March 30, 201016 yr Fair call purko. I wasn't aware that this has caused much grief for a lot of people out there. Having said that, if it is disabled or you don't use it, you will be fine. I think as a replacement mobo, i might look at a Abit or better yet a SuperMicro, they both seem to have positive feedback. Why can't you have the cake and eat it too? Check out this thread to see the grief the sudden appearance of an HPA can cause: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=5072.0 You'll understand. How would you like your 1TB disk to suddenly become a 33Meg disk, and the partition re-sized...
March 30, 201016 yr Author OK, I starting to get worried! I know for sure it isn't enabled or have I use such a feature, though I'm thinking of changing the mobo now for a currently available and supported mobo which has 8 SATA ports, CPU type isn't a factor. Any suggestions? Fair call purko. I wasn't aware that this has caused much grief for a lot of people out there. Having said that, if it is disabled or you don't use it, you will be fine. I think as a replacement mobo, i might look at a Abit or better yet a SuperMicro, they both seem to have positive feedback. Why can't you have the cake and eat it too? Check out this thread to see the grief the sudden appearance of an HPA can cause: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=5072.0 You'll understand. How would you like your 1TB disk to suddenly become a 33Meg disk, and the partition re-sized...
March 30, 201016 yr How would you like your 1TB disk to suddenly become a 33Meg disk, and the partition re-sized... Man! That's so......idiotic, I can't stop laughing! That poor guy didn't see anything funny at the time though.
March 30, 201016 yr the 32MB thing is actually a very common issue taht first started with the Samsung F1 1TB due to motherboards reading the cache as teh hdd and not the hdd itself. thre are windows apps that can restore this without any data loss.
March 30, 201016 yr Author I think this feature is labeled by multiple names and is causing some confusion (including myself). So far, I've found this feature to be known as HPA, Virtual Dual BIOS and now 'Backup BIOS Image to HDD', all of which seem to do the same thing on Gigabyte mobo's. I can't find any of the first two named features (HPA or Virtual Dual BIOS) on my mobo's BIOS, box or manual, though I have confirmed my board has the following: Under the Advanced Options, their is an option called 'Backup BIOS Image to HDD'. According to the manual and BIOS help information, this feature simply makes a backup image of the BIOS chip onto to a HDD disk. In the instance that the BIOS fails, it looks up the disk it wrote a backup image too, reads and restores from the created image and your BIOS chip is restored. In my BIOS, I have the option to either 'Enable' or 'Disable' it. Interestingly, on a factory-defaulted BIOS, this particular option would be left 'Enabled' by default. I had Disabled it from the beginning, prior to setting up and getting my server up and running with unraid. I cannot see the other options for HPA or Virtual Dual BIOS anywhere on my mobo's box, manual, BIOS options. Another interesting point, this Virtual Dual BIOS or HPA only seems to be a feature for the S Series Gigabyte mobo's, the ga-ma770-us3 doesn't seem to be a S Series mobo. See link below on this fom Gigabyte: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/FileList/NewTech/2006_motherboard_newtech/tech_20060523_s5_safe.htm I'm would have to suggest for my mobo that the Backup BIOS Image to HDD could be a culprit given it were to be enabled, but in my case (and on a second inspection) it is disabled. In light of this and the link below: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=5820.0 if the CMOS battery were to fail, the 'Backup BIOS Image to HDD' option would be enabled again! So in having said all of this, I'm now considering changing my mobo to another brand. Again, I'm after a mobo with 6 to 8 SATA ports (preferring 8 SATA ports and another brand other than Gigabyte), and preferably with AMD CPU support, but I'm happy to go Intel if the push came to shove. Any suggestions! OK, I starting to get worried! I know for sure it isn't enabled or have I use such a feature, though I'm thinking of changing the mobo now for a currently available and supported mobo which has 8 SATA ports, CPU type isn't a factor. Any suggestions? Fair call purko. I wasn't aware that this has caused much grief for a lot of people out there. Having said that, if it is disabled or you don't use it, you will be fine. I think as a replacement mobo, i might look at a Abit or better yet a SuperMicro, they both seem to have positive feedback. Why can't you have the cake and eat it too? Check out this thread to see the grief the sudden appearance of an HPA can cause: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=5072.0 You'll understand. How would you like your 1TB disk to suddenly become a 33Meg disk, and the partition re-sized...
March 30, 201016 yr Author OK, after light of all of this Gigabyte fiasco, I'm strongly thinking about buying the Asus M4A77TD AMD Mainboard - 4x DDR3 / 6x Sata Raid / 1x IDE / Gigabit Lan. The chipsets match up with compatible hardware on the hardware listing and seems to be a winner. Opinions people, is it a good mobo to go for? Thanks.
March 30, 201016 yr OK, unraided, chill out for a second. Yes, HPA is annoying and potentially disastrous. Yes, your motherboard has it (the Backup BIOS Image to HDD option you mentioned). However, as long as you are aware of it, you can avoid any calamity. Have you ever had a CMOS battery die? I haven't. They are supposed to last 10 years or so, and most motherboards are obsolete by then anyway. Even if your CMOS battery did die, all you would have to do is: 1) Power down and replace the CMOS battery 2) Disconnect all of your hard drives (remove either the power cables, the data cables, or both) 3) Boot into BIOS and disable the HPA option 4) Power down and re-connect all of your hard drives I suppose the issue is your CMOS battery dying years down the line and you forgetting to take these steps. The potential for data loss is there. If you are able to return, repurpose, or resell the Gigabyte board with minimal effort and expense, then go for it. Otherwise, I would suggest just living with it. You will most likely want to upgrade your motherboard within a few years anyway...
March 31, 201016 yr Author Hey Rajahal, I know it might be a little dramatic, but think of it like this was a car. This car has been good, running fine and you have been happy with it. You later find out that the car company have a done a recall on your car for a potential catastrophic problem. This potential catastrophic problem is rare and would only happen if certain circumstances were to occur, though if it did happen, you're in a lot of trouble. You wouldn't chance it and you would take all measures to have your car fixed asap, regardless of the minority of this fault. I'm planning to upgrade a old computer in my spare room anyways, to the existing mobo in my current unraid server and this can go towards that (It will be a Windows-based desktop). The newer board (Asus M4A785T-M) will be the replacement for my unraid server, and it would give me some assurance that this potential problem will never happen. I have too much to chance as everything I backup goes to my unraid server (though I have backups of my critical data), I cannot take any chances knowing the severity of such a simple fault can potential do if it were to happen. OK, unraided, chill out for a second. Yes, HPA is annoying and potentially disastrous. Yes, your motherboard has it (the Backup BIOS Image to HDD option you mentioned). However, as long as you are aware of it, you can avoid any calamity. Have you ever had a CMOS battery die? I haven't. They are supposed to last 10 years or so, and most motherboards are obsolete by then anyway. Even if your CMOS battery did die, all you would have to do is: 1) Power down and replace the CMOS battery 2) Disconnect all of your hard drives (remove either the power cables, the data cables, or both) 3) Boot into BIOS and disable the HPA option 4) Power down and re-connect all of your hard drives I suppose the issue is your CMOS battery dying years down the line and you forgetting to take these steps. The potential for data loss is there. If you are able to return, repurpose, or resell the Gigabyte board with minimal effort and expense, then go for it. Otherwise, I would suggest just living with it. You will most likely want to upgrade your motherboard within a few years anyway...
March 31, 201016 yr Have you ever had a CMOS battery die? I haven't. They are supposed to last 10 years or so, and most motherboards are obsolete by then anyway. ... You will most likely want to upgrade your motherboard within a few years anyway... I've had CMOS batteries die on me. More than once. I don't replace motherboards within few years. If something is good and working I don't mess with it untill the time it falls apart. You may be surprised to know I still have a NT server here. Even if your CMOS battery did die, all you would have to do is: 1) Power down and replace the CMOS battery That's all good, but when that happens, you will fisrst see the HPA mess, before you even know that it was the CMOS battery that had died.
March 31, 201016 yr Author Sadly I have to agree with purko on this serious fact. I'm changing my mobo hopefully on the weekend or early next week to avoid this from ever happening to me. To be honest, I've mostly had CMOS batteries die after 3+ years, but I've seen them die even under 2 years, though this gives me time, I've made up my mind and I'm going for the Asus M4A785T-M (or some other Asus-compatible mobo). This is a little more basic mobo, but it'll do the job and the chipsets and NIC are listed in the Hardware Compatibility listing too. Have you ever had a CMOS battery die? I haven't. They are supposed to last 10 years or so, and most motherboards are obsolete by then anyway. ... You will most likely want to upgrade your motherboard within a few years anyway... I've had CMOS batteries die on me. More than once. I don't replace motherboards within few years. If something is good and working I don't mess with it untill the time it falls apart. You may be surprised to know I still have a NT server here. Even if your CMOS battery did die, all you would have to do is: 1) Power down and replace the CMOS battery That's all good, but when that happens, you will fisrst see the HPA mess, before you even know that it was the CMOS battery that had died.
April 20, 201016 yr I realize this thread is originally for the EP35-DS3R - but I want to report that the P35-DS3R looks to be in good shape. I just upgraded mine to the F13 BIOS and there is a new option to enable "save copy of BIOS to harddisk" (or something along those lines). The F13C (The beta vbersion of F13) did not have this option, but did create HPA's on the disk(s). The best part, that option is DISABLED by default, it was disabled after i jumpered the clr-cmos and it was disabled after I loaded "optimized defaults". I completly understand the urge to change once you have been burned - I feel the same way about Asus products after purchasing a mobo with no c-states (The A7V880 I think, or possibly the A7V133) - they found out the voltage regulators were under-dimensioned and as a "fix" they disabled c-states on the mobo. Not like in put in an option, just discontinued support. I will give this gigabyte a try since the fix they have implemented on the P35-DS3R seems acceptable to me (a lot better than an Asus "fix")
April 20, 201016 yr I had the P35-DS3R with an earlier BIOS version and it did create HPA partitions on some of my drives.. When I tried to flash to F13, it hung itself in the middle of flashing.. can't restore it.. ordered an intel MB now..
April 20, 201016 yr Author I've got to say that the Asus M4A785T-M board has been this far a great (a little limited on expansion slots) board and i have mo worries, no regrets and I can sleep easier now that i don't have to worry about this HPA issue.
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