Driver issue: VIA 8237 SATA controller in IDE mode

[Meano.Culpa]

Short problem: Cannot get WinXP_SP2 to boot with Via 8237 SATA
controller active.

Detail:
I seem to be having a driver problem and would appreciate any
pointers.

My home office computer is built around an EPoX 8VTAI (KT880NB,
VT8237SB). I'm booting off of a 180GB PATA hard drive and have two
250GB SATA hard drives installed. The SATA controller is set to IDE
emulation.

If I boot normally, Windows freezes during boot. (The three happy
little blue dots scroll around for a while and then freeze.) I can
boot in safe mode, and the disk management utility sees each of the
two 250GB drives as 250GB/232GiB of online unallocated space. I can
boot normally with the SATA controller disabled.

My understanding is that the preferred mode for the 8237 SATA
controller is to use it in RAID/JBOD mode rather than in the IDE
emulation mode. But if I understand correctly, I cannot switch the
8237 controller from IDE emulation to RAID (even JBOD) without wiping
the data on the drives. Unfortunately, each of these drives has some
irreplaceable material that was not backed up.

Sorry for the length, and I suspect I've left stuff out anyway. I'm
hoping this will ring a bell with someone.

 

[Brian A.]

Short problem: Cannot get WinXP_SP2 to boot with Via 8237 SATA
controller active.

Detail:
I seem to be having a driver problem and would appreciate any
pointers.

My home office computer is built around an EPoX 8VTAI (KT880NB,
VT8237SB). I'm booting off of a 180GB PATA hard drive and have two
250GB SATA hard drives installed. The SATA controller is set to IDE
emulation.

If I boot normally, Windows freezes during boot. (The three happy
little blue dots scroll around for a while and then freeze.) I can
boot in safe mode, and the disk management utility sees each of the
two 250GB drives as 250GB/232GiB of online unallocated space. I can
boot normally with the SATA controller disabled.

My understanding is that the preferred mode for the 8237 SATA
controller is to use it in RAID/JBOD mode rather than in the IDE
emulation mode. But if I understand correctly, I cannot switch the
8237 controller from IDE emulation to RAID (even JBOD) without wiping
the data on the drives. Unfortunately, each of these drives has some
irreplaceable material that was not backed up.

Sorry for the length, and I suspect I've left stuff out anyway. I'm
hoping this will ring a bell with someone.

Sounds like something thinks more than one of the drives are the boot drive.
Disable/remove the SATA drives in the BIOS from the Boot Order detection, not the
Drive configuration under the Main/Advanced tab, do it under the Boot tab where you
set which drive gets detected for boot and in which order.

I've also heard yet never had to do it, that Disabling PnP can resolve the issue.

If it is a Boot device battle, the only other way I know to resolve it is by
deleting the entire contents in the Right pane of a key in the registry. Once the
entries are deleted you reboot and the drives will be re-enumerated.

--

Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375