Recently got an LG GGW-H20L Bluray/DVD writer.

My system does not have any SATA ports so I use a PCI SATA card.

There are two things on the PCI card one is a SATA hard drive and the other is the LG burner. The SATA hard drive will happily run in UDMA mode 6 but the LG burner will not play ball and refuses to go above PIO mode 4

I have tested 3 cards, the chipsets are:

1) Sil 3112A
2) Sil 3512
3) VIA 6421A

The LG burner has problems with all of them, while the hard drive is happy with all of them.

I have the latest firmware for my cards and Y02 on the LG bluray burner. I have also replaced the cable so it's not that either.

Can a SATA hard drive and Optical drive exist on the a same PCI card ?
Is the LG burner SATA 1 or SATA II .. and would it make a difference ?
Does anyone have a contact for within LG, the links on their websites dont work.

You might be able to use the SIL cards, but they must first have the BIOS flashed to the "IDE" BIOS, and you must also use the "IDE" driver. Download packs are available from SIL for this. The BIOS that comes on the cards will not work. The card must also have a memory chip that is listed by SIL as being compatible for BIOS flashing. THIS is the card that some of us here are using, and it works great with the above changes.

Hi
Welcome onboard redserpent.
As already mentioned, the SiliconImage cards should work.
I know the 3512 will.
First downlod the driver package from here:
Upack.
You will see bios options.
You want what they call 'BASE BIOS' (Non-Raid).
Having flashed the bios, install the driver for optical drives.
Note if using a HD on the card, you cannot have the HDD(s) set for Raid.
N.B. Make sure you select the correct OS too, before downloading.

Thanks guys.

Ive flashed the controller to the "BASE" version. Its showing up as "SATALink" now rather than RAID.

Anyway sadly the LG burner is still only working in PIO Mode 4 limiting me to 11MB/sec.

Everything else in my system operates at full speed.

Anything else I can try ?

Hi
With BASE bios now flashed & assuming you have installed the correct driver.
It actually refers to CDRW/DVDRW's.
There's only two things left is to change that I think of.
The connection.
Try another cable/different slot on card.
Uninstall drive & let Windows reinstall.
Oh! Try for an update the driver.
MS had one as recently as the 20th of this month for the 3114 card.

Hurrah Interface speed: 53 MB/sec

Took me 2 days to find out the problem and buying 3 SATA cards.

Anyway, my results:

Sil 3112A : Works but only in PIO Mode 4. Giving 11 MB/sec. None of the latest driver or BIOS upgrade for the controller helped.. seems like Silicon Image dont want to fix the problem.

VT 6421A: 1 IDE & 1 eSATA & 2 SATAs internal.

May work with latest drivers only i.e. 5.60 (old ones dont work) but only 1 port works at a time and I can't find a manual which will tell me how to turn the internal SATA ports on. I know its something to do with the onboard jumpers. Must also have non RAID mode drivers.

Sil 3512: Did as described by CDan & zebadee.

Using RAID drivers gives 11MB/sec PIO mode 4, but using IDE base BIOS & driver give 53 MB/sec.

Hope this post is useful to others.

BTW: NeroInfoTool 5 does NOT work properly with LG GGW-H20L (version 4 does).

Maybe its just the 3112 "A" with problems, I have a 3112 onboard here and my DVDRWs are in UDMA5 mode, and HDDs in UDMA6.

Well I am suspecting a faulty drive now.

Booted the PC today and it refuses to boot with the LG drive on it.

Retailer says I can exchange it, which is what I am going to do now.

I doubt it's the LG, it might be the PCI card or your BIOS setup that prevents it to boot from your drive.

Hi,

I don't mean booting FROM the drive I mean the system refuses to boot up at all IF the SATA of the drive is plugged into a card.

Unplug the drive and the system boots. It wasn't doing this last week.

I am using the SYBA SD-SATA-4P PCI SATA Controller Card with a (SiI3114) chipset flashed to IDE mode.

I have a few questions for you

Does the computer boot as far as showing the cards BIOS and the drive hooked to it or does it hard lock at the computers BIOS?

Have you tried another port on the card?

Tried another cable?

Do you have another SATA drive to try?

Yes I can see the cards BIOS and I can get into it. Only the VIA chipsset card gives no bios. Yes, I tried both ports on all three cards.

About trying other sata, Ive tried a hard disk no other SATA optical drive.
The hard disk works with everytime with all PCI cards.
I tried with a SATA hard drive and without the sata hard drive.

Ive tried 3 cables Including the working cable of the sata hard drive.

Did one last thing before the courier for the company comes to pick up to the drive tomorrow.

I put it into another PC and allowed booting but gave errors.

Ran Cdspeed to read a disc and it has no additional sense error. Back to PIO Mode 4 again now. Strange things happening whilst booting up and the BIOS screen getting stuck.

"> I am using the SYBA SD-SATA-4P PCI SATA Controller Card with a (SiI3114) chipset flashed to IDE
mode."

Are saying you have the GGW-H20L working with the PCI card ? Do you have anything else hooked up to the Sata port with it ? Are you in UDMA mode 6 i.e. what is your interface speed ?

I hope you're removing the other cards when testing the SIL card. Failure to boot is almost certainly a controller issue, not the drive. If the Windows loading starts, then freezes, then it's a driver issue. Sometimes Windows tries to revert to a previous (incorrect) driver. Anyhow, I've had more than one SATA controller refuse to boot with the optical drive connected.

I just have the drive hooked up to the PCI SATA card.

UDMA 5

See my review here

Of course I removed the other cards.

Windows never gets that far so it's nothing to do with windows. With the optical plugged in I got the message " INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER" just when it after it detected CD-ROMs. I just started doing this recently. Unhook the SATA cable and the PC boots fine.

When I got it working I ran CD speed and it could not finish reading DVDs properly (very good quality disks).

The courier came and took it away this morning, Im sure its broke.

well keep us posted if you get the replacement working or if you get a replacement

If it asked for a system disc when plugged in that would mean it was set to be the first boot device?

That may be something to look at in the bios.

Update:

I got a replacement drive. The news is not good.

Same result, my drive is maufactured 12-12-2007 (same as the last one).

I stumped, ive tried everything I can. May just get a new motherboard now.

The system refuses to boot if the drive connected now.

Even if I dont want to boot from CDROM it tries to boot from it. If I disconnect it the system boots OK (but no access to the bluray drive).

Assuming it's on the SIL card, sounds like the card BIOS is wrong. What, exactly, is being displayed by the card BIOS after POST? Some folks do have problems with the SIL 3512 cards, but the 3114 cards are known to work all the time as long as they have a memory chip that can be flashed with the correct BIOS. I'd just get one of the SYBA cards that most everyone here is using.

Ive put the 3112A back in now and its booting at least but im back to square 1 and it only works in PIO mode 4.

The card posts like:

Sil 3512A SATALink BIOS Version 4.3.83
Copright etc........

1 HL-DT-ST BD-RE GGW-

But here's the weird thing, the chip it uses is HT27c010-70 which is a 128KB EPROM but its OTP only so it cant be flashed.

My 3112A can be flashed though!

Should I buy yet another SATA PCI card ?

I never knew installing an optical sata drive would be so difficult.

Your 3512 is at least showing the right stuff, but it may have a bad flash anyhow. Like I said, they seem to work for some folks and not for others.
From what I've read, some of the SIL cards that have odd memory chips can still be force-flashed. But given the problems you're having I'd suggest going for one that's known to work. The SYBA card has the right memory. Mine is running HDD and optical side-by-side and smooth as silk.

This is very strange it working now!!

What I did was put by 3112A card in and flashed it down a version (using pure DOS). Then it didn't work so I reflashed it back to what it was. Still did not work.

Took it out and put Sil 3512A card (which can not be flashed) and it worked at UDMA mode 6 and the hard drive is working full speed as well.

Its wierd how can flashing one card taking it out and putting another card make it work ?

Its kinda like how that memory hack that was in the news works, by pulling dims and freezing them.

Keep in mind that there really aren't any UDMA modes for SATA, so this is not really an indicator of performance. (although it might be an indicator of problems). I'd still consider getting the 3114 card, since problems can still crop up again with the 3512.

Sometimes deleting the drive in Device Manager and reboot will fix the problem, ie Windows will redetect the drive and fix the transfer mode.