Hitachi 78 Annoyances

[croatoan]

First time I have tried to flash a hitachi 78. Been having a few issues with firmware toolbox and drive detection in windows xp.

completely hit and miss as to whether windows will detect the drive or not. Using a VT6421 controller card which has been fine for other drives.

Seem to be able to get the drive into mode b, either by podgers mode_b command line and / or jungle flashers method. Put original in, ejects then get it to stay in all fine.

Now windows eithers takes 5 minutes to boot on restart or drive just not detected. Have managed to get it detected once fine.

This was enough to dump the firmware and obtain the key, have also created the 1.4 xtreme firmware.

Now the big issue is that

1. Rarely detects it in xp when in mode b.
2. Took 10 attempts to dump firmware, toolbox just hangs and have to restart. Tried other firmware toolbox versions.
3. Obviously with a 90% crash rate in firmware toolbox...........no mug is going to attempt to flash a drive lol.

Been reading about using sata 0 on motherboard and using legacy rather than an add on card such as the via.

Not really an option as my 680i and OS is running off the board as RAID using these ports. Hence the VT6421.

Any ideas guys? Did consider buying a £50 old desktop machine just for this purpose but dont really do enough to justify it.

[saleem]

yes,vt6421 can be right pain in the ass with hitachi.

i would have said to use onboard.use the master sata port,0 would be the master or 1.

i find having the dvdrom and hdd on ide2 is best,on 1 ide lead of course and set the bios to compatable i think it is,so you got primary sata+ide slave.
:)

[croatoan]

Cheers for getting back saleem.

Problem is Have 4 HD in my pc on my NF6 board. SATA 0 + 1 are configured in RAID for the OS and 2 other HD just in SATA IDE. Plus 2 IDE DVD drives.

Dont really fancy wrestling with my GTX280 and rewiring the whole pc just to flash a £36 360 I just fixed that had the old E74.

Have managed to do a few Benq,MS25,MS28. Even got a CK3 pro to do a lite on although never actually got round to using it as Oggy flashed it in the end.

Think I am going to continue my search for a cheap £50 p4 desktop, did see a Small form factor for £45 that would do the job but only takes low profile PCI cards...............obviously want to put my vt6421 in it..................brackets full height but cards deffo small enough lol.

Plus it would be good not taking my gaming pc to bits every other week ;)

[croatoan]

All good now, just thought F%$£ it and flashed it. Went fine.
Did try the sata onboard but locked up on bios detect when in mode b.

Alls well that ends well, a fully working 360 for £36 that plays back ups. Not a bad deal unless you consider the amount of time i wasted lol.

Hitachi 79 next..............like a little game this is :)