[mythtv-users] OT: SATA errors

[Harry Devine]

Brian Wood wrote:
> On Friday 17 July 2009 21:13:05 Harry Devine wrote:
>
>   
>> I was able to find an updated BIOS for the card, but my only Windows
>> machine doesn't have a PCIe x1 interface in it, so I can't update it.
>>     
>
> I'm not sure, I've never tried it, but I think you can put an x1 card into an 
> x4, x8 or x16 slot, if your machine has a spare one of those.
>   
I tried that and my Windows machine wouldn't boot.  I'll try it again 
tomorrow and see.  Maybe it was a fluke thing.  Not sure.
>   
>> At this point, I'm thinking I should just order a new MB.  I really
>> don't want to but I don't have much of a choice.  My last resort is to
>> take the card into work and see if there's a Windows PC there that I can
>> install the card into and update it that way.
>>     
>
> I'd think another option would be to find a different SATA card that 
> cooperates better with your mobo's BIOS would do it, as would installing the 
> firmware that allows it ro run as JBOD. Certainly both those options are 
> cheaper.
>   
I was looking around on NewEgg and the card I got seemed to be the best 
of the bunch.  There were only 2 or 3 cards there anyway.  Not a huge 
selection.  I only went the NewEgg route for that card because I 
couldn't find anything locally.  I went to my local Best Buy and 2 
different Staples stores.  They didn't have anything remotely close to a 
SATA card. LOL!
>   
>> I'm just really tired of messing with it at this point.  My current
>> system has an AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ CPU in it, and 2G of OCZ 240-pin
>> DDR2 667 RAM.  I found this board on NewEgg:
>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131381.  Looks
>> like it should work.  Anyone have any thoughts?  I want to be able to
>> pull my my existing CPU/Fan, Memory, and Hard Drives from the current MB
>> and transfer them to the new one.
>>     
>
> I can certainly sympathize with your sentiment, and replacing the board is a 
> good technical solution. Whenever I do something like that I eventually wind 
> up buying the parts to make the old board run anyway.
>   
I'm looking at it like this:  The IDE ports still work on the current 
MB, so it wouldn't take much to get another machine going for some 
reason (another Myth frontend perhaps? ;-) ) down the line.  Get some 
RAM, throw an IDE HD in there, and get going.
>   
>> Would Mythbuntu have any issues with this since the MB would be a
>> different one that what I originally installed with?  Will I have to
>> reinstall anyway?  No big deal if I do since I now can access the drives
>> by putting them into another machine and can grab whatever files I need
>> (dump the Myth DB, Xorg.conf, etc.).
>>     
>
> In general in should work, but there are potential gotchas, so back things up 
> first. Drive locations might change, and any special drivers the new board 
> needs would have to be accomodated, sometimes you just never know.
>
>
>   
Understood.  Most things I have installed are pretty standard, but I do 
have some special things on there that I wouldn't want to lose, like 
sipie to stream my Sirius Internet Radio and the assorted XML files to 
add it to the Myth menu system.  And I had a hell of a time getting LIRC 
working right, so those files need to get tucked away for future 
reference. :-)

Thanks for the help!
Harry