z77 pro3 ACHI DVD drive issue

[lotsip]

hey guys, just bought an z77 pro3 , 2x8gb ddr3 crucial ballistix tactical 1600 memory, and and I5-3570 cpu

i like to run tests on the bench on just the mb/cpu/ram with Hiren's boot CD. (booting directly to the cd)

However, with ahci mode set ON, my sata dvd drive is acting odd, like sometimes doesn't boot to it..........or just some of the normal hiren's xp mode programs load, weird !..........set to IDE mode, dvd works fine.............but, i definitely want my sata hard drive using ahci, and it seems like my bios will only let me set all sata ports to either ide or ahci

any thoughts ?

[profJim]

What is the brand/model number of your optical drive?
Can you test with a different sata optical drive?

[lotsip]

What is the brand/model number of your optical drive?
Can you test with a different sata optical drive?

i've tried three different dvd burners, an lg, a samsung, and another, all new......same results. The problem is definitely related to the IDE vs. AHCI mode setting for the sata ports......which , for the asrock z77 pro3 can be set only for either, ide, ahci or raid for ALL 6 sata ports on this motherboard.(at least thats the way it appears to me) In ide mode, no problems booting to any cd or dvd disk.....in ahci mode, either no boot, or errors. I even tried different sata 2 and sata 3 ports on the mb, different sata cables, etc.

[SaphireX]

error

[lotsip]

error

??

[SaphireX]

What I was going to say was Have you installed the latest Intel RST and Intel Management Engine driver for your Z77 chipset?

[wazza300]

i've tried three different dvd burners, an lg, a samsung, and another, all new......same results. The problem is definitely related to the IDE vs. AHCI mode setting for the sata ports......which , for the asrock z77 pro3 can be set only for either, ide, ahci or raid for ALL 6 sata ports on this motherboard.(at least thats the way it appears to me) In ide mode, no problems booting to any cd or dvd disk.....in ahci mode, either no boot, or errors. I even tried different sata 2 and sata 3 ports on the mb, different sata cables, etc.

simple fix is to stick your dvd drive onto the marvell sata3 ports and set it to ide mode,keep your ssd/hdds on the intel sata ports in ahci mode

[lotsip]

What I was going to say was Have you installed the latest Intel RST and Intel Management Engine driver for your Z77 chipset?

well, drives work fine in windows in ahci mode........so why would intel drivers matter........this is a hardware issue booting directly to a dvd boot disk

[lotsip]

simple fix is to stick your dvd drive onto the marvell sata3 ports and set it to ide mode,keep your ssd/hdds on the intel sata ports in ahci mode

hmmmm, the Asrock z77 pro3 has a marvell chip ? ugh............I thought native intel ?

I may be misreading my bios settings, but........it appears to me that I have to set all 6 sata ports (2xsata3, and 4xsat2) to ONE of the following modes only, AHCI, IDE or Raid, no mixing modes ? seems odd to me, but, thats how it appears.

I have a SSD 120G|MUSHKIN MKNSSDCR120GB-MX R being shipped to me from Newegg which i was hoping to put on one of the sata 3 ports in ahci mode to get the fastest performance.

............or, did u think I was talking about the gigabyte motherboard in my other system? cuz that does have a crummy marvel sata 3 (which never game me sata 3 performance)

[wazza300]

yes your right,i should have dug deeper i just assumed it had marvell ports also,but no only 2 sata3 ports and four sata2 ports all intel,shame really because that would have been an easy workaround,i can only guess that its a bios issue with ahci mode and dvd drives,maybe they need to test and include those drives youve tested with to get them to work properly? i know it can be a pain switching back and forth from ide/ahci to get a dvd disc to load

id try each sata2 port aswell with the dvd drive and try with different sata cable just to rule out faulty cable or port