Silicon Image Raid Controller

[furious trout]

Right peeps need some help.

I'm Trying to install a silicon image Sil 0680 PCI Raid controller on a Compaq Presario 5250 running W2k Pro ( so i can mirror two hdd's that are on it) I've got the card installed, and both dirves connected. All drivers installed hunky dory. And everything is showing up ok in device manager, i can see the disks in the disk manager mmc snap in.

My problem is this:

When you boot the pc The card BIOS should prompt you to hit F3 to build the raid set. I'm not getting this prompt - it just goes straight into the post. I've put the same card in my pc at home and it works fine.
i've checked the hp/Compaq site for a bios update - no joy
Any idea's before i fire the bloody thing out the window?:mad:

[fillip]

Have you tried just hitting F3 before POST is complete anyway to see if it allows you load 3rd pty drivers, because unless you can load them off a floppy at POST then I don't know of another way to setup an array.

Maybe you could do with sending an email to Compaq tech support to see what they suggest.

[furious trout]

Yeah tried hitting F3 jsut seems to break the post :h34r:
Drivers installed fine but i'm thinking i might have to reinstall windows and install the drivers at install using the the f6 deal....

I'll let you know.

Anyone else?

[Arctirus]

Just trying to clarify here, you can see the raid card in device manager but when booting after going through your normal bios post you don't get the option to enter the raid controllers bios?

[furious trout]

Just trying to clarify here, you can see the raid card in device manager but when booting after going through your normal bios post you don't get the option to enter the raid controllers bios?
Yip that's the problem

[furious trout]

Update -Just been having a chat with Victor @ HP he told me that the motherboard (MSi MS-6577) dosen't support RAID Cards and that's why i don't get the F3 prompt<_<. I can't say that i'm convinced by this explanation but there you go . Anyone had this issue before?

[Da_Rude_Baboon]

Does the RAID card come with any windows software or is there any available on the website? The adaptec RAID card i use at work has windows software which allows you to create and configure the arrays that way as well the cards BIOS.

[furious trout]

it does, and the manual says you can create raid sets with it, but i can't see any option to do this, it just reports the 2 disks as being there :unsure:.

[Arctirus]

Yip that's the problemOk, then obviously nothing you do in windows is going to effect this. Most raid controllers have windows management software though so if you don't want to boot from the array you could always just set it up from within windows on the windows software.

EDIT: Looks like I took to long to reply and you've already covered this.

[furious trout]

Ok, then obviously nothing you do in windows is going to effect this. Most raid controllers have windows management software though so if you don't want to boot from the array you could always just set it up from within windows on the windows software.

EDIT: Looks like I took to long to reply and you've already covered this.that's ok, thanks for your input. I'm still not convinced by HP's answer that the board can'r support RAID cards. MSI certainly don't have any documentation to support this assertation....<_<

[Starbuck3733T]

it has to do with the fact that the bios does not scan the PCI slots for boot rom. cheap boards do this... The card works, but can't be booted from. it's not the fact that's not compatible with a RAID card, its the fact that its incompatible with anything with its own boot ROM on board. SCSI cards, RAID cards, IDE cards, PXE nics...

Been there, done that. compaq is right in saying it won't work, just for the wrong reason.

[furious trout]

ah haaa!

Thanks Star, that's kinda what i suspected they meant. anyway cheers for the clarification.