Uhm, yes. Someone used a big broom to sweep

Indeed, there are several issues with VIA 8237 southbridge and SATA ODD. These issues are known for Samsung DVD writers:

1. Firmware update is not possible
2. There are user reports that bitsetting does not work properly

Using the Promise controller soldered on the Asus board is not an option since it is a plain RAID controller. Even non-RAID SATA controllers don't work flawless.

I'd suggest returning the drive and get some good-old PATA drive or getting a Silicon Image based SATA controller (with non-RAID firmware).

Michael

Hi
Take a look at this thread
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=228716
The mobos & problems are similar if not indentical.
The solution...PCI SATA controller card.
To ensure success go for a SiliconImage Chipset based card.

Hi
These mobos have fullset of drivers for both Via Raid & Promise.
So non-raid is possible with either.
However they both have problems with ODDs.
Of which AFAIK will not be remedied as updates are no longer forthcoming.

Well, heck where have you guys been? Glad the calvary finally arrived.

But the solution isn't all that great...guess its just a fault of the motherboard.

asus might be aware of the problem??

A8V Deluxe Beta BIOS version 1018.002

has this been tried?

2007/08/29 update

Hi
I have looked into that bios update & personally can't see it solving this problem.
The drivers for both the Via & Promise Raid controllers have not been updated for some time. Maybe 2 years now.
Promise have definitely stopped developement for this chipset.

I beg to differ. The Promise is a plain RAID controller (FastTrak), that don't support ODD at all. MSI decided to use a Promise 20579, that can be set either to non-RAID (SATA II 150+) or RAID (FastTrak) in BIOS setup.
The FastTrak in the Asus will be even worse than the VIA.

Michael

The first cavalrists arrived even yesterday, but they were killed by friendly fire
Not the motherboard, it's the chipset. So the same problem will be present on all mainboards with that chipset regardless of brand.

Michael

Hi
@ mciahel
Well I had a Asus K8V Deluxe.
Same chipset/drivers.
Was sure I was able to have non-raid.
Not that it matters much, because even if I did.
It still didn't work.

7/12/2007

Hi,Just found non-RAID drivers for the 378. So I was wrong in my assumption

@Chewy,

indeed VIA releases newer storage drivers for their chipsets. But unfortunately even the latest versions did not solve the problem. The issue does not exist btw with VIA's latest southbridges starting from 8237R+ (these even support IDE compatible mode).

Michael

Hi
Just looking at the drivers. It lists
#1 - SATA controller drivers
#2 & 3 Raid controller drivers.
I took the SATA controller(#1) to be non-raid.
However looking further into it. i.e. Each driver . They all state Raid.
This is the latest for 64 bit.
The earlier (32 bit). Did have non-raid. But just covered using single HD's I guess.

In the interests of science, my system and my wallet, I have burned another disc for the log. It is listed below:

Great info guys, learned a thing or two from your interchange of posts. For one thing I'm glad I went with the Abit Mobo w/ the intel chipset...although most Asus boards are pretty well rated.

For me, IMGBurn auto-matically bitsets the SH-S203B perfectly every time if I use IMGBurn itself...and I can set the booktype 'manually' as well w/IMGBurn, to use any other burn engine, but of course, that would need to be done each burn...

Also, my apologies for getting involved in taking this thread off topic...
Cheers...

StoicLion

Just looked at your last log file. You might get better burns with that MCC004 media by burning at 8x instead of 4x. Slower isn't always better with the newer drives and 16x media.

Won't solve the booktype problem. Looks like Michael covered your options pretty well when he said:

"I'd suggest returning the drive and get some good-old PATA drive or getting a Silicon Image based SATA controller (with non-RAID firmware)."

I don't suppose you're interested in upgrading the motherboard/cpu/memory just yet. The 939 chips are at end of life in the sales channel, but are still plenty fast for most uses.

Wish we could have come up with a better option, but I was pretty much at the end of software solutions for bitsetting with this drive when they came in with definitive knowledge of the hardware problems.

kerry,
he had burn speed set for 16x, this is the same kind of crud I ran into with my nf2 chipset pata controller when i was using non-standard nf drivers

8x burns taking 20 minutes with premium ty media

using the same motherboard, same media and an old pata ODD

You're right Chewy. I saw this:

I 20:02:28 Operation Successfully Completed! - Duration: 00:19:12
I 20:02:28 Average Write Rate: 4,115 KB/s (3.0x) - Maximum Write Rate: 5,144 KB/s (3.7x)

in his log file and didn't even notice that he had set it at 16x. Dang, something is truly screwed up in that SATA controller! Or possibly the drivers for it.

And I'm going to have to look more closely at the details

Ladies/Gents:

I appreciate all of your help. Alas, I've decided to return the drive and get something more compatible to my system.

Again, thanx.

You should keep it... and just get another compatible one also, if you haven't returned it already...$30 bucks for that drive is worth the investment for a future build or future PC. That drive is going to be hard to come by pretty soon, just as the BenQ 1655 became...

Just a suggestion Bro...