Maxtor S-ATA HDD not detected at cold boot!

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@MKO wrote:

I use two S-ATA harddrives in my 8300, a Western Digital Raptor and a Maxtor 6Y120MO. At a cold boot the Maxtor drive is not detected by the 8300 BIOS but after a ctrl-alt-del (warm boot) the drive works fine. The Dell 8300 BIOS doesn't give the drive the time it needs to start. Since i can't use a intel BIOS on my Dell 8300 i need a BIOS update for the 8300 to solve this problem!

This is the answer from the Maxtor helpdesk:

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Hello Mark,

The problem you have described has been seen on other Intel motherboards. What happens is the bios doesn’t allow enough time for correct parameters to be set up for that particular drive to be detected initially. There are patches for the bios, but you will need to check with a system as new as yours that they are available.

I see a BIOS A01 for the 8300 which says it has improved SATA support.

Thanks for your reply Rick,

My 8300 came with the A01 BIOS installed...i think i have to wait for the A02 version...

Mark.

The new BIOS for the 8300 (version A02) doesn't solve the problem with the non-detected S-ATA Maxtor 6Y120MO drive at cold boot.

Why doesn't this drive work at a cold boot but only at a warm boot? Maxtor clames that the Dell BIOS doesn't wait long enough for the drive to initialize, this should be easy to fix in a BIOS?

The Dell Helpdesk is no HELP, they just send me the reply to wait for the next BIOS version...

Hi,

what a coincidence, my Seagate 120gb Sata  has the same (cold boot) problem, well if it is fixed with the A03 BIOS I'll be happy.

If only one could tell me when the Cold boot problem would be fixed?

rgds, Arjan

Dell-Karell,

can you confirm this issue is being taking care off or recognized by Dell ?

thanks and regards, Arjan

 

Aweijdema,

Thank you for using the Dell Community Forum.
The A02 bios update for the 8300 is suppose to fix this problem.

If it is not helping try the following:
After upgrading to the A02 bios, disconnect all your IDE and SATA drives from the system.
Reset the bios defaults and clear NVRAM.
Reconnect all the drives and see if they work.

As a work around you have to press ctrl-alt-delete to reboot the system and
have it detect the drives.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Entering System Setup:
Using the F2 key you may enter System Setup to make changes to the user definable settings.
If having trouble entering setup using this key, press the F2 key when the keyboard LEDs 1st flash.

Clear NVRAM.
Press the NumLock, Scroll Lock, Caps Lock, keys to activate all the keyboard lights.
Press ALT + E With the keyboard lights lit, to clear NVRAM.

To reset the Factory Defaults.
Press ALT + F in the system setup to their factory default settings.

To reset an individual field.
Press ALT + D With an individual field highlighted, resets the field to its factory default.

Exit and Save Changes.
ALT + B Exits System Setup, saving any changes, and reboots the system.

How Do I Restore Setup Defaults On My Dell™ Dimension™ System?
How Do I Clear NVRAM on my Dell™ Dimension™ System?
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Anyone still having problems detecting SATA drives on the DIM_8300 or any other Dimension system please post your info here.
Bios version?
SATA drive model and brand?
Please provide a service tag number if possible?

I can get this info to Dell engineering for further review.

PROBLEM SOLVED FOR THE MAXTOR (6Y120MO) DRIVE!

Thank you very much Dell-Karell, you are the first that took the time to look into this problem and got it right! The Dell-helpdesk doesn't even know that the A02 BIOS can solve this problem and sends me into the woods... My 8300 can now boot with no help (ctrl-alt-del) as any top system should.

System specs: Dimension 8300, P4 3.00GHz, 512Mb 400MHz memory, 1st drive S-ATA WD-Raptor, 2nd drive Maxtor 6Y120MO, DVD, DVDRW, RADEON 9000 AIW, 1703FP

Mko,

Glad I could help.
But, we still need to keep an eye on this, so if anyone else continues to have problems
after upgrading to the A02 bios, please post your info here.
Bios version?
SATA drive model and brand?
Please provide a service tag number if possible?

Thanks.

O NO! The problem came back today!

After clearing the NVRAM yesterday it worked fine for the rest of the day, powered down the system and started it several times without a problem. Today my 8300 didn't detect the Maxtor drive again at a cold boot and worked fine again after a ctrl-alt-del. The problem is back! The other drive, a Western-Digital Raptor (great drive - make it an option!!) workes without a problem every time.

The service tag of my 8300: 5PJJQ0J  BIOS Level A02

I really hope you can help me with this one Dell-Karell. Please let me know if you need more information to solve this problem. The Maxtor S-ATA drive is a 6Y120MO 120Gb 7200rpm 8Mb cache.

Message Edited by MKO on 08-29-2003 08:58 PM

Thanks for your very fast reply!

Is a spin delay option posible? The latest processors are so fast the drives have only a few seconds to spin-up and initialize. With ony the Raptor installed my 8300 boots in just over 20 seconds from power off to XP-Pro fully loaded! (I have the 3.00GHz 800MHz FSB CPU) The Dell BIOS is very 'closed' so there is not much room to experiment with settings for customers. I've seen a 'spin delay' option on several other systems. We only need a few seconds to make it work again!

Anyway thanks for your help,

Mark.

G'day,

I will try what happens with my pc when I'm at it sunday evening. Although I think I might get the same result as MKO/Mark.

I have a p4 2.8 and this one also seems to fast for the BIOS/HD to detect.

My pc runs fine after the HD has been detected (two restarts minimal), but leave it for 8 hours and the HD again does not detect.

thanks for the reply,

regards, Arjan

MKO,

Thanks for the info again.
We need more people with these drives to start reporting whether they are having
problems or not, so we can take a closer look at these drive.

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@DELL-Karell wrote:
MKO,

Thanks for the info again.
We need more people with these drives to start reporting whether they are having
problems or not, so we can take a closer look at these drive.

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If you want to send me a drive I'll be happy to see what it does on my 8300

Dell-Karell, is there a list with tested and approved S-ATA drives for Dell PC's? I replaced the shipped IDE drive because it had very poor performance (120Gb Seagate with only 2Mb cache) and slowed my 8300 down. The S-ATA WD Raptor worked perfect but the S-ATA Maxtor has the cold-boot problem. Can't Dell add a few seconds in the "Fast-Boot On/Off" option in the BIOS for a harddisk spin-delay? This way the delay is easy to switch On or Off.

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Yes Rick, Dell can send me also any drive (or other hardware) for a good test in my 8300

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Mark.

Also having the same problem with the Maxtor 120gb SATA not recognized on cold boot on 8300 with BIOS A01. It's the only hard drive installed. No problems with cold boot using Seagate 120gb SATA Baracuda when it's installed as the only hard drive. I don't want to do a BIOS upgrade unless I'm 100% certain it will fix this Maxtor cold boot problem. Can anyone or Dell-Karell confirm that A02 really fixes this?