This system has a Fatal1ty Z77 Professional board which, according to the Asrock webpage, uses two ASMedia 1061 SATA controllers to provide an additional 4 x SATA ports over the 6 ports provided by the Z77 PCH.

 

I've been experiencing some funnies since a clean install of Windows 8.1 in which four of the 6 x 3TB Seagate ST3000DM001 drives are listed in the "Safely Remove" window when I request a safe removal of any USB flash drive. Further investigation via Device Manager shows the four Seagate "culprits" listed under "Portable Devices". Also, each of these drives has a Disk Management property attribute setting for Safe Removal Required = <true>.

 

Checking in the BIOS for these drives, they reflect as being connected to the SATA3_A1 to SATA3_A4 ports which do not offer individual settings but rather utilise the controller-level settings for the Asmedia SATA3 Controller:

 

ASMedia SATA3 Mode: = "AHCI"

Sata Boot ROM: = "disabled"

 

I then hunted all over Windows for some mechanism to update the ASMedia Controller's driver and could find no device vaguely resembling the ASMedia 1061 listed in Device Manager.

 

 

 

 

 

I then checked on the Asrock Fatal1ty Z77 Professional Downloads webpage for Win 8.1/64-bit and could not find any mention of a driver for the ASMedia controller...

 

So, I guess my question has to be:

 

"Does anyone here know if an ASMedia driver is actually required for the ASMedia 1061 when installed on this board? Also, does anyone here have any suggestions as to how to change some parameter somewhere to stop these drives showing up as 'portable'" and requiring 'safe removal'? (Hopefully the change will not require yet another clean install of Windows 8.1)"

 

Dave

 

Let me see if I understand you correctly...

After the clean install of Windows 8.1 (during which the generic Windows SATA AHCI driver was loaded), I loaded all of the drivers shown on the Asrock download page for Win8.1/64-bit except for the Teaming LAN driver which I don't need. The Intel Rapid Start Technology (IRST) driver was one of the drivers installed at this time.

As a result of there being no Asmedia driver listed, the generic Windows SATA AHCI driver remains installed.

Under Storage Controllers there is one entry: "Microsoft Storage Space Controller" (which - from your post - I would assume to refer to the IRST driver). BUT, under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, there is also an entry: "Intel 7 Series/C216 Chipset Family SATA AHCI controller"

The two Asmedia single-lane PCIe 2.0 1061 2-port SATA controllers are then listed below this last entry under Storage Controllers as "Standard SATA AHCI controller".

Currently (under Microsoft standard driver) the Policies section on all four drives shows "Performance" as "checked" and Quick Removal as "Unchecked" but, under Details, the Safely Remove Required property still show a value of <true> (implying that the system still sees these four drives as "external" and requiring Safe Removal procedures.

Shoud I now download the Asmedia driver from the Win8/64-bit section? And are there any rules/procedures required to install?

Dave

a) ASMedia SATA Controller Driver (and printed the "Read Me")

b) Asrock F-Stream Tuning Utility

c) Intel Rapid Start Technology Utility

d) Asrock Re-start to UEFI Utility

e) Asrock XFast USB Utility

All of these are versions as listed on the Asrock Fatal1ty Z77 Professional (Windows 8.0 page)

Please advise is any of these are incompatible with Windows 8,1.

I will wait until I hear from you before installing any of them (once bitten...)

Thanks in advance.

Dave

 

Dave

Greetings, this is ASRock Technical Support Department.

We tested installing a clean Windows 8.1 on Z77 Professional. 

The hard disk will not be "Safety remove" list when connecting at ASMedia port.

On your case, due to this symptom doesn't affect normal application, we recommend you to keep current settings to use the system.

Or connect the disk to Intel SATA port. 

 

Many thanks for response - even if it doesn't really address the problem, it at least gives some input into a diagnostic process.

 

I, too, did a clean Windows 8.1 install on Z77 Professional BUT I did the clean install linked to Microsoft account and it seems to me now - given your feedback - that my problems may be tied to Microsoft Account-linked Windows Updates which are incorporating system settings changes from the system that share the account:

 

a) Asus N750JV laptop (i7-4700HQ; 16GB RAM; 256GB Samsung 850PRO SSD; 1TB WD Red HDD)

b) Desktop: Asrock X99X Killer; i7-5820K; 32GB RAM; 512GB 850PRO; 9 x HDD; 2 x ODD

c) Desktop: Asrock Z77 Professional; i7-3770; 16GB RAM; 512GB 850PRO; 6 x HDD; 2 x ODD

 

The laptop is running Windows 10 Professional 64-bit and the two desktop systems are both running Windows 8.1 Professional 64-bit (both from clean installs).

 

The laptop is fine, and the X99X Killer desktop with 9 x HDD; 1 x SSD and 2 x ODD is also behaving as it should (with only external USB-connected devices showing on the "Safely Remove" list.

 

I hear you about "keeping current settings" but this seems to me a bit like a "let's duck the issue" approach.

The alternative of using Intel SATA ports doesn't quite work either as the system is configured with 10 x SATA devices:

 

6 x Seagate ST3000DM001 3TB hard drives

1 x Western Digital Red 2.5" 1TB hard drive

2 x Optical drives (DVD and BD writers)

1 x Samsung 850PRO SSD

 

The Z77 Professional comes with 6 x Intel SATA ports and 4 x Asmedia SATA ports.

Currently the port:drive allocation is as follows:

 

Intel port 0: SSD

Intel port 1: 2.5" 1TB WD Red

Intel port 2: 3.5" 3TB drive

Intel port 3: 3.5" 3TB drive

Intel port 4: DVD/RW drive

Intel port 5: BD/RW drive

 

Asmedia port 0: 3.5" 3TB drive ("A")

Asmedia port 1: 3.5" 3TB drive ("B")

Asmedia port 2: 3.5" 3TB drive ("B")

Asmedia port 3: 3.5" 3TB drive ("C")

 

The chassis is a Lian-Li PC-Z60 and all six of the 3.5" drive bays are "hot-swap" bays BUT THE BIOS SETTINGS FOR THESE DRIVES ARE ALL SET AS "INTERNAL" (i.e. NOT "Hot-Swap".

 

These last four 3TB drives (A/B/C/D) are the drives that come up on the "Safely Remove" list and they're all connected to the Asmedia SATA6G controller (which is not drive-level configurable in the BIOS).

 

I suppose it would be possible to change the drive:port assignment (via cable switching) so that the four drives currently giving the problem would be attached to the Intel ports and the remaining drives attached to the Asmedia controller. This would permit checking to see if the problem went away or remained a problem - with some additional info to be gained from how the problem remained (i.e. stayed with the port or moved with the drive).  I may have misunderstood, but it seems to me from what I've read, that the BIOS settings and registry entries that govern this "Safe Removal" list operate at a "PORT-LEVEL" and NOT at a "DRIVE-LEVEL"?

 

 

Puzzled...

 

Dave

 

Many thanks for taking the time and making the effort to respond.

What confuses this issue a bit is that the second (new) desktop system is built in another Lian-Li Diamond Series chassis - the PC-Z70 which is basically a full tower version of the mid-tower PC-Z60 and comes equipped with three hot-swap 3-bay modules to provide for a total of 9 3.5" HDDs.

 

This new system, as listed in my earlier post, is built around the X99X Killer board with an i7-5820K CPU, 32GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR4-2133 RAM, a 512GB Samsung 850PRO SSD (as system drive), 6 x 6TB 3.5" HDDs; 3 x 3TB 3.5" HDDs plus the usual pairing of DVD-R/W and BD-R/W.

 

This X99 system was built from new recently and Windows 8.1 Professional 64-bit used as the OS.

 

This X99 system has an add-on PCIe 2.0 1x 2-port SATA6G controller card to provide for the two drives not catered for by the X99's 10 x SATA6G ports. Currently, the two optical drives are running on the add-on card and the SSD and all 9 x HDDs (in their hot-swap bays).

 

 

The only time any devices are listed as requiring "Safe Removal" is when USB devices (flash drives or hard drives) are plugged in via either USB 2.0 or USB 3.0.

 

I've checked both systems and compared the results for the settings in the BIOS and the settings under Device Manager (Policies and Details tabs) and the only differences are in the Device Manager Details section (BIOS and Policies tie up). Under Details, all of the entries that would logically be linked to some Registry entry governing "Safe Removal Required" status, are <false> on the PC-Z70 system and on the PC-Z60 system the Intel ports all also show <false> while the Asmedia ports all show <true>.

 

The problem is that I can't find any mechanism by which to amend these Registry entries besides RegEdit but do NOT know enough about them to be able to:

 

a) Identify which Registry Entries need to be changed

b) What the valid Registry entry values are and how these map to <true> or <false>

c) How to make the necessary changes

d) How to save a copy of the registry before embarking on this exercise

e) How to re-load the registry in the (very likely) event that I screw up the exercise

f) How to test everything

 

It is this lack of experience/knowledge with respect to the Windows Registry that has caused me to try to seek out an alternative mechanism to achieve the changes...

 

 

All drives on both systems have been set to:

 

a) Quick Removal: Unchecked

b) Performance: Checked

 

Despite this, those Asmedia-connected drives still show "Safe Removal Required" as <true> under Device Manager Details...

 

So, sorry, but that did not work...

 

Dave