Hello,
Windows XP x64 successfully installed with a disk connected on SATA (White) port.
When trying to install XP x64 on a disk connected to one of SAS/SATA blue port (0-3),
we have a problem with the floppy disk containing the required SAS/SATA driver.
The Windows installer complains about corrupted "iastorA.sys" & "iastorS.sys"files ?
Intel Server Board CD contains drivers for "W2003-x64" flavor, not sure if those are
compatible for XP x64. So Upload "RSTe_Windows_DRV_v3.8.0.1111" (29oct2013)
kit and I retry a fresh XP x64 installation with disk on SAS/SATA without success.
Also try to install W7-x64, W2008 R2 and Linux OpenSuse with those SAS/SATA blue
port without success. W7 and W2008 found the system disk but fail to create disk
partition and Linux did not found any valid disk.
As workaroud, I have just installed a SATA 6 Gb/s 2-port Internal PCIe MSI option
using a Marvell SE9128 host controller chip in order to connect additionnal disks.
With that MSI option: XP-x64, W7-64, W2008 R2 and Linux Suse could be installed
without any problem as on the 2 SATA 6 Gb/s S2600co on-bord "white ports".
I think that there is still a problem with those 4 SAS/SATA blue ports when you dont
have any additionnal RAID option installed. For this default SAS/SATA pass-throught
mode, it would be usefull to have a BIOS Storage sub-menu that display and enabled
the SATA devices connected.
We have other LGA 2011 systems: Asus Rampage IV Gene & MSI X79MA GD45
and we do not have issues with the 6 SATA ports (2 x 6Gb/s & 4 x 3Gb/s) on the
Intel X79 chipset whatever operating systems used.
Beyond I will investigate with a RAID SAS RAID Controller with Write-Back cache
in order to have high performance RAID 10 (6 to 8 SAS disks) using this S2600 board.
Regards, Paco