tomtefar Posted October 10, 2006 Share Posted October 10, 2006 I'm on a nForce4 Ultra (AMD64/SSE2 only) motherboard and none of my 8 SATA connectors are natively supported (naturally) by MacOSX so what to do? I bought this card after reading this forum thread. Of course the drivers found here would not recognize the card. As you can see if you follow the link above the drivers are for BASE only. Reading up a bit on sil 3132 cards I found that there are two different modes such cards can run in: BASE and RAID. BASE means that it runs as an ordinary SATA2 controller and RAID is, well RAID. :smile: What mode it runs in depends on the firmware/BIOS of the card. Naturally mine was a RAID card. So update the firmware/BIOS then? Noooo, because my card uses a Holtek EPROM, i.e. it can only be written once (at manufacturing). I set my RAID card to "concatenation" of each disk, thus using the controller card as a SATA2 controller only. (The card is bootable since I was able to boot Windows from it using only the standard boot.ini/ntldr of XP, see further down for Mac info) Running ioreg -b -x -l | grep 3132 did however reveal that my card showed as compatible with 3132 and as being of PCIClass 0x01800... something. Looking at this page this is interpreted as 01=>Mass storage; 80=> "Other". But mine is raid??? Well just change the Info.plist in the Silicon Image driver directory under /System/Library/Extensions to 0x010400... (keeping the same amount of digits of course) and VOILA, I have SATA2 drives natively!!! So my now are that *any* 3132 card can be used with a Hackintosh. If a card like this one was to be used, I would bet at least that it will also run if the appropriate PCIClass was set for it. (The card in the last link does however seem to be flashable so that you can choose to flash it into BASE or RAID whichever you prefer.) So what now? My install DVD did not see the SATA2 drive so I used "Carbon Copy cloner" to transfer my system to a Mac partition on my SATA2 drive. After coping the partition the thing would still not boot?!? (unless I had the install DVD in my DVD drive). After searching the forum I found this post that made me realise that most certainly I needed to transfer boot1h to the start of my (active) Mac partition. Using the technique presented in this post I managed to get it booting! Adding chain0 to my XP's boot.ini and I now have a fully and natively SATA2 enabled system running off an AMD64 system. Sweeeet. Just wanted to let you guys know. Sorry for all the text. I like to write ok? /tomtefar Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/29859-how-to-boot-from-cheap-pci-e-sata2-addin-card/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaxMachine Posted October 10, 2006 Share Posted October 10, 2006 Good work...!!!! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/29859-how-to-boot-from-cheap-pci-e-sata2-addin-card/#findComment-206282 Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomtefar Posted October 10, 2006 Author Share Posted October 10, 2006 Thanks. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/29859-how-to-boot-from-cheap-pci-e-sata2-addin-card/#findComment-206283 Share on other sites More sharing options...
donh Posted October 11, 2006 Share Posted October 11, 2006 Thanks You should make a more general post with this info and put it in the genus bar forum. There are tons of posts and yours is the first that explained it and led to an answer. I can now boot 3 OSX versions only 1 before. Also booting 2 linuxes and XP and XP64. I am not sure the bless command is needed. I had errors on 1 partition and it still booted. Don Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/29859-how-to-boot-from-cheap-pci-e-sata2-addin-card/#findComment-206853 Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomtefar Posted October 11, 2006 Author Share Posted October 11, 2006 Glad it helped you Donh! Ok, I will make a more detailed write up on this. Hopefully it will be up by sunday. I'm curious, can anyone add things to the genius bar? I thought forum moderators moved things that were of a certain level of uniqueness/cleverness/complexity/usefulness or whatever? Does anyone know how this works? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/29859-how-to-boot-from-cheap-pci-e-sata2-addin-card/#findComment-206895 Share on other sites More sharing options...
donh Posted October 12, 2006 Share Posted October 12, 2006 Glad it helped you Donh! :censored2: Ok, I will make a more detailed write up on this. Hopefully it will be up by sunday. I'm curious, can anyone add things to the genius bar? I thought forum moderators moved things that were of a certain level of uniqueness/cleverness/complexity/usefulness or whatever? Does anyone know how this works? Not sure about the genius thing but I think that is were it belongs! Maybe a moderator will realize that too if needed. I use grub and was getting errors. After this I fixed it and can boot off builtin Sata and large ide. The install disks could not see these so I had to do copy and was missing the boot sector. I knew that was the problem but was unable to fix it till your post pointed the way. I have a thread on hackint0sh about this with more info. Pointed it to here in the solution. Great work thanks again. Don Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/29859-how-to-boot-from-cheap-pci-e-sata2-addin-card/#findComment-207777 Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeSuKuN Posted October 23, 2006 Share Posted October 23, 2006 who do I have to rape to get a sil3132 RAID driver? 8) Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/29859-how-to-boot-from-cheap-pci-e-sata2-addin-card/#findComment-214780 Share on other sites More sharing options...
donh Posted October 25, 2006 Share Posted October 25, 2006 who do I have to rape to get a sil3132 RAID driver? 8) Google? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/29859-how-to-boot-from-cheap-pci-e-sata2-addin-card/#findComment-216164 Share on other sites More sharing options...
greenman100 Posted October 25, 2006 Share Posted October 25, 2006 any xbench results with this card? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/29859-how-to-boot-from-cheap-pci-e-sata2-addin-card/#findComment-216166 Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeSuKuN Posted October 25, 2006 Share Posted October 25, 2006 Google? I've said RAID, the driver that they are talking about here is BASE AFAK Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/29859-how-to-boot-from-cheap-pci-e-sata2-addin-card/#findComment-216189 Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomtefar Posted October 25, 2006 Author Share Posted October 25, 2006 Yes, BASE only. Xbench results for a Samsung 250Gb SATA2 drive on the Sil3132 (disk full of data since it is my system partition): Drive Type SAMSUNG SP2504C Disk Test 40.58 Sequential 87.23 Uncached Write 100.12 61.47 MB/sec [4K blocks] Uncached Write 127.96 72.40 MB/sec [256K blocks] Uncached Read 55.57 16.26 MB/sec [4K blocks] Uncached Read 99.42 49.97 MB/sec [256K blocks] Random 26.44 Uncached Write 8.17 0.86 MB/sec [4K blocks] Uncached Write 111.03 35.55 MB/sec [256K blocks] Uncached Read 83.60 0.59 MB/sec [4K blocks] Uncached Read 126.79 23.53 MB/sec [256K blocks] Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/29859-how-to-boot-from-cheap-pci-e-sata2-addin-card/#findComment-216253 Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomtefar Posted October 25, 2006 Author Share Posted October 25, 2006 More benchmarks: Samsung 400Gb SATA2 on Sil3132: Drive Type SAMSUNG HD401LJ Disk Test 60.28 Sequential 105.98 Uncached Write 131.95 81.01 MB/sec [4K blocks] Uncached Write 141.50 80.06 MB/sec [256K blocks] Uncached Read 63.24 18.51 MB/sec [4K blocks] Uncached Read 137.30 69.01 MB/sec [256K blocks] Random 42.11 Uncached Write 14.49 1.53 MB/sec [4K blocks] Uncached Write 148.98 47.70 MB/sec [256K blocks] Uncached Read 86.40 0.61 MB/sec [4K blocks] Uncached Read 130.21 24.16 MB/sec [256K blocks] Compare to same disk using new nForce drivers (that however do not work too well at the moment for me so don't know what the comparison actually says). Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/29859-how-to-boot-from-cheap-pci-e-sata2-addin-card/#findComment-216259 Share on other sites More sharing options...
gixxer_drew Posted October 27, 2006 Share Posted October 27, 2006 I got SATA drivers going and copied all the data over. Now I get a message if I try to but with the install DVD in that it cannot find com.apple.boot.plist. Anyone know how to fix that? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/29859-how-to-boot-from-cheap-pci-e-sata2-addin-card/#findComment-217454 Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomtefar Posted October 27, 2006 Author Share Posted October 27, 2006 Hmmm... could you be more specific??? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/29859-how-to-boot-from-cheap-pci-e-sata2-addin-card/#findComment-218060 Share on other sites More sharing options...
joneSi Posted October 29, 2006 Share Posted October 29, 2006 I'll try it this week. I plan on ordering the exact card you linked to for the US site. joneSi edit: Where is there firmware that I can flash with the card in the link you posted. Don't see it on Silicone Image website....TIA Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/29859-how-to-boot-from-cheap-pci-e-sata2-addin-card/#findComment-218943 Share on other sites More sharing options...
icehacker Posted January 8, 2007 Share Posted January 8, 2007 can i get some help on sil680 cards i searched for the driver but couldnt find it Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/29859-how-to-boot-from-cheap-pci-e-sata2-addin-card/#findComment-271296 Share on other sites More sharing options...
olav Posted January 10, 2010 Share Posted January 10, 2010 Thanx for this how-to, I tested the siliconimage raid drivers for my card first in leopard but I got several errors when I copied files. Using the base driver with your mod I've been using the card without problems so far. The problems might be related to that I'm using 4 GB of ram, but I cannot se why the base driver should be better then. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/29859-how-to-boot-from-cheap-pci-e-sata2-addin-card/#findComment-1381829 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pheidius Posted May 16, 2010 Share Posted May 16, 2010 hi. I am not sure if this is the right forum but here goes. I am looking at various sil-3132 based PCIe Sata2 cards. I want to run one on an OEM Mac Board:A quad 2.5 PPC 12gb ECC ram. I have a Quadro fx4500 using the 16 times lane. Its cooler blocks the 4 times slot 2. I have a HighPoint Rocket Raid 4322 using the 8 times slot three. I have a Highpoint Rocket Raid 232. It will, not, however either boot a PPC open firmware based Mac; nor will it create an array with two OWC Enterprise RE 50 GN SSD/s. It recognizes the devices as being present but throws an invalid parameter error when you try to raid them. I don't want to let the RR initialize them as I have read that that renders them useless in any other board/device. I am reasonably technically literate and have flashed and modified a few drivers in my day but, unless I am mistaken this forum is assuming that devices need to be made to work on non Apple OEM boards. So, from my general Mac background I assume that in no wise will any Sil-3132 boot an open firmware based board(Though I might do a back flip if someone averred otherwise). But I would still like to buy a card that would at least let me run one of my OWC SSD drives on a 3(or 2.5 host side)gb/s bus. Does anyone know if this model: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx...N82E16816215155 iStarUSA RAID-SIL3132-2ES PCIe x1 (PCI Express 1.1, compatible with a PCI Express 2.0 slot) SATA II Dual Ports eSATA Port Multiplier RAID Controller or the throltle 70137 or any of the delocks on this page http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=e...DVFA_en___US363 I realize all of you are x86ing but It wpould be nice if you could share back some help anyway. Thanks Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/29859-how-to-boot-from-cheap-pci-e-sata2-addin-card/#findComment-1469245 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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