it did not work.  I finally pulled pulled a WD Blue HDD out and just placed all my important files from the samsung HDDs (using a different PC) on it.  I now use that 500GB HDD (the mobo sees it just fine).

i know samsung left the 3.5 HDD market but they didn't need to leave us all hanging

[Tiger]

Instructions on how to update samsung f3 firmware:

How to Create a DOS USB Boot Drive
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/191416-dos-usb-boot-drive.html

Now unzip the contents of F3.zip onto it. When you look at the drive in Explorer, you should just see a single file (F3.exe). Power off the computer, disconnect all drives *except* the F3, restart, go into the BIOS, select the USB drive as the first boot device, reboot again, and you should be delivered to a command prompt - just type in "F3.exe" (without the quotes), hit Enter and follow the instructions.