(A7N8X Deluxe 2.0) SiI3112A & SATA Solid State Drive Solved!

[m8st2ng]

hello all,
i have been trying to keep my A7N8X Deluxe Rev 2.0 computers (i have 2 of them) working with new technology. I am interested in booting from a SATA SSD. i purchased a Super Talent 16gb SSD (FTM16GL25V) to test to see if my motherboard has what it take to run this new tech. but been having trouble. Has anyone been able to get any brand of SATA SSD to boot either win xp or win 7? i have tried several combinations of Silicon Image Bios(es) and Drivers ranging from
-bios
4.2.47 thru 4.4.02
-drivers
1.0.0.22 thru 1.3.71.1 (SATARaid , IDE, BASE all 32-bit)
with no luck.

My Spec's are:
A7N8X Deluxe 2.0
BIOS 1008-D
SATA HDD WD Raptor 36 gb
Windows 7 Home Premium or Win XP Pro SP3

so I was thinking that it is the Super Talent 16gb SSD.
has any one else try another SSD with success.
thanks in advance for any help, m8st2ng

[Fernando 1]

@ m8st2ng:
Welcome at nForcersHQ Forum!

Although your problem has nothing to do with the topic of this Forum section, I will try to give you some help:

• Preliminary note:
  It may be of interest for you to see, if and how your system is working with new technology, but you definitely will be disappointed regarding the result:
  You will newer get the possible performance with your SSD as long as you are running it with an nForce2 system and SATA1 Controllers.
• Your problem:
  AFAIK your mainboard has 2 SATA1 ports, each of them with an Sil3112A SataRAID Controller and no possibility to disable the RAID mode within the BIOS.
  I think, that this is the reason for your problems to get the SSD running.
• Solution:
  What you need is a system with SATA2 or SATA3 ports and the BIOS option to set the SATA Controllers to IDE mode or - even better - to AHCI mode.

Regards
Fernando

[m8st2ng]

Thanks for your reply,
First and foremost, 1000 pardons for posting in this topic area (can you direct me to correct area?). I am not ready to upgrade to a new system and I like tinkering around with my ancient motherboard. I don’t mind if I could never realize the full potential of using a SSD. I currently am booting from a SATA HDD which never gave me any trouble. Under Windows XP Pro I was able to format and use the Super Talent 16gb, but I got excited and shutdown and booted from CD. and it still didn’t work. When I push F6 during install and load the drivers. The installation recognizes the drive and lets me create a partition. But after the install and re-boot it says it can’t find “hal.dll”
I am gonna try to update the SiI3112a bios to an IDE one like you said, Silicon Image website with IDE Bios (4.2.70) with matching IDE Win7 Drivers 1.3.71.1. I’ll let you know how it turns out. Just FYI, I am not interested in a raid setup. But I am sure you figured that out, judging by your response. Thanks again for reply, hope I have good news in a couple hours. And you are right about no option to disable the raid, you seem very knowledgeable about nforce2 and or a7N8x deluxe mb. Did you own one in the past? Or maybe i should pay attention to the name of the website www.NFORCErshq.com lol its been a long day. thanks again

[Fernando 1]

@ m8st2ng:
As you requested I have moved your topic into the "NVIDIA nForce Motherboards" section of the Forum. This is the better place, because your problem has nothing to do with any nForce chipset driver.
Maybe you will get even more feedback from other users with the same mainboard.

Under Windows XP Pro I was able to format and use the Super Talent 16gb, but I got excited and shutdown and booted from CD. and it still didn’t work. When I push F6 during install and load the drivers. The installation recognizes the drive and lets me create a partition. But after the install and re-boot it says it can’t find “hal.dll”

This indicates, that it couldn't find the boot sector anymore.
Suggestion: Unplug your WD Raptor, set the SSD as "Second Boot Device" within the BIOS correctly and try it again by booting off the CD.

And you are right about no option to disable the raid, you seem very knowledgeable about nforce2 and or a7N8x deluxe mb. Did you own one in the past?

No, I just downloaded and have read the manual of your mainboard.

Good luck!
Fernando

[m8st2ng]

Excellent, i cant wait to try it. just downloaded the new SIL3112a IDE Bios and driver. i used cbrom1.98 to release old sata bios from main "1008-d.bin" motherboard bios and added silicon image ide base bios 4.2.70. gonna go straight home a flash. and i will try to boot from cd to install windows xp and windows 7.
Has anyone had any success booting from a SSD on this board? doesnt not need to be in raid setup. thanks,
oscar

[m8st2ng]

okay guys (and girls?),
i took a look at the BIOS for IDE only without Raid, and its alot bigger in size. i looked at it with a hex editor and it looks like it is fill with "00" and "ff" toward the end of the file, i am assuming just to fill up space. so original file is 48k and the IDE one is 128k and i got scared to flash since the huge size difference. i will compare each one byte by byte, see i can "extract" main bios from it. well anywho I did try bios 4.2.50 and i got to the furthest point with the install of windows 7. (started to expand the files, then froze at 11%) i will start it up again and let it run over night. slowly but surely i am getting it farther into the install, i am gonna be bold and try some sil3512 bios' pretty soon. whats the worst that could happen to my motherboard, just buy a new bios? right? i hope so.

please someone let me know if they got a different brand of Solid State Drives working.

okay thanks for everyones time. i'll post in a little bit.

[m8st2ng]

oh i forgot, whats the reasoning behind setting up the SSD as the second boot device.

i got windows xp to at least recognize the drive and format it. so it is usable when you boot from another installation.

[m8st2ng]

Well i spoke too soon. Under Windows XP Pro SP3, i stated that i got the Super Talent 16gb SSD to work, but after a couple of reboots the drive dissapeared from disk manager,
Well i guess i am gonna have to stay with SATA HDD or possibly buy another SSD from a different vendor. I'll check back on this site later. thanks

[m8st2ng]

I just email OCZ about their SSDrives and i'll have to wait and see what happens.

hmmm. no one has install successfully a SSD on this board?

[Fernando 1]

I just email OCZ about their SSDrives and i'll have to wait and see what happens.

That was agood idea. Maybe the OCZ staff have an idea how to get it running with your nForce2 system.

hmmm. no one has install successfully a SSD on this board?

I am not surprised about that (look into the preliminary note of my first post).