Asus M4N78 Pro SATA driver issue for Windows 7

[PodCulture]

Hello,

I just recently purchased an Asus M4N78 Pro motherboard, and was building a system, installed Windows 7RC 64bit and I am running into a bit of an issue. The install went fine and everthing, except for the SATA ports 5 and 6 do not detect the drives attached to those ports. According to teh manual I need to install a driver from the disc, and that is teh problem. The disc apparently will not run under windows 7. Does anyone happen to know where I could get teh particular driver I need? It would be nice to actually use all six of the boards SATA ports. The Asus website was not much help, nor was their customer service line. According to the manual the chipset is NVIDIA GeForce 8300 .... did a search on their site as well and was unable to locate what I need. Any help you guys could throw my was shure would be great.

Thanks,
Brad

 

[Ross]

Hi Brad,
welcome to the forum..
Wow these drivers are not easy to find but basically you need the (v10.3.0.21) WHQL SATA drivers
http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t79369.html

These drivers from Nvidia contain the required SATA driver:
http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/nforce_vista64_15.16_uk.html


You'll then have to extract the SATA driver part and burn it to disk.

Any problems, let me know...

 

[clifford_cooley]

I was reading the first link and the version mentioned was the version released with the CD.

Documentation on the CD implies it is using nForce drivers with the following component drivers:
RAID Driver (v10.3.0.21) WHQL

If the CD is not Installing the required drivers. There is a good chance Windows 7 could be pointed to the driver folder on the CD. If I am reading the data correctly the second link is the same version as the CD driver. However I did not find a Windows 7 64Bit driver. The only driver I found was a Vista 64Bit driver that may need to be install in Vista Compatibility Mode.

 

[Ross]

I was reading the first link and the version mentioned was the version released with the CD.


If the CD is not Installing the required drivers. There is a good chance Windows 7 could be pointed to the driver folder on the CD. If I am reading the data correctly the second link is the same version as the CD driver. However I did not find a Windows 7 64Bit driver. The only driver I found was a Vista 64Bit driver that may need to be install in Vista Compatibility Mode.

True but I'm just assuming the the OP has already tried this and something may be wrong with the original disk... Also I don't think that anyone has released any 7 SATA/RAID drivers yet although vista versions work just fine. (well it does with my set up anyway). Trying the compatibility mode though is at least another option...

Just to add, I find using a floppy is the easiest way to install the drivers which I have to do at the start of a fresh install..Although I have used a DVD disk before now... I'm pretty sure though that Asus boards don't have a floppy connection?

 

[PodCulture]

True but I'm just assuming the the OP has already tried this and something may be wrong with the original disk... Also I don't think that anyone has released any 7 SATA/RAID drivers yet although vista versions work just fine. (well it does with my set up anyway). Trying the compatibility mode though is at least another option...

Just to add, I find using a floppy is the easiest way to install the drivers which I have to do at the start of a fresh install..Although I have used a DVD disk before now... I'm pretty sure though that Asus boards don't have a floppy connection?

I don't believe so no it doesn't. (no biggie....I don't have a floppy drive anyhow. I tried Ross's link, and since it was a .exe (and I only had a few min before I had to leave for work) I tried running that and it SEEMED to install teh drivers I needed (and a couple others) but no go. I know it isn't a matter of a bad drive as I swapped a another drive I had on one of the other ports and it stilol did not show up) Not quite sure how I would extract the drivers anyway. (hardware I'm good with....software not so much)

This isn't a super huge deal for me as I can work around only having 4 SATA ports until they actually release Win 7 drivers, but man would it sure be nice to have the other optical drive and the other hardrive up and running.

 

[PodCulture]

True but I'm just assuming the the OP has already tried this and something may be wrong with the original disk...

Yes...the actual support disc would not run in Windows 7 64bit for me.....got an "unknown oprating system" type message (or somegthing to that effect)



I appreciate all the feedback though.....if nothing else this is proving an interesting yet frustrating learning experience for me.

 

[Ross]

I'm trying to remember how you extract the drivers... It's ages since I've had an Nforce board.
When you installed the drivers it should have put a folder somewhere maybe your C drive or Documents. If you look in that the drivers are in there or should be.
You could always try through Device manager and try installing it manually? I've just upgraded my RAID drivers today and thats how I did it. Just remember to click 'have disk' and look for the 'inf'.. (it should 'inf' written in the folder bar below anyway)


Edit: I just reread your post... If the drivers are definately installed (check through device manager) and there's still no go then check your bios. You may need to alter a setting. Not knowing your exact bios i would suggest using your mobo manual as this will point you in the direction for using SATA/RAID set-ups.

 

[PodCulture]

All I am really wanting to do is be able to use those two ports to add additional storage to the system. Maybe I'm just a little n00bish here, but can I actually do that with those ports?

Bios-wise I know that was able to update to the latest version...that was one of the first things I did. I've read thru the manual a couple of time actually, and didn't see information that would point me in the direction I needed.

I do appreciate the help though.....I just keep telling myself...learning is fun!

 

[Ross]

All I am really wanting to do is be able to use those two ports to add additional storage to the system. Maybe I'm just a little n00bish here, but can I actually do that with those ports?

Bios-wise I know that was able to update to the latest version...that was one of the first things I did. I've read thru the manual a couple of time actually, and didn't see information that would point me in the direction I needed.

I do appreciate the help though.....I just keep telling myself...learning is fun!

Checkout the screenshot I took of the manual. You'll see some instructions on the bios set up as the ports need to be enabled in the bios otherwise they won't work. It also states that there must be another manual?

I downloaded the manual from here: http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

This link also contains your drivers ect.. You just have to use the pull down menus to get to your particular board.
I also found a guide here: http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...toid=2b089d2c3c90e010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

 

[PodCulture]

Well shoot. Tried those drivers last night, and the computer still did not recognize the drives. It does look like those were the correct drivers, so it is obviously operator error on my part somehow. Betcha that I have something set wrong somewhere, or havent changed something that needed to be changed.

I can get a fairly inexpensive card to install into a slot on the mobo that will give me the two ports I need, but no reason to do that if I can get the two working on my mobo. I like a good challange and this is proving to be a doozy to my limited skills!

 

[clifford_cooley]

I'm not that familiar with SATA hardware yet. I know that with IDE you can disable the ports you are not using in the system BIOS. I think this is what Ross was talking about.

Could it be that Ports 5 & 6 are disabled?

I was also looking at the snapshot and was curious to know if ports 5 & 6 was was specific to Raid functionality.

 

[GanjaSMK]

To BRAD / SATA DRIVERS

Hi Brad -


It's very simple to install the correct drivers from your ASUS Driver CD that came with your motherboard. Here's all you have to do:

There are two ways to get the drivers to work correctly one of which is far easier than the other.

#1 Edit the .inf file of the installation for the RAID/SATA controller so that the system will read the Windows 7 version correctly. (Not too difficult but requires extracting the entire folder installation from the CD to a HD and then editing the inf file) If you'd like to know how to do this let me know...

#2 Go to your control panel (I don't know if you have it setup from the original installation or if you have set the options to view the "classic" style of control panel) and either go to Device Manager or figure out how to get to "Advanced Settings" and then find Device Manager. Once you've found it, look to see if you have a tree called "Storage Controllers". If you do have it available just expand it and check the RAID/SATA Controller - Right click - Update Driver Software - Browse my computer - Then point the directory search to the file which corresponds to the ASUS AHCI/RAID/SATA controller on your CD. To find the directory of this file, look to the Filelist.txt on the CD to locate it.

If you do not have a "Storage Controllers" tree, just look under System Devices for the AHCI/RAID/SATA controller and update that driver with the same directions as above.

That should allow you to use the external ports. If it does not; you may have to check your bios options to change from IDE/SATA to RAID/SATA or AHCI for the external controllers to be visible to the OS.

I hope that solved your problem! All the best to you eh!?

 

[dodgy]

I know this is an old thread, but in case anyone else runs into this issue, the solution was very simple. All the OP had to do was go into the BIOS and change Storage Configuration from SATA to AHCI. This then enables all internal SATA ports for use. Hope this helps someone in the future

 

[talon1812]

M4n78 Raid Setup

When I try to set the SATA mode to RAID in the BIOS, my bios just sits on the screen saying "DETECTING STORAGE DEVICES" It never goes past that screen.
I wrote to ASUS technical support and they replied to "READ THE MANUAL"...WOW....how rude. No help on how to get past that screen. Plus, it locks up and never goes anywhere, so I had to clear the BIOS to go back to SATA mode, instead of RAID Mode. Has anyone else actually set up a RAID on this motherboard??? I finally just ordered a separate add-on RAID card with 2 SATA ports and an IDE port. Hopefully, I can use all of my drives. I dual-booting to XP-64 bit and Vista Ultimate 64-bit.

 

[bassfisher6522]

I have the same board PodCulture. Read the manual if you have it or download it, in it you will find that to activate slots 4 and 5 you need to enable ACHI or RAID mode. The answer is on page 1-22 about half way down...

Quote "SATA 5-6 connectors support AHCI mode and RAID mode only. Make sure to install the AHCI driver or RAID driver in the bundled support DVD before connecting devices to SATA 5-6 connectors. Otherwise, the devices will not work"?

 

[bassfisher6522]

When I try to set the SATA mode to RAID in the BIOS, my bios just sits on the screen saying "DETECTING STORAGE DEVICES" It never goes past that screen.
I wrote to ASUS technical support and they replied to "READ THE MANUAL"...WOW....how rude. No help on how to get past that screen. Plus, it locks up and never goes anywhere, so I had to clear the BIOS to go back to SATA mode, instead of RAID Mode. Has anyone else actually set up a RAID on this motherboard??? I finally just ordered a separate add-on RAID card with 2 SATA ports and an IDE port. Hopefully, I can use all of my drives. I dual-booting to XP-64 bit and Vista Ultimate 64-bit.

The key to setting up RAID and AHCI mode, is to do so before installing the OS. Asus dropped the ball on that one. So, if you have your OS installed all ready, you have to insall drivers then do a clean install...sucks, I know.