POST ERROR with SiL3132 SATA Softraid 5 Express Card on T60 wide

[harkman]

I have a issue with my T60 widescreen model. I bought a dual port SATA II express card based on the Silicon Image Chip SiI3132.
If i start my T60 with this card inserted i get a following POST error:

ERROR 
Expansion ROM not initialized - PCI Mass Storage Controller in slot 02
 Bus_04. Device:00. Function:00
 
Press <ESC> to continue

 Now one could say the Problem is the controller but I can assure you it is not. I testet the controller in 3 other Laptops and all did properly initialized the controller.

I really need this thing to boot from external disks and because there are only Controllers based on this chipset I desperately need a BIOS update for my Thinkpad.

Any help appreciated.

[mnarlock]

I have this *exact* problem with the new W700 laptop.  Any ideas for a resolution?

[harkman]

Only as a remark. The BIOS Update to version v1.15 from December 14. 2008 did not fix this problem.

 I want to express my disappointment that Lenovo can not deliver a BIOS that will work with a widely used s-ata chipset.

As long as there is no internal e-sata port on Thinkpads, buying another Lenovo  is no option to me any longer.

[aka]

Harkman,

Thank you very, very much for that information. I'm dismayed to hear that Lenovo isn't paying heed to this BIOS issue. If anyone knows how Harkman can actually get this message through to the BIOS tech team, it would be greatly, greatly appreciated.

Wouldn't you all like to have the capability of booting off of, say, an eSATA RAID array?

[2xodDOTcom]

unfortunately I find that overall esata support is poor at best. I can barely run virtual machines off an esata expresscard. Certainly that is not going to be good for booting from.

I think it will be a few more generations before we have integrated estat ports that will be more stable, or at least better drivers and asics to fully support cheap high speed external storage.

[aka]

Ok, so we're dealing with a huge organization here with a lot of opinions within, but what's truly laughable to me is coming across references in the ThinkVantage Active Protection System literature that says, "if you're running RAID, please make sure you've got the most recent version of the Intel Matrix Storage Manager driver installed before updating APS." Clearly Lenovo product line managers KNOW these laptops are powerhouses, they just want to sell the latest. As soon as they introduce any newer model, they go out of their way to be unresponsive and to act like their "older" models (often that they're still happy to sell you!) are all OBSOLETE. Such absolute crap. Really.

2xodDOTcom, check out Keith Combs blog at MS TechNet on running multiple VMs on a ThinkPad T61p, using an eSATA connector. Might give you some ideas. RAM is key.

[jonlumpkin]

I have a similar question relating to ExpressCard SSDs (in particular this MTron model that is PCI-Express X1 attached).

I would like to use this as a boot drive on my x200 Tablet.  However, I don't know if this is supported by the present BIOS.  I fear that I may be in the same situation with an ExpressCard SSD as you are in with an ExpressCard E-Sata device.

Does anyone have any experience using these types of devices, and thoughts on making them bootable?? Note that my OS of choice for this SSD would most likely be Windows 7 x64 (should behave the same as Vista from a boot standpoint).  I would like to get a definitive answer before I drop ≈$150 on 16GB of storage.

[harkman]

I'd recommend you take your Thinkpad to a dealer selling this SSD card and check if it works. IMHO the only way to be sure right now.

[aka]

Jon,

I'm all for fixing the BIOS, and this may be an off-base question, but ... 

Is there really an advantage anyway to a 16GB ExpressCard SSD? 16GB is going to be cutting it close with Windows 7, when you factor in Restore Points, Shadow Copies, Pagefile, and locally-installed applications. I would hesitate to say it'll have sufficient headroom. 

a.k.a.

[jonlumpkin]

I agree 16GB is cutting it close, but this is the only decent ExpressCard SSD currently available (almost all the others are USB attached and dirt slow).  This one promises to compare favorably with the 64GB Samsung SLC drive that originally shipped with the x300.

I think with the combination of Vlite, disabling system restore (I never use it), disabling hibernation (again rarely use it), and using a small fixed pagefile, I should be able to make 16GB work.  Especially because I would be pairing it with a very large, albeit relatively slow, 320GB 5400RPM HDD for data files and those applications that take a very large amount of space to install.

Basically, I want the best of both worlds.  At the moment quality SSDs are too expensive, on a per GB level, to be my only storage type in my ThinkPad.  However, by dividing my data between a very fast SSD, and a comparitively slow (and very cheap) HDD, I can achieve both the speed and storage I want at a price I can afford.