Well hello everybody. It's been a long time since I've been the one asking for help and not giving it instead. This hasn't been much fun the last two nights.

So, I got my first Hitachi 0078FK drive to play with, and I expected no problems at all. I was going to be using my MSI K8T Neo-V with onboard VIA VT8237 chipset. I had read through the 78 thread and have seen people that have used this chipset to flash their drives. I had used this same chipset on all the other Xbox 360 drives with no problems at all. Slax 1 even worked with it!

The first thing I try has nothing to do with my motherboard at all. I wanted to see if my SATA > USB adapter would work or not, because so far nobody has been able to get the X360USB or generic SATA > USB adapters working. So, I hook up the 78 drive to my notebook with the adapter, run Slax 2, it puts the drive into ModeB just fine, Windows picks up the drive perfectly, and 360 Firmware Toolbox locks up on the read. All to be expected, and all working just how others had reported.

Switch over to the desktop with the VIA 8237. Drive isn't detected in BIOS, and Slax fails to put the drive into ModeB. Slax gives me this:


I tried a brand new SATA cable, both ports on the motherboard, setting the SATA to SATA mode, setting it to RAID mode. I tried every version of the Slax CD, but I highly doubt that's the problem. When I do have the drive hooked up, my POST sits at detecting IDE drives for about 2 minutes before finally saying "None".

I was able to use this same motherboard for every Samsung and Hitachi drive before this. I have never needed anything else, no problems at all.

With no idea what else to do, I try upgrading my PC BIOS. I was already having problems, then they got a lot worse. A bad BIOS flash. My desktop now reboots every 3 seconds, no bad BIOS flash recovery, I have to RMA the board and wait a month before I get it back.

It doesn't end there .. I go out to the closest computer place and they only have one AMD 754 board .. an MSI with VIA VT8237. Since it's the only board they have, I buy it and cross my fingers.

Brand new board, same old problems. Drive doesn't detect in BIOS, and Slax fails to put the drive into ModeB. Tried different sata cables, both ports, all three Slax CD's.

Id say its a problem with your sata, best bet would be to try a different card as ive read of problems with the 8237s (the onboard ones atleast).

Well, that's TWO 78 drives now. Neither recognized in BIOS and neither put into ModeB using Slax. Looks like VIA and 78's don't mix well, or at least some of them.

have you or anyone tried the VIA6421 chipset?
sorry if its a dumb idea.

I had similar problem with same chipset on a gigabyte via board m8. resolved by powering the just 360 after the post screen on pc,boot slax 2, then reset pc. otherwise the pc would hang on detecting ide. after that, all reading and writing went as plan.hope this helps.

BTW when im mode b then, it didn`t hang on reboot after reset, just loaded up windows fine.

I've tried that as well. In fact, that's how I've always done it is powered on right when I see the <ISOLINUX> before Slax loads. It still didn't put the drive into ModeB. I'll keep working at it, maybe try a MS25 in 0800 mode to ModeB 78 hotswap and see if that works.

I think I saw a board at the computer shop with the Nforce chipset. If I can't get this tonight, I'll probably get that.

@jabroniekilla, I actually used to have a 6421L chipset but I sold it to somebody who badly needed it. I figured my onboard 8237 was fine, it was working on all other drives, I saw no reason to keep the card when I had a nearly identical onboard. Now I wish I hadn't sold it.

Thanks for the replies.

If I lived Near Flint Mich, I would bring my 6421 over for you to try it.

My Via VT 6421 works fine with the 78 I just had to leave the tray open after I got the login screen for Slax 2 for it to show up in windows

Hope you get it working

I know they say the SIL chipset won't work sometimes with the 0078FK but my SIL3112a (Adaptec card) worked fine. So far, I've done 4 0078 drives with it, all 100% successful. SLAX 1 put it into modeB, slax2 didn't.

Did it say anything about a bad dump or anything with the Sil

Yeh ive been trying to get it to work with the same chipset on board and keep getting a bad cheksum error. What drivers do you have installed for the sata? Do you have the nforce drivers installed ect..?

Hmm.. Adaptec card.. I might have to pick that up at my Best Buy tomorrow. Thanks for your post, I didn't know anybody got SIL working. I guess it's worth a shot.

I've got the same 3112a card by the looks of things - mine donesn't work at all (bad checksum etc)

How'd you get it to work?

Get a Via card as most Sil chips won't work




I didn't end up using my Sil 3512 as it gave me the bad cheksum error and I got 2 different keys each time I dumped the firmware I ended up using my Via 6421

I've got the default Windows XP Drivers provided by Adaptec for my SIL3112a. I never installed the CD-ROM drivers that came with it. Of the 4 drives I've done, I've gotten the same key twice, and flashed. Maybe it's the default driver. Coule be that I have the Set PCI Priority mode set in the BIOS. I don't know why mine is working when you guys are having bad checksums.
Did you guys use SLAX1 to get the drive in modeB or Slax2?

I just wanted to let you guys know that the drives have been flashed. I did myself a favor and went out and bought an Abit NF8-V2 with the Nforce3 Sata chipset. Installed Windows, had the drives flashed in minutes, did nothing different from what I was doing with the 8237 boards. So, this is one of those cases where the user may be doing everything correctly, but dealing with incompatible hardware.

I just talked to somebody else with a VIA 6421L and he had the same problems, but it worked fine using his onboard ICH5 chipset. So, at this time, it's best to use onboard ICH or Nforce chipsets. Hopefully somebody can get SATA > USB working with the firmware toolbox.

I have 4 of 74 Hitachi 78 that can't be detected by SlaxCD 2.1 + VT6421L or VT8237
I did them using an onboard ICH5 successfully.
Hitachi 78 seems to noy be 100% compatible with VIA SATAs.

Hitachi drives must be turned into Mode B to be flashed in Windows, I have TWO suggestions:
1. Using SlaxCD Hitachis can be turned into Mode B, maybe there's some way to flash the drive using the same Linux without resetting to Windows?
2. Archive other way to get into Mode B, beside of SlaxCd

So it looks like you have a 95% chance of getting it working with VIA and a 5% chance of it not working. And I got two drives in a row that didn't work Just my luck I suppose.

I've just flashed two 78FKs successfully. Can't remember the date of the first, but the second drive was made in September 2006.

The third one does not want to play ball AT ALL with my onboard VIA though. Tried PnP on, PnP off, disabled firewire (a suggestion I spotted elsewhere on the forum), nothing. JMicron USB jobbie doesn't want to play with it, either, although to be honest this doesn't like any 0078FK drive.

Drive details (compare with yours if you're having problems):-

Manufactured: July 2006

Model: GDR-3120L
X800475-014
E-H023-05-1094(B)

S/N: 607HG339***
ROM ver: 0078FK

(if quoting this post or posting info, disable emoticons otherwise the E-H023... line gets a smiley at the end)

tried 3 078s with my 6421+Slax 2.1. None were detected during the slax boot up. Once i switched to my onboard sata ports on the motherboard (NF4) id get the "spinning up disc" message every time. Press eject (and leave tray open), continues to load Slax, reset, boot into windows, and drive is detected/flashed.

For some reason it just refuses to work with my VIA 6421 sata card

Tried using a PCMCIA SATA card (SIL 3112 chipset) to put another one of these fussy 0078FK drives into mode B. That worked OK, but when I plugged the drive back into the VIA onboard and rebooted (drive still powered, drive still in mode B, drive still taking 2 presses of the button to eject it) the BIOS still wouldn't pick it up. Damn...