Being a bit older than most of youse and a computer to match (being tight might have something to do with this as well)
I had some problems with a SATA2 drive and my old putey.
This is being posted for those that may be upgrading granny's old box (no comments pls Spud) and find a similar problem. If this doesn't include you or you're knowledgable anyway, just look away now.
Anyway, I needed more hdd space so I bought a new 300gb WD and put it into my computer. Now no laughing (out loud at least) but it is a P2.4 with an Intel PERL mb. This was the situation:
HDD was detected by the bios but not windows. Changed cables around and all was sweet. Started coping files and every now and then the drive would disappear from Windows corrupting files. More fiddling with cables and all seemed ok again. Once again intermitant disappearance of the drive from Windows and more corrupt files. Chkdsk would fix it sometimes and other times it wouldn't finish due the drive disappearing.
Decided to upgrade the bios and once this was done, the drive was no longer recognised by the bios. Windows itself found the drive though. (Didn't think was possible but there you go) Still had intermitant problems with the drive disappearing from Windows and still not being seen by the bios.
Anyway found there were some issues with the PERL mb (and prob others too) which is that it doesn't always throttle the SATA2 drive back to 150mb/s and so each time it started at its full 300mb/s the bios or Windows wouln't see it, thus the disappering drive. Once I put a jumper pin on the drive to run it at 150mb/s, the problem was gone. It has been going ok for a couple of months now so hopefully fixed.
So the point of all this rambling is that SATA2 drives aren't always SATA compatible without a jumper pin to make it SATA. (Pity drives don't come with this intruction!)
I post this to hopefully save someone else going through the same frustration (and to embarass myself by confessing to my old putey and lack of knowledge)
. Hope it does the job.
