Can't get past SIL3114 boot screen with SATA II drive?!

[AdvModDev]

Looks good. If you have a floppy, then I'd use that. I don't completely trust Winflash. Remember to write down your BIOS settings cause everything will be reset when you flash. Good luck.

[colin99]

I do have a floppy, but don't know what application I should use to make a bootable BIOS flash disk. What would you recommend?

Regards,

Colin

[TwL]

Yeah, I could also strongly advice if flashing bios suggest flashing it at ms-dos.

Hmm, if you got an simply usb-stick there. Use the 'HP USB Format Tools' and get Some Win 95 or win 98 floppy extract the bootdisk EXE with WinImage to some empty folder > use the folder with HP format tool to make stick bootable > copy dos BIOS flashing tool to USB (and perhaps rest of the DOS filed from folder you extracted the floppy) & the BIOS file to flash > boot and set USB as bootable > flash as instructed by dos flashing tool you got.

-edit-reminder-
(that will format the usb so remember to get backup of anything on USB_stick.. hehe)

[colin99]

The solution to the bios update was simple, take the floppy which DFI's web site provided an image for, and replace the N24IDB24.BIN file with the new patched one.

Then after a nerve-wracking few minutes, it was all updated and the Sil3114 driver showed version 5.4.03 at bootup. Reset BIOS settings to sensible values again (200MHz FSB is the main thing it mucks up), and everything ran OK. Inserted new 750GB Seagate ST375084 drive and it worked (with or without the jumper installed for 1.5Gb/s speed limit). I note from the "Silicon Image SATA Controllers" item within the control panel, that this is still running at 1.5Gb/s, so the update just fixes the problem rather than increases the throughput (to be expected really).

I also noticed that under My Computer, Manage, Disk Management, that on the right hand side of each drive space there is a black "Unallocated" space of a few MB on each of the SATA drives (not the IDE though), which didn't used to appear there. Interesting, but not a problem of course.

I'll make the patched BIOS available on my web space I think, in case anyone else wants to do this.

Thanks for all your help, and "holding my hand" at the start of this when I was really nervous. If you would like a drink on me, let me know your paypal address.

All the best,

Colin