Guide to flashing PC SIL3112 SATA cards for Mac

[Fami7455]

I know this isn't exactly Mac-related, but it's relevant to this thread nonetheless. Plus I know some of you like to dabble in non-x86 machines of other kinds (Looking at you, @z970mp ).

It looks like SIL3112 cards flashed with WiebeTech's firmware also work in SPARC-based Sun machines. Here's a picture of one being picked up just fine by OpenBoot (Sun's OpenFirmware) in my Ultra 10:

(Yes, I know I have to fix the darn IDPROM)

However, it seems no version of Solaris ever had drivers for the 3112, so the installer can't find a single disk.
It probably works under GNU/Linux and *BSD, but I haven't been able to test those yet.

 

[weckart]

However, it seems no version of Solaris ever had drivers for the 3112, so the installer can't find a single disk.

Did you check Unixpackages to see if anyone wrote a generic SATA driver that might work with this card? Faint hope but you never know.

Fun fact: the ATI Radeon 7000 graphics card popular with the Ultra 5/10 is the exact same card used on the Mac just flashed with a different ROM.

 

[Fami7455]

Did you check Unixpackages to see if anyone wrote a generic SATA driver that might work with this card? Faint hope but you never know.

Checked both Unixpackages and OpenCSW, Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.

Seems like someone ( https://blog.forestent.com/2009/05/19/i-fought-the-silicon-image-3114-with-solaris-and-won/ ) got the ata driver to attach to a 3114 flashed to IDE mode in an x86 system. Since the WiebeTech firmware is working in IDE mode too (correct me if I'm wrong), maybe the ata driver could be attached to the 3112 in a SPARC system too. However, my Solaris knowledge currently doesn't cover such an operation.

Fun fact: the ATI Radeon 7000 graphics card popular with the Ultra 5/10 is the exact same card used on the Mac just flashed with a different ROM.

Yup, the XVR-100. It seems to be the fastest card you can shove in an Ultra 5/10. Just now I was trying an XVR-600 and an XVR-1200 with no luck, they don't even get detected by OBP. Weirdly enough they get detected in my Ultra Enterprise 250.

 

[Ydeclave]

Hi,

First of all thanks for this thread which is remarkable especially in the fact that it was still active not so long ago. As it is very well documented I chose to dig it instead of making a new one.
I recently bought a PowerMac G4 MDD 867 MHz DP and in an attempt to bring it back to life I ordered a Sil3114 before finding this thread. I ordered it for 9ish€ after seeing a similar one on eBay labeled "for macintosh" but much more expensive, so I guessed I could take the chance of ordering a cheap regular one and figure things out later. Turns out according to this thread I was right, as people have made Sil3114s working in PowerMac G4s before, but had I found this before I would probably have looked for a Sil3112 instead.

So I put the card in a PC (checking that it works correctly btw), made a bootable FreeDOS USB stick and tried to flash it, to no avail. I can't even back up the firmware, flashrom seems to detect the Sil3114 but not the chip/EEPROM. See the attached picture.

Any ideas anyone? Could trying a different flashrom version be of any help?

I don't have any specific requirements, I'm not even after performance, it's just that the PATA drive I bought it with is only 60 GB, I don't have any spare PATA drive while I have tons of SATA ones, especially 150 GB Velociraptors which I don't use anymore. I just want to use one in that machine, on OS X and maybe a Linux distro, Mac OS 9 will be fast enough on the PATA drive.

 

[weckart]

Hi,

First of all thanks for this thread which is remarkable especially in the fact that it was still active not so long ago. As it is very well documented I chose to dig it instead of making a new one.
I recently bought a PowerMac G4 MDD 867 MHz DP and in an attempt to bring it back to life I ordered a Sil3114 before finding this thread. I ordered it for 9ish€ after seeing a similar one on eBay labeled "for macintosh" but much more expensive, so I guessed I could take the chance of ordering a cheap regular one and figure things out later. Turns out according to this thread I was right, as people have made Sil3114s working in PowerMac G4s before, but had I found this before I would probably have looked for a Sil3112 instead.

So I put the card in a PC (checking that it works correctly btw), made a bootable FreeDOS USB stick and tried to flash it, to no avail. I can't even back up the firmware, flashrom seems to detect the Sil3114 but not the chip/EEPROM. See the attached picture.

Any ideas anyone? Could trying a different flashrom version be of any help?

I don't have any specific requirements, I'm not even after performance, it's just that the PATA drive I bought it with is only 60 GB, I don't have any spare PATA drive while I have tons of SATA ones, especially 150 GB Velociraptors which I don't use anymore. I just want to use one in that machine, on OS X and maybe a Linux distro, Mac OS 9 will be fast enough on the PATA drive.

Are you trying the SeriTek firmware? You need one of 3 specific EEPROM chips on board for that to work. Every third party board has the wrong chip and most require desoldering the existing chip and soldering the correct chip on. I've done a few myself. If you are really lucky, the onboard EEPROM may sit in a chip holder so you can just swap it out.

If you just want a bootable OSX volume and not MacOS9, try looking for a 2 port Sil3512 board. I have a few of these too and these just flash using Wiebetech's own 3512 flasher utility. You can flash from Mac to PC and back again.

Alternatively, if you are trying to flash the Wiebetech 3112 firmware, try using the flasher software on page one of this thread rather than flashrom.

 

[Ydeclave]

Are you trying the SeriTek firmware? You need one of 3 specific EEPROM chips on board for that to work. Every third party board has the wrong chip and most require desoldering the existing chip and soldering the correct chip on. I've done a few myself. If you are really lucky, the onboard EEPROM may sit in a chip holder so you can just swap it out.

If you just want a bootable OSX volume and not MacOS9, try looking for a 2 port Sil3512 board. I have a few of these too and these just flash using Wiebetech's own 3512 flasher utility. You can flash from Mac to PC and back again.

Alternatively, if you are trying to flash the Wiebetech 3112 firmware, try using the flasher software on page one of this thread rather than flashrom.

I must admit I don't know what firmware I'm trying, I followed this post's instructions: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...3112-sata-cards-for-mac.1690231/post-26821051
edit: So yeah he says it's the wiebetech one, just noticed...

But I didn't know the OP used a different flasher, I admit I went past it as it mentions floppy disks which I don't have and went straight for a USB stick solution. I guess updflash.exe will work on my FreeDOS bootable USB stick?
I'll try right away.

EDIT2: Well it didn't work, the updflash is not fooled and does not take the 3114 for a 3112. "No controller found".
I understand if I need to change the chip to put whatever firmware I want on it, but here flashrom will not even see the chip, though it detects the 3114 controller... I am at a loss :/

 

[weckart]

I don't know whether the 3114 can be flashed using 3112 firmware as nobody has done it successfully on this forum to date. At best there is some anecdotal data on other forums/eBay.

You could have a read of this: https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/45374-sil3512-flashing-sata/&tab=comments#comment-502196

3512 cards are getting harder to find but there are still some available on eBay unlike the 3112 cards. Otherwise, your best bet is to set up a 3112 alert on eBay and hope for the best.

Here is one from a French seller:

Controller Card PCI SATA 2 Ports Raid 0 Raid 1 SIL3112 | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Controller Card PCI SATA 2 Ports Raid 0 Raid 1 SIL3112 at the best online prices at eBay! Free delivery for many products!

www.ebay.co.uk

There was a previous German seller but he sent out 3114 cards instead, so there are no guarantees that you will get what is listed.

Controller Card PCI SATA 2 Ports Raid 0 Raid 1 SIL3112 | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Controller Card PCI SATA 2 Ports Raid 0 Raid 1 SIL3112 at the best online prices at eBay! Free delivery for many products!

www.ebay.co.uk

UK seller using the same stock photo.

And for the 3512:

Delock pci esata 2x kaart sil 3512a sataraid b/n70155 100% compatible linux | eBay

Très bon état, aussi compatible 100% avec linux!

www.ebay.com

French seller

SYBA (SD-SATA-1E1I) (SD-SATA-1E1I) Serial ATA Controller for sale online | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for SYBA (SD-SATA-1E1I) (SD-SATA-1E1I) Serial ATA Controller at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

US seller.


You may be able to get slightly better prices than these more locally but that may entail waiting.

 

[MacPig]

digisurfer and mikiotty,

Sorry for any problems this has caused - I've now put together a new firmware image that should work. The way the SIL3112 controller works is that it reads the EEPROM backwards, the very last dozen or so bytes contain the data which it needs to set up PCI addresses, etc. I had put this data in the wrong place in the ROM, so it was luck of the draw whether the Mac would automatically assign them. Here's the link to the new firmware - I hope it works for you. (I've tested it on my G4 MDD, but that already worked fine with the old one)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z1gg63q7ib53qbb/SIL3112.ZIP

I've also updated the link on the first post to point to the new firmware.

This link is now dead. Does anyone have a copy of the firmware that works with Quicksilver G4s?

 

[eyoungren]

This link is now dead. Does anyone have a copy of the firmware that works with Quicksilver G4s?

The first post has an attachment for this. Try downloading that. Even though the Dropbox link is blown, the attachment was uploaded to this forum and is still available.

 

[for this]

This link is now dead. Does anyone have a copy of the firmware that works with Quicksilver G4s?

It's not the firmware that's the problem. To make it compatible with Quicksilver and Digital Audio, you have to change a regulator on the card. Some Quicksilver seems to work without the mod, though.

PCI SATA Cards - What is the state of compatibility?

theres been some recent developments over at www.macos9lives.com in the storage section basically the same guy who was responsible for creating the cards for firmtek is now actively posting on macos9lives forums and has plans to create some new firmware to allow booting macos9 also the answer...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[weckart]

The firmware is also faulty. After modding the card, I can get the QS to start up with it in and it displays the correct firmware. Trying to install OS9 on a SATA disk is a different story. It doesn't work and (S)ATAman did say he needed to fix things in the firmware as it wasn't perfect. He hasn't posted for a while since putting out betas for people to test.

I got a Sil3512 based card with the Wiebetech OSX only firmware to work in my Digital Audio but it won't work in any of my QSes. The status for QSes is "still waiting".

 

[Giuanniello]

Hello everybody,

any recent solution to use S-ATA drives into a MDD G4 PowerMac which doesn't involve the use of a PC?

To date any other board which might work with a G4?

Grazie

 

[Raging Dufus]

Hello everybody,

any recent solution to use S-ATA drives into a MDD G4 PowerMac which doesn't involve the use of a PC?

To date any other board which might work with a G4?

Grazie

To flash a card yourself, you're going to need a PC. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but unlike with some graphics cards, there's no method to create bootable SATA cards on a Mac.

So, if you don't want to use a PC, your only option is to purchase a Mac-compatible SATA card. The link @Project Alice provided is the cheapest and most readily available you're likely to find, at least in the U.S.

There are a few other options, if you can find them, and if you can afford them once found. They're rare, and typically costly. FirmTek produced several variants of their SeriTek PCI/PCI-X SATA controllers, which should all work with a Power Mac G4. Scroll all the way to the bottom at this link, and you'll see them. Keep in mind that some only offer external ports. The only other Mac-compatible producer was Sonnet, and they only produced one variant that will work with your Power Mac's PCI bus and has internal ports: see here. The Sonnet card uses the SeriTek firmware, so there's no real difference between the Sonnet card and the very last SeriTek card at the bottom of the other page.

As far as I know, that is an exhaustive list. There are no other options.

 

[weckart]

If you can source a suitable two port SATA SiI3512 card, you can flash it to Mac and back to PC using the Wiebetech supplied Mac OSX flash utility. I did it with the 3512 card in my MDD. Only caveat is that the card will not support nor recognise OS9 volumes, even those running from the internal IDE ports, so those will not mount if you boot OSX from the SATA card. To run or access OS9 you have to reboot and select the OS9 volume on IDE from the boot selection screen.

If you are happy with OSX only, then go for it.

 

[JazzyJ]

Its not too difficult,
1. just format a usb stick with rufus, make sure you select "FreeDOS" under the boot selection menu. 2. Copy over the flashrom program onto the root of the usb.
3. install the sata card into a free PCI slot in a pc that can also boot to usb.
4. Boot FreeDOS from the USB.
5. Type "flashrom --programmer satasii -r backup.bin" it should say "creating delay loop" etc..
6. Providing it copied successfully (check with the dir command, make sure there is a file called "backup.bin", thats it! your safe to turn off your computer!
7. Plug in the usb back into your main computer, and upload the file on this site, with the "upload a file" button when replying.

just uploaded the rufus program, and also the flashrom program, you can download them below.

Thanks for this. I'm stuck at the 'booting USB FreeDos' part. I've got USB key formatted in Rufus as FreeDos but it won't boot. I get "Loading Operating System........DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER'.

It's a 'legacy' PC with Gygabyte P67 Mobo. All HD's unplugged. Have tried selecting USB-FDD, USB-ZIP, USB-HDD and none of them boot. Have gone back to a WIN10 PC opened Rufus again, made the FreeDos, tried again - won't boot. I'm using a USB 2.0 pen drive in a USB 2.0 port. I can boot a unibeast drive from USB, I can boot EASEUS Disk Copy from USB, but not the Rufus USB FreeDos. The mobo is NOT UEFI. Any help would be appreciated.

UPDATE1: I downloaded FD12LITE and used that in Rufus - afterwards there was 'no space' (on a 16GB USB key) to add flashrom.exe and the .bin file.
UPDATE2: Used UNnetbootin to make a FreeDosUSB. This boots (F12/USB-HDD) and gives me 5 different options.....tried various ones, got an A> prompt, typed in flashrom --programmer satasii -r backup.bin and got 'Bad command'. Rebooted, now usb won't boot any more and back to 'disk boot failure'...

Is there an alternative way to flash a PCI card that doesn't involve floppy disks or FreeDos?

 

[repairedCheese]

Thanks for this. I'm stuck at the 'booting USB FreeDos' part. I've got USB key formatted in Rufus as FreeDos but it won't boot. I get "Loading Operating System........DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER'.

It's a 'legacy' PC with Gygabyte P67 Mobo. All HD's unplugged. Have tried selecting USB-FDD, USB-ZIP, USB-HDD and none of them boot. Have gone back to a WIN10 PC opened Rufus again, made the FreeDos, tried again - won't boot. I'm using a USB 2.0 pen drive in a USB 2.0 port. I can boot a unibeast drive from USB, I can boot EASEUS Disk Copy from USB, but not the Rufus USB FreeDos. The mobo is NOT UEFI. Any help would be appreciated.

UPDATE1: I downloaded FD12LITE and used that in Rufus - afterwards there was 'no space' (on a 16GB USB key) to add flashrom.exe and the .bin file.
UPDATE2: Used UNnetbootin to make a FreeDosUSB. This boots (F12/USB-HDD) and gives me 5 different options.....tried various ones, got an A> prompt, typed in flashrom --programmer satasii -r backup.bin and got 'Bad command'. Rebooted, now usb won't boot any more and back to 'disk boot failure'...

Is there an alternative way to flash a PCI card that doesn't involve floppy disks or FreeDos?

Have you tried burning it to cd? That's more likely to work on a computer of that vintage.

 

[Amethyst1]

That's more likely to work on a computer of that vintage.

A mainboard released in 2011 should have no problem booting from USB.

 

[repairedCheese]

A mainboard released in 2011 should have no problem booting from USB.

I agree, but since it seems to be being trouble, booting from cd should still be perfectly functional. And, less quirky.

 

[bobnugget]

These seem good: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-Channe...-/333655152264?_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49292 - will try flashing either tomorrow or monday and let you know. Delivered to the UK via a local warehouse so they came very quickly!

EDIT: Flashed with WiebeTech yesterday in an old Dell and all appeared to go well. Will likely try them out tomorrow.

 

[Melchieor]

Hi everyone . So I bought this SIL3112 card however neither updflash nor flashrom wants to flash the firmware bios on the first post . Do I have the wrong card ? Flashrom has som warnings and then mentions something about no detected eeprom and updflash is not able to load the bios. It always asks me which of the sil3112 version board bios I have and then says fail to load bios .

 

[weckart]

.

 

[Melchieor]

.

Any firmware . I tried the one in the first page and also the one on page 8. I am unsure why it’s not able to . I will need to post screenshots of updflash and flashrom

 

[Melchieor]

Any firmware . I tried the one in the first page and also the one on page 8. I am unsure why it’s not able to . I will need to post screenshots of updflash and flashrom

I have included some screenshots this includes both updflash and flashrom for both Wiebe rom and the one on the first page .

 

[bobnugget]

Hi everyone . So I bought this SIL3112 card however neither updflash nor flashrom wants to flash the firmware bios on the first post . Do I have the wrong card ? Flashrom has som warnings and then mentions something about no detected eeprom and updflash is not able to load the bios. It always asks me which of the sil3112 version board bios I have and then says fail to load bios .

Thats nearly exactly the same as the two cards that I bought. Exactly the same board, only difference on mine is an 0245 date code on the 3112 and my ones flash chip is
AM29F010
-120JC
9449EBA

not sure if the -120JC vs -70JC is making the difference? The third line is a date code I think but haven't checked what that part of the code is.

I flashed my two cards successfully on an old Dell using the SIL3112.zip, which contains a firmware.bin - perhaps the full.bin/wiebe.bin are bigger and the card can't flash them due to memory size?

 

[Melchieor]

Thats nearly exactly the same as the two cards that I bought. Exactly the same board, only difference on mine is an 0245 date code on the 3112 and my ones flash chip is
AM29F010
-120JC
9449EBA

not sure if the -120JC vs -70JC is making the difference? The third line is a date code I think but haven't checked what that part of the code is.

I flashed my two cards successfully on an old Dell using the SIL3112.zip, which contains a firmware.bin - perhaps the full.bin/wiebe.bin are bigger and the card can't flash them due to memory size?

I thought that as well but I checked and the size of the rom should be 128k however I did try both the 64k wiebe version and the version on the first page which is 128k. I was attempting to flash mine on an old dell as well (xps t800r)