Atapi Errors

[reptoid]

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Just thought I'd post this in case any other istoryans find themselves in a similar situation:

Intermittent problem with the following symptoms......

System hangs.
Slow Boot-up.
Failure to detect drives.
Interrupted audio/video playback.
Sudden restart.

Check Event Log for critical errors, specifically Atapi Error 11. Do you see lots of these?

If so the problem could be your mobo's SATA controllers. Here's the good news... you don't need to buy a new mobo as you can buy a PCIe controller which will just plug in. Kind of rare in PH, but you can order online from China for a few dollars. A cheap and effective solution to an irritating problem which took ages to diagnose.

Here's another tip... SATA cables and connectors are basically poorly designed and if you swap drives around often you will inevitably shorten the lives of both.

[werty]

so, are you selling these?

[lloyd_joy]

those add-in cards are really cheap here in the main land... kaso, most of them doesn't support Win 7 OS... got 2 of these add-in cards... 1 PCIe x1 and 1 PCI form factors... some of these cards provides PATA header as well if you need one...

had searched for those pricer ones (like Orico) compared to the generic boards... they do support Win 7...

[reptoid]

so, are you selling these?

No... I'm not selling, just sharing info. I bought on eBay; I found one in Manila which was very overpriced and wasn't using a very reliable chipset by all accounts. There are a few sellers in Hong Kong and China with lots of selection. They are mostly for RAID configurations, however you don't need to use them for that purpose. They are generally plug & play, but a driver disc is supplied. Just make sure you choose one that is compatible with your operating system.

Mine is working great. Faster transfer speeds and totally cured the problem. Only downside is that it adds a few seconds to boot time.