Hard Disk Monitoring

I'm new to HDS and not understanding why the program isnt displaying information for my 2 internal HDD's.

My PC is an HP model HPE-519 running W7 64 bit. The original drive (C drive) is a Samsung HD103SJ, it is a ATA drive and HDS is displaying no information for it.
I also installed a Seagate Barracuda ST32000641AS, also an ATA drive. HDS is displaying no information for it.

The only drive its displaying info for is an external HDD.

This is odd because every other drive monitor program I've tried has done just the opposite, externals werent monitored, internals were. Of all the HDD's I have I need the 2 internal monitored for sure.

Am I doing something wrong?

Dear Rocks911,

Excuse me for the situation. The issue is usually independent from the hard disk models.

Usually the hard disk controller driver causes problems as it may block detection of hard disk status information or provide invalid status for software.
Most software does not care about this issue and report (even false) status information for hard disks, but Hard Disk Sentinel has a special filter to check if the provided status information is accurate and displays it only if so.
This is exactly why the Support -> Driver Zone page is available, as it contains the best working version of drivers for the most common hard disk controllers.
Please check the "Hard disk controller" on the Information page and try to download and install the driver for that controller to have the real, valid hard disk status information displayed in Hard Disk Sentinel. As you may notice, this is completely ignored by other software.

If possible, can you please Report -> Send test report to developer option?
This way I can quickly check the current hard disk controller, the driver and advise immediately about which driver would help in the situation.
This would also confirm if there is anything wrong which could be improved in the software for the current situation to improve the compatibility.

I'm away from my PC so cant send a report now.

I made some notes:

I accessed Device Manager/Storage Controller
and there were 2 entries:
1. AMD AHCI Compatible RAID Controller (In trying to update Windows indicated the best driver was installed. The driver is 3.1.1540.127)
2. AMD RAID Console (Windows updated the driver. The driver listed is 3.1.1540.127)

I'm guessing I need the AMD SATA AHCI controller version: 1.2.1.263 (Windows 7 64 bit) listed on your site installed for #1 above? But wow those version numbers are way different!

In this situation you will need to have the driver 3.2.1540.92, the very first one from the page.
There are two links: one is the complete chipset package and the other is a small file with the required driver for manual update (sometimes the complete chipset package does not perform the update well, in this case manual update may be required).

Yes, there are different AMD AHCI RAID controllers available - with completely different driver versions (as you can see). To make things more confused, they do not have different name (to distinguish them), so I completely agree that the driver version may help to check which is the better, more recent driver.
The Report -> Send test report to developer option contains this information, so I could use it to help selecting the proper driver.

Also (if you do not have RAID array on this AMD controller and you do not prefer to download), you may select to install Microsoft "Standard AHCI Compatible" driver for the controller as it will also work - sometimes even better than the driver provided by AMD.

Ps. I sent a private message also.

Thanks for the reply.

Do I apply the 3.2.1540.92 driver to the RAID controller, or the RAID console?

Also, I dont not have a RAID configuration. I have 3 independent simple disks.

On the "AMD AHCI Compatible RAID Controller". Because it is AHCI compatible, the mentioned "Standard AHCI driver" should also work (because there is no RAID configured on it).

There is no need to perform anything with the RAID console.

Windows is complicating this.
I try to install a new driver and get the message "Windows has determined that the current driver is the best..." no way around it.
So I choose roll back driver, which it does from 3.1.1540.127 to 3.1.1540.151 both of which are 2009 drivers.
I try to update the rolled back driver and get the same message "Windows has determined..."

They sure make this difficult.

There is an option to delete the driver but I'm afraid I'll lose everything and not be able to boot into Windows.

Kinda stuck

Windows driver update never updates the driver correctly, even if the name suggests that
So we always need to find and manually update the drivers from the Support -> Driver Zone.

Please try any of the following two options (maybe try A and if it does not work, try B)

Option A: update with the official AMD driver:

Download http://www.hdsentinel.com/driver/amd_ra ... 540.92.zip
and extract to a new folder (for example: C:\AMDAHCI )
Then to install, please

1) right click on Computer, select Properties -> Device Manager
2) locate "AMD AHCI Compatible RAID Controller" device. It is located in the IDE/ATA controllers or Storage controllers section.
3) Right click on this device, select Update driver software and select "Browse my computer for driver software"
4) Select Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer and specify the folder C:\AMDAHCI

After clicking on Next, the installation begins and when completed, you will need to restart the computer.


Option B: update the driver to Standard AHCI Controller driver:

The "Standard AHCI controller" driver does not require download, it is supplied in the system.
So to install "Standard AHCI controller" driver, you will need to

1) open Computer (right click) Properties -> Device Manager
2) locate "AMD AHCI Compatible RAID Controller" device from the IDE/ATA controllers or Storage controllers section.
3) Right click on this device, select Update driver software
4) Browse my computer for driver software
5) Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer
6) from the list, select "Standard AHCI ..." driver and proceed the installation.

After installation and re-start, things should be working.


If something is not available in option A or B or you do not find the next step, please send a screenshot or information about the current step to info@hdsentinel.com and then I can advise.

Excuse me for the issue in the name of AMD - as they should provide correct, working drivers to prevent such problems on your system.

Thanks for the help. Unfortunately I have been away. I have tried your suggestions and the following are the results:

Method A: At step 4 I specified the folder "the folder C:\AMDAHCI" and got a reply that "The folder you specified does not contain driver software...", so in the search box I entered the address of the downloaded file from your site "C:\Users\D's\Downloads\amd_11-2_win7_32-64_raid" and it could not find an .inf file. The file on your site is an .exe file not an .inf file so it wasnt even recognized. I figured if it's an .exe file I'll just install it from its downloaded folder by clicking on the file. It isnt even a hard disk driver file, it's a display driver:


Option B: At step 6 "from the list, select "Standard AHCI ..." driver..." was not an option. There were 3 drivers listed all with a 2009 date, which the current driver has, so I didnt think it would make much difference but I tried anyways and the installation timed out without successfully installing the driver.

I think I'll surf AMD's site and try to find a current driver in the .inf format.

I can't understand.
The link I suggested: http://www.hdsentinel.com/driver/amd_ra ... 540.92.zip
is a small driver package, containing the INF file and SYS file.

Yes, the big EXE is a complete chipset package (including VGA driver). The problem is that in most cases it does not update driver as should, this is why I recommended the http://www.hdsentinel.com/driver/amd_ra ... 540.92.zip package.
It is only 200 Kbytes and contain 4 files you would need to extract to the C:\AMDAHCI folder and then proceed the installation.


It is interesting, the "Standard" driver should also work without problems - it should be selectable if you enable to show the compatible devices.

I must be jet lagged. I downloaded the driver from the address you provided and it works fine now.

Thanks you so much. The support you provide is incredible and I am directing everybody I know to your product.

Thanks.

Thanks!
I'm glad if I could help

rocks911 wrote:I must be jet lagged. I downloaded the driver from the address you provided and it works fine now.

Thanks you so much. The support you provide is incredible and I am directing everybody I know to your product.

Thanks.