SATA problems, problems problem . . .

[Stan Shankman]

SATA hard drives - problems with power-down, and hot-swapping . . .

Greetings all,

I have been running SATA drives on my Asus A7V600 (VIA VT8237 Southbridge),
Athlon based XP-Pro box.

The motherboard has two built-in SATA-150 ports. I keep one Samsung 250GB
drive permanently mounted as the boot-drive and continually occupying one of
the ports. The other port is dangling externally so I can plug in any one of
many different backup/data drives. I keep a SATA cable and a power-supply
cable outside the case.

At first things went well, I was (for weeks) able to successfully hot-swap
any of my external SATA drives without any input whatsoever to the OS. It
was a kick. Just pull the hot wires off of one drive, and jam them into
another and, bingo, it just worked. The old drive would disappear from File
Explorer's window, and the new drive would take its place. It was sweet.

But then, I got a batch of new SATA drives - also Samsungs, but this time
they where 300GB versions (whereas before I was using only 250GB Samsungs).
I like the Samsung drives as they have a distinctive appearance, and the
craftsmanship that one sees is second to none - also, they are very cost
effective. The new 300GB drives did not look like the older Samsungs. No,
they looked more conventional - more like what a Seagate or Maxtor drive
looks like. But no big deal, I thought - just a manufacturing decision. But
then, when I hot-swap one of them into the system, I start getting "Delayed
Write Failed" messages. I checked the date-code on the new drives, and
indeed they are newer than the old 250GBs.
So the situation puzzles me. Could it be some coincidence? Or are the new
drives truly the culprit here?

Okay, so while I'm on my rant, I will tell of two more issues I have
noticed:

The SATA drives do not obey the setting in "Power Options". In fact, I have
never seen any of my SATA drives spin-down under any circumstances - they
just stay spinning 24/7.
I came up with the "bright idea" assigning all of my external SATA drives
the same letter. I assign them the letter "R" (for removable). But after
having done so, I now find that Check-Disk runs on each drive if the system
is booted with a SATA drive installed externally. But then I am not 100%
sure of this. Could it be for some other reason?

Incidentally, all of the SATA drives I have are 300 drives. Samsung provides
a set of pins to jumper which will convert the drive into a SATA-150 drive.
I have those jumpers installed on all of my drives.

I would be interested in hearing from anyone that has experience with
hot-swapping SATA drives. I wish to purchase a PCI SATA-300 controller and
would appreciate any input from people who use such an item.

Thanks all,

- Stan Shankman

 

[Guest]

Well that sounds ok with unplugging and exchanging for another hd,but hot-
swapping is really used in a RAID configuration (failed drive).Probably most
boards one could unplug and plug in another hd,but why,what are you trying
to achieve with this.....

 

[Og]

SATA hard drives - problems with power-down, and hot-swapping . . .

Greetings all,

I have been running SATA drives on my Asus A7V600 (VIA VT8237
Southbridge),
Athlon based XP-Pro box.

The motherboard has two built-in SATA-150 ports. I keep one Samsung 250GB
drive permanently mounted as the boot-drive and continually occupying one
of
the ports. The other port is dangling externally so I can plug in any one
of
many different backup/data drives. I keep a SATA cable and a power-supply
cable outside the case.

At first things went well, I was (for weeks) able to successfully hot-swap
any of my external SATA drives without any input whatsoever to the OS. It
was a kick. Just pull the hot wires off of one drive, and jam them into
another and, bingo, it just worked. The old drive would disappear from
File
Explorer's window, and the new drive would take its place. It was sweet.

But then, I got a batch of new SATA drives - also Samsungs, but this time
they where 300GB versions (whereas before I was using only 250GB
Samsungs).
I like the Samsung drives as they have a distinctive appearance, and the
craftsmanship that one sees is second to none - also, they are very cost
effective. The new 300GB drives did not look like the older Samsungs. No,
they looked more conventional - more like what a Seagate or Maxtor drive
looks like. But no big deal, I thought - just a manufacturing decision.
But
then, when I hot-swap one of them into the system, I start getting
"Delayed
Write Failed" messages. I checked the date-code on the new drives, and
indeed they are newer than the old 250GBs.
So the situation puzzles me. Could it be some coincidence? Or are the new
drives truly the culprit here?

Okay, so while I'm on my rant, I will tell of two more issues I have
noticed:

The SATA drives do not obey the setting in "Power Options". In fact, I
have
never seen any of my SATA drives spin-down under any circumstances - they
just stay spinning 24/7.
I came up with the "bright idea" assigning all of my external SATA drives
the same letter. I assign them the letter "R" (for removable). But after
having done so, I now find that Check-Disk runs on each drive if the
system
is booted with a SATA drive installed externally. But then I am not 100%
sure of this. Could it be for some other reason?

Incidentally, all of the SATA drives I have are 300 drives. Samsung
provides
a set of pins to jumper which will convert the drive into a SATA-150
drive.
I have those jumpers installed on all of my drives.

I would be interested in hearing from anyone that has experience with
hot-swapping SATA drives. I wish to purchase a PCI SATA-300 controller
and
would appreciate any input from people who use such an item.

Thanks all,

- Stan Shankman

Did you have a Windows XP related question?
If so, omit the lengthy and irrelevant Samsung advertisement and the rant
and succinctly state your question.
Steve

 

[Stan Shankman]

Andrew,

Many people are in the dark about this. RAID has traditionally utilized
hot-swapping and some people are familiar only with that usage. However,
SATA is designed to be hot-swapped outside of a RAID environment.

Why would anyone want to do it?

Simple, it is nifty and convenient to install drives for, say, doing a
backup - and then removing the drive and putting it on the shelf.

My computer runs 24/7, and I do not like rebooting needlessly. To me,
hot-swapping is very desirable. I predict that in the future, most new
computers will come equipped with hot-swap bays.

- Stan Shankman

 

[DL]

I think it may depend on your controller, i.e. some sata controllers
identify all drives connected as 'removable devices' as shown by a task bar
icon.
I have a mobo with both Nvidea and Sil sata controllers, when the Nvidea
controler is used all connected devices appear as removable, but not so with
the Sil
Some sata cards are designed for a hot swap environment.

 

[Thomas Wendell]

I'd have thought that also depended on the controller, ie. is it seen as
IDE-compatible or does it need SATA (NOT RAID)drivers..


--
Tumppi
=================================
Most learned on these newsgroups
Helsinki, FINLAND
(translations from/to FI not always accurate
=================================

 

[pickluh]

I've seen problems with ASUS MoBos and SATA HDDs over 200GBs. If you
had 250s working, great, but see if there is any info at the ASUS site.
Maybe try flashing the MoBo if it is suggested, but understand there is
always risk involved with flashing (like killing you MoBo). When done
correctly there usually isn't any issues.

 

[Stan Shankman]

Greetings again,

I have solved my SATA problems.

I did so after re-checking for updates:

1) Asus website for Mobo BIOS update - my BIOS is current
2) 'Microsoft Update' website - no updates available
3) Samsung website for drive flash - nothing found
4) VIA website for chipset drivers - Bingo! I found a newer version!



I visited VIA's website when I first started having problems and found
nothing new.
But upon re-visiting it I found they posted a new version (June 30th, 2006).
It is the VIA HyperionPro driver package.
When I loaded this new version, 5.09A, it seems to have fixed all my
problems.

Now, my drives spin-down properly, and my SATA hot-swap capability is
restored!
I can swap-out a SATA drive by simply removing the cables from it and
inserting them into a different drive without shutting off the computer or
informing Windows XP.
The old drive simply disappears from Window's File Explorer, and the new
drive takes its place!
It's really a delight how well it works. Happy days are here again.

It's a mystery to me how my system could have been working as well as it did
and for as long as it did only to start screwing up after I obtained a batch
of new SATA hard drives.
Yet I can't help but wonder if the new drives really did bring about the
problem - as I said, it's a mystery to me.

For you other VIA users, I can point out one thing . . .

When loading the new chipset drivers (the HyperionPro Package), I went ahead
and installed the optional RAID drivers, even though I have no immediate
plans to setup a RAID. After doing so, when I hot-unplug or hot-plug a SATA
drive, the RAID software issues an information window. (Not complaining, you
understand - just informing.) But I discovered that by simply exiting the
RAID software, these messages would cease to appear, and the RAID software
would not automaticaly load again after any subsequent boot. So the bottom
line is: I can (once again) silently swap in and out any of my hard drives.
It is a very cool thing to do.

When I visited a Best Buy store recently, I noticed that some newer HP
computers have a removable drive bay. I inquired about that, and learned
that HP is using a USB interface for these drives. But I think SATA is
clearly the way to go! In fact, I have no plans to ever again buy a parallel
ATA drive.

Oh, and one last bit of news for you all - I found some interesting drive
bays at:

http://www.cooldrives.com/quswsamorafo.html

Notice that this product requires no drive sled!!

That's right, just open the door and jam in a SATA hard drive. No sled, no
mounting bracket, no screws, no operating system banter, no nothing. Just
slam a drive in and away you go. - That's the way it should be. Sweet.


I hope this write-up has inspired a few of you to start hot-swapping SATA
drives. Once you get your hot-swap system working, you will wonder how you
ever went without it.

But of course one nagging question remains:

How is it possible that a new chipset driver becomes available, yet does not
appear on the 'Microsoft Update' site?

Their simply aren't that many chipset makers out there for Microsoft to
monitor. And one would think that it would be in VIA's best interest to keep
Microsoft informed about driver releases. That way, the Microsoft Update
site could respond on a more-or-less immediate basis. I suspect that idiocy
is at play somewhere.

Anyway, thanks for all the replies guys,

- Stan Shankman