[Fiery]

First of all, it can't be overemphasized that this is not a real solution for the existing issues about nVIDIA Vista SATA controller driver issues, but it's just a workaround that can be used to get back the missing SMART information and HDD temperature.

As we've already posted into several topics about the same question/concern, SMART information (including HDD temperature) is missing on nVIDIA chipsets under Vista, because the current nVIDIA Platform Drivers for Vista (Version 15.00) do not have support for that. Hence it's no fault of EVEREST, and it's not possible to see SMART information in other software either (like Active SMART, SpeedFan, HWiNFO32), and even nVIDIA's own Control Panel won't show SMART information in non-RAID mode.

We've already notified nVIDIA's driver team about this issue, but so far they didn't come up with a new, fixed driver yet. Let's hope this workaround is only necessary for a short time until nVIDIA rolls out a new driver package with a better storage controller driver.

Note: SMART information for RAID array members is not supported by RAID controllers, except for LSI MegaIDE and 3ware PATA/SATA controllers. It's yet again a limitation of RAID driver software, and cannot be fixed from software products like EVEREST.

Also note that the workaround explained below is only suitable for non-RAID configurations, since it is based on non-RAID driver swapping. Even if one would hack WinXP nVIDIA SATA RAID drivers into Vista, it wouldn't make SMART information or HDD temperature work at all.

*** Technical Backgrounds ***

The problem is about the NVSTOR.SYS driver, which is the driver for nVIDIA SATA controllers (in non-RAID mode) under Vista. Previously -- under WinXP -- the driver for SATA controllers (in non-RAID mode) was called NVATA.SYS.

The old NVATA.SYS driver is an IDE/ATA/ATAPI controller driver that can pass SMART commands from Windows or Windows software (like EVEREST) to SATA drives without any issues. Hence this topic is only about Vista driver (NVSTOR.SYS), which on the other hand is a driver that conforms to the SCSI specifications, and it makes nVIDIA SATA controllers to appear as Fibre Channel SCSI controllers to Windows Vista device manager. And since SMART is unsupported for SCSI controllers and SCSI hard disk drives, Windows (and so all software that detects and displays SMART information) cannot pass SMART commands to the SATA drives connected to nVIDIA SATA controllers.

*** Workaround Description ***

1) Go to the driver download page of nVIDIA:

http://www.nvidia.co...ers/drivers.asp

2) Select "Platform / nForce Drivers", select your chipset, select "Windows XP/2000" (not Vista). Click Go button.

3) Download the package, it should be a big EXE file. Right-click on the EXE file, and use WinRAR's right-click context menu option "Extract to ..." to extract all files from the EXE package. Of course you can use alternative methods to extract the archive and its content from the setup package.

4) Go to the extracted folder, navigate to the IDE\WinXP\sata_ide folder.

5) In there you can find the old NVATA driver (for WinXP), that you need to install under Vista for each of your SATA controllers (using Device Manager) manually:

6) Start Device Manager, expand the "Storage controllers" group. Here you should find 2 or 3 identical entries for your nVIDIA SATA controllers. Each controller handles 2 SATA ports.

7) Right-click on the first controller, select "Update driver software". Select "Browse my computer for driver software".

8) Push the "Browse" button, navigate to the extracted folder of the WinXP nForce driver package, go to the above mentioned IDE\WinXP\sata_ide folder of the WinXP driver package.

9) Push the "Next" button, and it should be done for the first controller, you can push the "Close" button. Do not restart Windows just yet.

10) Do steps #7..#9 for the remaining nVIDIA SATA controller(s) in Device Manager.

11) When all controllers are done, you should see them disappear from the "Storage controllers" group. It's absolutely normal, since now your SATA controllers are in the "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" group.

12) Now restart Windows. Then start EVEREST v4.00, go to Storage / ATA and Storage / SMART pages of EVEREST to verify if your drives are there, and SMART info is available now. You can also navigate to the Computer / Sensor page of EVEREST to verify if the temperatures for your hard drives are there now.

*** Warning ***

Installing a WinXP storage driver under Vista may cause data loss or instability, so only perform the explained workaround when you clearly know what you're doing. We do not take any responsibilities about any harm caused by this kind of driver hacking.


Regards,
Fiery

[Anno]

I tried this workaround and it worked perfectly, but, after about one hour, something strange
happened with my hard drives: they seemed to go into sleep mode, and when they woke up,
I got a message saying that my Vista system was no longer activated.
Could it be linked to the XP drivers on a Vista OEM system?

After that, I just reverted to a previous back-up image of my system.

I've got also to say that this is a new system for me, and that I had countless problems with it so far
(Vista wouldn't install at first, lots of freeze and BSOD, cannot install 3DMark06...). So, I
cannot say for sure that what happened was directly linked with the update of the sata drivers.

Also, so far, I have not installed the nForce 15.00 drivers, I am running with the ones that
Vista installed by default: nvstor.sys (5.10.2600.822) that appears under the "IDE ATA/ATAPI
controllers".

One last point: I have selected "load Everest on windows startup", but that never worked (I have
UAC disabled), except when I used the XP Sata drivers, where it worked flawlessly...

Anyway, keep the good work with Everest!

==================
System: E6600 + Asus Striker Bios 1004 + 2*1024 OCZ PC-8500 + 2*320Go Sata Western Digital +
Vista + EVGS 8800GTX + wireless adapter + onboard sound

[Fiery]

I don't think the activation issues has anything to do with the SATA controller driver, but ... it's a driver hacking, so anything is possible

Thanks for posting your experiences.


Regards,
Fiery

[mason]

Thanx a lot Fiery!!! Worked like a charm!! Now, even HDDLife works.

[Fiery]

Thanx a lot Fiery!!! Worked like a charm!! Now, even HDDLife works.

Thanks for the feedback

[MrSniffer]

*** Workaround Description ***

1) Go to the driver download page of nVIDIA:

http://www.nvidia.co...ers/drivers.asp

2) Select "Platform / nForce Drivers", select your chipset, select "Windows XP/2000" (not Vista). Click Go button.

3) Download the package, it should be a big EXE file. Right-click on the EXE file, and use WinRAR's right-click context menu option "Extract to ..." to extract all files from the EXE package. Of course you can use alternative methods to extract the archive and its content from the setup package.

4) Go to the extracted folder, navigate to the IDE\WinXP\sata_ide folder.

5) In there you can find the old NVATA driver (for WinXP), that you need to install under Vista for each of your SATA controllers (using Device Manager) manually:

6) Start Device Manager, expand the "Storage controllers" group. Here you should find 2 or 3 identical entries for your nVIDIA SATA controllers. Each controller handles 2 SATA ports.

Let me say how happy I was to find this workaround, after days of web searching and article reading. But there is a slight dsicrepancy in step (6), when I use Vista Ultimate (32 bit) RTM. The nForce SATA controllers to be modified are found under the "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller" section of the Device Manager. [The Storage Controller group has an iSCSI initiator before and after the workaround.] If you look at the properties of the SATA controllers, you will see NVSTOR.sys shown as the current driver. The procedure shown changes that to NVATA.sys, and now SMART information is available.

Woo hoo!

[MarkC]

Hi Fiery,

Not sure if you can help here but since plugging in a SATA DVD Drive this fix no longer works as I get a Blue Screen when Booting giving me an error in NVATA.DLL.

I have tried to just change the drivers on the 2 SATA channels I have SATA Hard Dirves connected but not the one which has the DVD Drive and still have the same problem.

There have been some updated SATA Vista drivers from NVidia, not sure if you have had a chance to look at these as perhaps they may have fixed the temp reporting, does Everest need to be tweaked to reflect this?

Just grabbing at straws as from your first post I realise that it is a driver issue rather than an Everest one.

Many Thanks.

[Fiery]

We're still in contact with nVIDIA about this issue, and they still has no more recent drivers to fix this up


Regards,
Fiery

[Dan The Man]

We're still in contact with nVIDIA about this issue, and they still has no more recent drivers to fix this up
Regards,
Fiery

Shame.

I trust you'll update this topic when (hopefully) nVidia gets its act together?

[Fiery]

Of course we will.

[John Stuart]

"11) When all controllers are done, you should see them disappear from the "Storage controllers" group. It's absolutely normal, since now your SATA controllers are in the "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" group."

On my OS, it's the reverse! I started with the SATA controllers in the IDE ATA/ATAPI group, now, the "Storage Controllers" group exists with the SATA controllers there instead. Weird! Furthermore, the SMART drive data still does not show up.

This post has been edited by John Stuart: 10 October 2007 - 03:47 PM

[reholli]

Has anyone tried this workaround for Vista 64-bit using the corresponding driver from XP 64-bit?

[MarkC]

Has anyone tried this workaround for Vista 64-bit using the corresponding driver from XP 64-bit?

Hi, yes I have. The first time it worked fine but after a rebuild it seemed to work and provide the smart info but I started to get I/O errors so updated to the proper drivers. I presume some other update from M$ may have caused the I/O`s along with the XP Drivers. I have not tried since as just cannot be bothered to but I will add that it is really easy to re-install the correct drivers if you have issues.

I never lost any data and any issues were quickly corrected by a diskcheck.

Sorry I cannot be more specific, it does work but you may get I/O errors.

[reholli]

Hi, yes I have. The first time it worked fine but after a rebuild it seemed to work and provide the smart info but I started to get I/O errors so updated to the proper drivers. I presume some other update from M$ may have caused the I/O`s along with the XP Drivers. I have not tried since as just cannot be bothered to but I will add that it is really easy to re-install the correct drivers if you have issues.

I never lost any data and any issues were quickly corrected by a diskcheck.

Sorry I cannot be more specific, it does work but you may get I/O errors.

MarkC...

You were plenty specific, and I appreciate your response.

I think I'll just hold off on trying this...the thought of I/O errors leaves me uncomfortable.

It would be nice to have the S.M.A.R.T. info, but it's the drive temperatures that I really miss. I'm dual-booting with XP Pro SP2 32-bit, so I can still check them when I really want to know.

Anyway, thanks again for your response.

[dicht]

Hi,

on nVIDIA non RAID configurations, its also possible to update the driver and then use the Standard PCI IDE driver from Microsoft for the nVIDIA Controller.
Means open device manager choose the nVIDIA Controller under IDE ATA\ATAPI Controller update driver search my computer choose out of a list and then select the Standard IDE driver. Do this for all nVIDIA Controllers shown in Device Manager and reboot.

Now SMART information should also be available.
Works for me on 3 MoBos with nNVIDIA SATA Controller in NON RAID configurations.

regards
dicht

[MarkC]

Hi,

on nVIDIA non RAID configurations, its also possible to update the driver and then use the Standard PCI IDE driver from Microsoft for the nVIDIA Controller.
Means open device manager choose the nVIDIA Controller under IDE ATA\ATAPI Controller update driver search my computer choose out of a list and then select the Standard IDE driver. Do this for all nVIDIA Controllers shown in Device Manager and reboot.

Now SMART information should also be available.
Works for me on 3 MoBos with nNVIDIA SATA Controller in NON RAID configurations.

regards
dicht

Be Careful here!

I tried this as I had some time to kill, firstly it dramatically reduced disk access and R/W speeds as well as preventing my PC from going to Sleep mode. I had to restore to a previous date 3 times before it sorted itself.

It could obviously be down to running SP1 or the other components I have in my PC and a conflict in drivers but just be wary.

Vista x64 SP1
Abit IN9 32X Max
2* 8800 Ultra

[jabloomf1230]

We're still in contact with nVIDIA about this issue, and they still has no more recent drivers to fix this up
Regards,
Fiery

I read online recently that the SMART monitoring has been left out of the nForce drivers for Vista on purpose. nVidia's logic (???) is that the SMART error reporting is highly inaccurate and in essence, useless. I'd tend to agree with this, since I have had HDDs fail tests in various disk troubleshooting programs and the SMART information looked perfect. The reporting of the SMART monitoring information supposedly slows down disk access and since most users could care less about HDD temperatures, the benefits of enabling this option are negligible. I suppose this makes some sense, since unlike your CPU and GPU, you can't overclock your HDDs.

I find this hard to believe and besides, why not just have an option to turn off SMART in the driver?

[Fiery]

If that's true, they may have a point... But, since HDD temperature is still a part of SMART information block, and since monitoring HDD temperature is always a good idea (well, except for some WD drives where the temperature diode is inaccurate), we should still have an option to monitor HDD temperature in some way.

IMHO it's due to re-think the temperature monitoring of hard disk drives. It would be great if manufacturers implemented a new method, by using SMBus, USB or something like that. I guess nVIDIA's ESA initiative could be an answer:

http://www.anandtech...doc.aspx?i=3145

They could put a mini-USB connector on the back of the HDDs (next to the SATA power connector) that you could connect to your motherboard. Also, that would be a solution to the SMART/temperature monitoring of RAID arrays... And it would also be great if they put multiple sensors inside the HDD, since temperatures tend to be quite different on various places of the HDD case.

Such a solution would also enable manufacturers to have mainstream and enthusiasts disk drives of the same kind: for example $200 for a 500 GB disk without the USB connector, and $230 for the same drive with USB connector.

Well, dream on... I don't see such things to happen anytime soon


Regards,
Fiery

[ajdo]

Thx for these nVIDIA SMART/VISTA info.
Have been scratching my head and looking on the web for weeks now about SMART and HD temp issue.
Built an ASUS Striker Extreme configuration with Vista64.
Tried the workaround using XP64 driver. The workaround worked... for a while anyway...
My system rebooted once and froze twice the same day. Never did this before.
Reverted to original drivers and so far, I am back as I was before with a stable configuration.
Rather not have SMART available with a stable system and wait until nVIDIA update their VISTA drivers.. If they ever do! Lol
!!! Make sure you create a restore point before applying workaround !!!
To bad it was nice to be able to monitor HDD temp. Will use a probe instead for now.
Do not hesitate to update info about nVIDIA driver.
Thx again .. was great to have hdd temp while it lasted..

ajdo

[XSUANY]

Sorry for my ignorance about this issue, but i've ended here searching for the NVSTOR.SYS blue scrren error.

I've been reading you walkaround to make it work but i read to do it via Device Manager. How can i do that if i found myself unable to install my VISTA ULTIMATE? I mean, i get the blue screen when installing, always on the "expanding files" step of VISTA installation. I don't get the steps i should follow when installing from zero my VISTA OS.

Can someone help me please?
Thank you!