GA-F2A85XM-D3H does not recognise samung HD203WI

[joephilips]

Bought some while ago this mobo.(feb 2013) It works and was waiting until I was satisfied with my different try outs.
Main components are AMD 5400K and a 4GB crusial 1333 memorystick.
HDs at that time : OCZ vertex 1 30GB , OCZ vertex 2 50GB , Maxtor 200GB sata1, Seagate 160GB sata 2.
All for different operating system try outs.
Lite on DVDRW.

Idea was to replace my HTPC , because this set is 1.5 times faster and has even less idle power consumption.

Old pc : asrock 785 chipset AMD 4050E and 2 OCZ 2 GB. Special built for NO NOISE. So no fans and HDs in
800 gr allu housings. A pain in the *** to change any component. Except for the mobo as it is "skeletor" based.

Oke , I changed to this new set.
Small problems arose , not all new hds showed up. (read not one ,only one and two out of three data HD)
Suspected port failure of some of the 8 sata ports.
As I often changed components during testing , I left sata cables to mobo connected , only 3 sata ports where regulary used.
Found enough devices and power connections to get all 8 sata ports working.

I have no need for 4 DVD drives , but at least , these showed up.
Strangely sometimes my different HDs showed or not , maybe that was depending on the sata port.
Worked some days on this , and got most items working.
And now it looks like all sata ports accept the working HDs.
(feels to me as of the mobo had to learn to see HD firmware , pfff next time I look at the moon , maybe it's  full moon :-)
This was my first clue , to suspect a flaw of the gigabyte bios , see the rest of my testing.


Result so far :

1 Seagate 160GB shows , and is for now the win XP operating  system  HD.
Alternatively I can put in a 50GB OCZ vertex2 50 GB for win 7 operating system SSD.
(all old try outs with operating system HDs worked also)
1 WD 1.5 TB HD shows.
1 Samsung HD203WI shows. (this is a refurbished one, replaced 2013 , maybe it is a diff firmware)
But as I remember correctly  , this one also gave some issues at the beginning.



PROBLEM :


1 Samsung HD203WI has never been detected (either in bios or win management , with firmware of 2010)
This is my problem , a good hd is not recognised by this mobo.
Installing it again into old pcs gives no problem.






More info ;
Normally work with win XP , also gave win 7 a try on the 50 GB vertex 2.

This is not an install problem , neither an ACHI / IDE , its just that this mobo doesn't sees all
my data hard drives.
[[Or the bios must be put to IDE for every HD.. (not checked yet)]]
Bios was F1 , put latest stable one F3 on. Resetted at default and no start up...
(first had to manually set all to IDE mode :-)
 
Searches on google revealed lots of people , who have problems with ACHI / IDE on installing new.
Oke , those are of no real concern. ( just get into the flow of a new type of bios.)
Some hits gave insight on a gigabytes bios flaw to see specific HD ( one specificated named this HD203WI )
My second experience to a bios issue.



An IT associate of mine , lately asked my opinion about upgrading 2 pcs.
Both the same new gigabyte mobos and haswell cpus , used with all their old different components.
1 pc worked flawlessly , second one had issues with his OCZ vertex 2 60GB.
Was detected in pc 1 , but pc 2 gave problems.
Has returned the OCZ SSD and got under warranty a Kingston sata 3 , as the supplier thought
that would solve the problem.  (does this supplier have inside knowledge about this bios issue
of gigabyte motherboards ?)
My third experience to a bios issue.



My conclusion :
I think this is a compatility issue between gigabyte bios and a firmware HD.



Am I right ? What did I miss ? Is  this , because its my first gigabyte mobo since 8 years and don't see the obvious ?
Is this issue reparable ? Did I oversee a bios install component ? Or maybe it's just because I didn't use a hammer
to correctly install the sata cable ? :-)

Hopefully I'm at the best forum to get some answers about this problem.

[autotech]

May i ask when you installed HD into new setup did you reinstall windows or just leave them the way they were?

[joephilips]

Thanks for your interest.
All my big hard disks contain only data.
2 of them give now no problems.

Yes , I've installed windows new multiple times on different small HDs.

But a normal NTFS formatted disk with data should be accesable by most operating systems.
And this disk works oke in other pcs.

It is just this giabyte mobo that doesn't detect this hard drive.
Formating this disk or put on new firmware is the least desireble option.

[Vezina]

Ask Gigabyte support for help maybe the board BIOS has a problem.

[joephilips]

contacted gigabyte support.
They replied quickly  to use the beta bios.

Never did this before , beta biosses are for testers. Not for people who want a reliable system.
But it worked.
So problem solved.

Now I am another unpaid tester , so find out if such a buggy bios , will work out fine
with all my years of carefully garded data.
Not pleased with the solution , but am now considering to use it again in my built.

Thanks to Vezina to give the advise , for contacting gigabyte.

[joephilips]

Oups , I reacted too soon.
Still have big issues.
F4c does recognize my samsung HD , but several times windows sees an empty disk...
Tried also bios F2 ,and that wouldn't see my logitech di novo wireless keyboard....
Returned to bios F3 , as that gives me at least a working pc.

BTW F2 and F4c also had issues with recognizing  my vertex2 or seagate 160GB sata2  hard drive, both are operating system drives.
Did a lot of reboots and sometimes pc started.

[joephilips]

Have dun some more testing with the different biosses for this mobo.

Explained all to gigabyte support , give you all a copy / paste of my testing results that I forwarded to them:

Dear Gigabyte
I've tested now the different biosses:

F1 worked for 7 months with 4-5 different small HDs.
Reponse times were again faster , compared to my older
different architecture mobos.
When I mounted the mobo into my HTPC , it had difficulties
detecting my 3 big HDs.(1.5TB and 2x2TB)
After some changing into several sata ports (0-7) 2 HDs appeared.
The one HD that never is seen , is a samsung (type , see below)
This HD was a set of 2 HDs , bought 3 years ago.
One of them had to go to RMA after 2.8 years and I got a
refurbised replacement.
This refurbised one is seen in the bios, so maybe it has a
different firmware from the samsung that is never detected.

Then I flashed to bios F3.
I noticed no changes , that is:the mobo worked fast but again failed
to detect the one hard drive.
The seagate 160 GB with windows XP and the vertex2 50GB with windows 7
were both detected and worked oke.

So I wrote to gigabyte forum and to gigabyte support.
Support advised to flash to beta F4c.
Now things change:
At first the concerning HD appeared in bios and in windows.
But after thinking it was solved the pc started to give
much more problems.

At start up the first 2-3 times the bootdisk was not recognized.
Either the seagate or the vertex.
Tried some days with seagate , as I use this operating system.
Never got the vertex to work.
Start up and shut down took much more time.
HDTune gave an output of only 0.5 -3.5 MB/sec. (Normally 60/70MB/sec)
I think this is why pc feeled sluggish.
Worst problem was , that the one samsung disk showed up in windows
BUT WAS EMPTY , except for some hidden files !!!!
Rebuilt an old pc , so could check the disk. (looks oke)

Then I flashed to F2.
New problem : my wireless usb keyboard and mouse did not work
at start up. (bios screens)
Attached a PS/2 keyboard , to load optimal defaults.
And to be able to change settings in bios , so my HDs
are set to native IDE.
Same problem occured : boot drives were not recognized.
So never got to go into windows.

I ended up flashing to F3.
Pc starts oke , boot drives are recognized.
And seagate boot drive works at expected speed.

However my 1 big disk is now (ofcourse) not recognized.

So i still have the same problem = why I started this tread.

Questions:

How long will it be for a response from the BIOS team?

Will RMA solve my problem?

End quote to gigabyte support












Its obvious to me that   BIOS  recognize all attached components.
I find it strange that bios F2 and F4c do not see my  hard drives with the operating system on it.(=at all times , sometimes it start up)
Just a reflash to F3 fixes that problem.

My big question to this forum is , do more users have this experiance with hard drives not seen in bios or dropped out of windows
during use?