Z77 Extreme6 - New board, another attempt to start up my system

[CookyMonzta]

Last time I tried to fire up my new build, a BSOD STOP error hit me as the installation process was under way, and all of my SATA drives connected to the motherboard were locked out upon my attempt to retry the installation.

My ASRock Z77 Extreme6 motherboard is being replaced, and I will soon try again.

Before I review the problem at hand, here, once again, is the configuration of my machine:

Cooler Master RC-431P-KWN2 Elite 431 Plus Computer Case
3.5GHz Intel Core i7-2700K CPU
ASRock Z77 Extreme6 Motherboard (replaced by manufacturer)
Corsair CWCH60 Hydro Series H60 Liquid CPU Cooler
Cooler Master RS800-80GAD3-US Silent Pro Gold 800-Watt (80 PLUS Gold) Power Supply

2 x G.SKILL F3-10666CL7D-8GBXH RipjawsX DDR3-1333 CL7-7-7-21 1.5V (PC3-10666 4GX2) (16 gigabytes total)

EVGA 012-P3-1573-KR GeForce GTX 570 HD Superclocked Graphics Card
[To be plugged into PCIE2 slot]

2 x 500GB (2.5") Seagate ST500LX003 Momentus XT Hybrid with 4GB SSD (SATA 3.0)
[To be plugged into SATA3_0 (for Windows 8 Pro 64-bit) and SATA3_1 (for Windows 7 Pro 32-bit)]

2 x 500GB (2.5") Seagate ST95005620AS Momentus XT Hybrid with 4GB SSD (SATA 2.0)
[To be plugged into SATA2_2 (for Windows XP Pro 32-bit) and SATA2_3 (for miscellaneous NTFS files)]

2TB (3.5") Seagate 2000DM0001 Barracuda (SATA 3.0)
[To be plugged into SATA3_A1 (for internal master backup)]

LITE-ON iHBS212-08 Blu-Ray Burner with LightScribe (SATA 2.0)
[To be plugged into SATA2_4 (primary optical drive)]

LITE-ON iHAS524-T06 DVD Burner with LabelTag (SATA 2.0)
[To be plugged into SATA2_5 (secondary optical drive)]


The 2TB hard drive plugs into the hot-swap bay...
http://www.techorz.com/wp-content/up...11-600x450.jpg

On the other side of the bay has a SATA socket and Molex power socket...
http://www.techorz.com/wp-content/up...31-plus-13.jpg

For this hot-swap bay, I use the power supply strip that contains 2 Molex connectors and a floppy connector...
Silent Pro Gold 800W - Cooler Master

For the other hard drives and optical drives, I use the SATA power strips, each of which has 3 SATA connectors.


Let's review my failed first attempt to get my machine up and running:
In my first attempt, I used only one SATA power strip from the power supply, and for each SATA connector I used a Y-power splitter extension cable...
Amazon.com: BestDealUSA SATA 15 Pin Male to 2 Female HDD Splitter Power Cable: Computers & Accessories

Two drives to every SATA connector via Y-splitter. One SATA power strip to cover all 4 hybrid hard drives and both optical drives.

Five minutes into the initial Windows XP installation procedure, the BSOD STOP error appeared.

I might be wrong, but I still believe the use of those Y-splitters to connect 6 SATA drives to 3 SATA connectors may have precipitated the BSOD STOP error that resulted in all 7 of my SATA drives (5 hard drives, 2 optical drives) being locked out of my motherboard. My suspicion is that a momentary power fluctuation may have affected the power going to or coming from one drive or the other in the same pair (connected to the same Y-splitter), causing a chain reaction that prompted a fatal bottleneck or glitch and the BSOD.

Any drive that was not connected to this board at the time of the BSOD worked on the board, except for these 7 drives; and yet, in testing these 7 drives with my laptop following the error, they all worked perfectly with my laptop.

Any attempt to boot on this board from these 7 drives (even the optical burners) resulted in a blank screen with only a blinking cursor. MY UEFI was still accessible, and the drives were present in my UEFI, but the boot sequence failed; not even the message "Reboot and select proper boot device..." appeared for any hard drive running. Clearing the CMOS was useless.

I was left to conclude that the BSOD STOP error damaged the SATA controller in such a way as to permanently block access to the drives that were connected to the board during the BSOD error. All signs led me to believe the motherboard was damaged at that moment.


I had the board replaced, and I am preparing to try again to install my Windows operating systems, with two major exceptions:

1. I will connect another SATA power strip to my power supply, so that I may use one SATA connector for every one hard drive or optical drive. Gone are the Y-splitters; better safe than sorry. If I need extension cables, I will use these...
Amazon.com: Micro SATA Cables - 15 Pin SATA Power Extension Cable - 8 Inch length: Electronics

2. Only the hard drive to which I'm attempting an installation will be plugged into my board. For Windows 8, I will have only the Blu-ray burner and the hard drive for SATA3_0 plugged in. When I'm done with Win8, I will unplug that hard drive and plug the next one in SATA3_1 for Windows 7. Once complete, I will unplug that one, and plug the third drive in SATA2_2 for Windows XP. Following that, I will unplug that hard drive and plug the 4th drive in SATA2_3 to format NTFS.

Once I have all 3 operating systems installed and running, I will plug all of my drives into my board, and see what happens from there.


I assume those of you who have read this post have followed every item and sequence carefully. I have two questions, and they relate especially to the hard drives plugged into SATA3_0 (Win8), SATA3_1 (Win7) and SATA2_2 (WinXP), because these are hybrid hard drives and so is the one plugged into SATA2_3:

1. In the UEFI section for 'Storage Configuration', should I set the SATA Mode to IDE or AHCI before installing Windows on any of my drives? These will not be RAID drives.

2. I have yet to find any info at the Seagate site with regard to accessing the SSD portion of my hybrid drives (each Momentus XT has 4GB of SSD space, in addition to the 500GB of hard drive space). Is there any site with instruction on using the SSD as the first place to install anything, particularly Windows itself, for a faster boot? Or is access to the SSD space automatic with Windows?


Anything else I need to know before I attempt an installation? And by the way, I have yet to purchase Windows 8. Should I go for it, or would I be better off waiting for Win9?

[- wardog -]

I have two questions, and they relate especially to the hard drives plugged into SATA3_0 (Win8), SATA3_1 (Win7) and SATA2_2 (WinXP), because these are hybrid hard drives and so is the one plugged into SATA2_3:

1. In the UEFI section for 'Storage Configuration', should I set the SATA Mode to IDE or AHCI before installing Windows on any of my drives? These will not be RAID drives.

2. I have yet to find any info at the Seagate site with regard to accessing the SSD portion of my hybrid drives (each Momentus XT has 4GB of SSD space, in addition to the 500GB of hard drive space). Is there any site with instruction on using the SSD as the first place to install anything, particularly Windows itself, for a faster boot? Or is access to the SSD space automatic with Windows?

A1. The drives(ST500LX003 anyways) support NCQ, so if you'd benefit from having that enabled, then yes. Install the OS's with AHCI set in the BIOS. During the install you can F6 the AHCI drivers if required, which for XP I'm sure it will. So have them on USB stick or floppy and use F6 when prompted/required for the XP install.

A2. No. the SSD(NAND flash) portion themselves are not accessible by the user. See section 2.2.2 of the Momentus XT manual HERE.

2.2.2 Solid State Hybrid feature
The Solid State Hybrid feature utilizes the addition of NAND Flash memory to enhance the performance of the
drive. Short random accesses to the NAND Flash are faster than disc accesses due to the elimination of seek
and rotational latencies and therefore it is used to store more frequently accessed data. The Momentus XT
uses a proprietary algorithm which monitors drive activity and determines the optimum data to maintain in the
NAND Flash for peak responsiveness. The Solid State Hybrid feature is self contained in the drive firmware
and functions independent of the host hardware or operating system. There are no special host system
requirements. Momentus XT can be installed in any standard SATA environment and will automatically optimize.

It can possibly take two weeks for the algorithm to optimize on your system. During this time you will gradually see faster and faster "access' times.

[CookyMonzta]

A1. The drives(ST500LX003 anyways) support NCQ, so if you'd benefit from having that enabled, then yes. Install the OS's with AHCI set in the BIOS. During the install you can F6 the AHCI drivers if required, which for XP I'm sure it will. So have them on USB stick or floppy and use F6 when prompted/required for the XP install.

A2. No. the SSD(NAND flash) portion themselves are not accessible by the user. See section 2.2.2 of the Momentus XT manual HERE.

2.2.2 Solid State Hybrid feature
The Solid State Hybrid feature utilizes the addition of NAND Flash memory to enhance the performance of the
drive. Short random accesses to the NAND Flash are faster than disc accesses due to the elimination of seek
and rotational latencies and therefore it is used to store more frequently accessed data. The Momentus XT
uses a proprietary algorithm which monitors drive activity and determines the optimum data to maintain in the
NAND Flash for peak responsiveness. The Solid State Hybrid feature is self contained in the drive firmware
and functions independent of the host hardware or operating system. There are no special host system
requirements. Momentus XT can be installed in any standard SATA environment and will automatically optimize.

It can possibly take two weeks for the algorithm to optimize on your system. During this time you will gradually see faster and faster "access' times.

Sorry I didn't respond early to this post. Been busy with other things.

When I tried to install WinXP back in October, I had my UEFI set to AHCI. In the first 3 or 4 minutes after inserting the CD, the installation program checked my machine for the hardware I had in it. There is a point, at the beginning, where the program asks you to press F6 to install a 3rd-party SCSI or RAID driver (neither of which I will need because I don't have an SCSI device and I don't intend to use a RAID configuration). If there is program, on my Z77 Extreme6 DVD, that would require installation for proper AHCI functionality in XP (which would also require me to press F6), I might have missed it.

If not, I would have expected the XP CD's hardware check to run its course before prompting me to create a partition to install XP. I hope the BSOD STOP error didn't occur because of a missing program for which I should have interrupted the installation process at the appropriate time by pressing F6.

Unless there's another possible reason for the STOP error to occur that locked all of my drives out from the original motherboard, I still believe a power conflict with those Y-extension splitters (which allowed me to connect 6 drives to a single SATA power strip with 3 connectors) caused the error.

Whichever the case, I have a replacement motherboard coming before the end of next week, and I will use single extension cables, one for each drive (which means I will connect 2 SATA strips to my power supply). Again, I will start with only a Blu-ray burner and one hard drive connected, specifically the hard drive to which I intend to install an operating system. Which means I will have 2 installation processes, one for WinXP and one for Win7 (no Win8 for this machine; I will wait for Win9). Once I have those 2 Windows running, I will connect everything else and check for stability.

[- wardog -]

Sorry I didn't respond early to this post. Been busy with other things.

When I tried to install WinXP back in October, I had my UEFI set to AHCI. In the first 3 or 4 minutes after inserting the CD, the installation program checked my machine for the hardware I had in it. There is a point, at the beginning, where the program asks you to press F6 to install a 3rd-party SCSI or RAID driver (neither of which I will need because I don't have an SCSI device and I don't intend to use a RAID configuration).

This, "There is a point, at the beginning, where the program asks you to press F6 to install a 3rd-party SCSI or RAID driver ...." is where you DO need to install the AHCI drivers. See below for further instructions.

If there is program, on my Z77 Extreme6 DVD, that would require installation for proper AHCI functionality in XP (which would also require me to press F6), I might have missed it.

.

I just double checked. All your HD's support NCQ, the ST2000DM001(not 2000DM0001 as you typed), and both Momentus XT Hybrid's.

On your MBs Online User Manual (<-Link), see pg57, the Section titled "2.22.1 Installing Windows® XP / XP 64-bit Without RAID Functions" and then the greyed out section titled "Using SATA / SATA2 / SATA3 HDDs with NCQ function" will describe the correct procedure to follow to create the AHCI Driver Diskette using the Support CD included with your MB, and how to install Windows XP in AHCI mode using this driver diskette. Following these instructions will have you on your way, trouble free.

[profJim]

Before you install your software, I recommend that you run the following Memtest86+ tests from a bootable usb, CD/DVD, or floppy:

• 10 loops of the #5 test using the following key sequence: c 1 3 5 [enter] 0 (the last key is a zero)
• at least 4 full loops of the default setup which runs the #1 through #8 tests

Stop the test if there are any errors.
Memtest86+ errors are caused by hardware problems or bios settings that aren't "close enough".
As I recall, at the end of the #5 test loops, press the c and 7 keys and that will start the standard test loop.

These tests take a long time to complete!!

[CookyMonzta]

This, "There is a point, at the beginning, where the program asks you to press F6 to install a 3rd-party SCSI or RAID driver ...." is where you DO need to install the AHCI drivers. See below for further instructions.

.

I just double checked. All your HD's support NCQ, the ST2000DM001(not 2000DM0001 as you typed), and both Momentus XT Hybrid's.

On your MBs Online User Manual (<-Link), see pg57, the Section titled "2.22.1 Installing Windows® XP / XP 64-bit Without RAID Functions" and then the greyed out section titled "Using SATA / SATA2 / SATA3 HDDs with NCQ function" will describe the correct procedure to follow to create the AHCI Driver Diskette using the Support CD included with your MB, and how to install Windows XP in AHCI mode using this driver diskette. Following these instructions will have you on your way, trouble free.

My bad. I completely forgot about the User Manual at the Web site, and that it had far more details than the Quick Installation Guide or the Software Setup Guide that came with my board. I'll have to print it out and highlight that section, especially the procedure for creating the disk with the AHCI driver. I still have a floppy drive (my floppy/card reader combo), which I still use for games that are old enough to have been played on DOS/Windows 3.1/95/98.

[CookyMonzta]

My new board is in, and after checking for access to my UEFI, I got the usual "Reboot and select proper boot device" message; which means my new board is (at this moment) in working order, my hard drives and optical drives work, and my old board got screwed due to my attempt to install WinXP as I would with any typical board, unaware of procedure 2.22.1 for this board. I will try not to make that mistake again.

Right now, I have only my Blu-Ray burner and one of my SATA 3.0 Momentus XT hybrids plugged in, as I will attempt to install Win7 first. When I'm ready to install WinXP, the Win7 hard drive will be disconnected, and I will install another blank hard drive alone for WinXP. If all goes well, I will connect all of my drives.

Regarding WinXP, would I fare better to install it on my other SATA 3.0 hybrid, or should I stick with one of my SATA 2.0 hybrids for XP?

[parsec]

It sounds like you have your OS installation procedures correct, should work fine.

Regarding what drive for XP, hard to say which drive will work better with it. Your choice may depend on what if anything in particular you use XP for, relative to what you do on the other OS's.

While XP does not have TRIM support as Windows 7 and 8 do, I see no mention of it in Seagate's specs, or a few reviews I checked. So that does not seem to be an issue for a hybrid drive. Given how the NAND storage is used in this drive, as a read cache for frequently accessed files, and all permanent file writes are done on the HDD portion, and copied to the NAND when necessary, TRIM seems unnecessary.

I'm wondering if the memory limitations of a 32 bit OS, which will then definitely use the page file, and more often, would benefit from being on a faster SATA interface?

[CookyMonzta]

I have a situation that I need verified quickly. It involves the AHCI disk preparation program on my Z77 Extreme 6 DVD.

The program gives 2 choices:

1. Generate the RAID/AHCI driver diskette for Intel Z77 Chipset
2. Generate the AHCI driver diskette for ASMedia 106x SATA Host Controller

I am about to install WinXP on another one of my Momentus XT hybrid drives (I have Win7 running on my first hybrid), and I am not using RAID in any of my disk configurations. I assume option #2 would be the correct option to put on my floppy, but I want to make certain before I attempt to install WinXP. I don't want another BSOD STOP error episode that could screw up my replacement motherboard.

[- wardog -]

For XP, that would be #1. "Generate the RAID/AHCI driver diskette for Intel Z77 Chipset"

But that's ONLY so long as you connected the HD you're about to install XP onto is in fact connected to one of the Intel controller SATA ports. NOT the ASMedia ports.