Z97 Extreme 6 - random SATA boot fail codes

I've had a Z97 Extreme6 since it was introduced, and while I have had occasional drive recognition problems when new drives are added to the board, I don't have the problem you are having.

Lots to go over, starting with:

What OS are you using?

What SATA mode are you using on each SATA controller, IDE, AHCI, or RAID (RAID on Intel only.)

What SATA drivers have you installed, or do you just use the OS defaults?

Do these problems happen with all your drives, or just some in particular?

Have you ever tried clearing the UEFI/BIOS to fix your problem?

Are you using the Fast Boot option?

In the BIOS, Advanced -> Storage Configuration screen, each SATA port shows the drive connected to it. If you click on the drive, you'll see an option for SATA Device Type. Did you set those to either SSD or Hard Drive for each drive (only available on the Intel ports.)

The POST codes you see, Ax, such as A2 are SATA disk drive related problems.

Your board has three SATA chipsets, the main Intel with six SATA III ports, the six lower ports in the "stack" of ports as the board would be seen mounted in a standard case.

It also has two ASMedia SATA chips, each controlling two ports, which are the four ports at the top of the stack of SATA ports. In general, the Intel SATA ports are much more stable, dependable, and faster with SSDs. That is easily demonstrated with benchmark tests.

Personally, I only use the Intel SATA ports, and only use the ASMedia SATA ports temporarily. I would suggest only using the Intel SATA ports for a test.

Starting with the previous Intel chipset release, the 8 series such as the Z87, the SATA release protocol was updated (for example, from 3.1 to 3.2) and that change left some older drives behind. Their hardware and/or firmware does not meet the new standards. Even SSDs like the OCZ Vertex 2, or any SSD with a SandForce 1200 series controller, will not work correctly with the newest Intel chipsets. Depending upon how old your HDDs are, they may be affected by that too.

When any drive is initially connected to the board, I find it is recognized fine in the BIOS, but many times will not be seen in Windows. That happens with new model SSDs, but I am not referring to the situation where a new out of the box drive must be initialized in Windows Disk Management before it is recognized. These are drives that are formatted and contain data. It will take one or two restarts before the drive is recognized. But once it is, I can shutdown the PC, turn of the PSU, and when started again, the drives are all there. Physically removing them can cause them to not be seen later on.

Have you ever checked the BIOS to see if the drives are recognized, when they are not in your OS?

You sure did, that red jumps out of my monitor like a 3D affect for some reason... literally floating above the monitor surface a bit!

Regarding checking that drive, have you ever seen what is called SMART data for HDDs and SSDs? There are many programs that read and display SMART data.

If you have the ASRock A-Tuning utility installed for your board, you could run the Disk Health report under Tools. Or if you have the ASRock APP Shop program installed, you can download the stand alone Disk Health Report program. Neither will work with RAID arrays, so if you have any, those disks won't appear.

The problem with SMART data is interpreting it. You should check WDC's website for any diagnostic tools for their drives. Another thing while you are there, any firmware updates for that drive?

HDD age is not automatically a good or bad indicator, right? I've had new HDDs shipped to me that were DOA (never again will I buy a HDD from Newegg, they cannot ship them correctly.)

Well I've given up on troubleshooting...I'm mostly getting A2 and A0 errors on boot randomly, so it's easier to reset and try again. Normally it boots on the 2nd attempt while today I had to reset 5 times.

parsec wrote: If it was always the same drive or drives failing, then I would want to know what models they were. Don't dismiss the older drive incompatibility with new chipsets, it can be real.

Edited by Darkz0r - 10 Sep 2015 at 5:22am