SATA drive help

[Fibbles]

A friend of mine bought a whole new system to replace his 1.7GHz P4 with a GeForce 44 200 and 384MHz of RAMBUST. Since he upgrades every couple of years, he wanted a computer able to run Doom 3 and HL2 (and now FEAR, hehe) this year, before the DOOM 3 release.

I guided him to this:

Asus A8V
AMD FX53
2 GB's 2-2-2-5 Corsair 3200
1 WD 74GB Raptor
1 WD 80GB (SATA) for storage
BFG 6800GT OC (OC'd by BFG)
NEC Dual Layer 8x DVDRW
SB Audigy 2
Raidmax case (he liked it, the front panel had a temp monitor

In all he spent $2700.

Today he called in sick and started to put the computer together. It's his first time, he was originally going to send me the parts but I convinced him it was very easy. He managed to get everything working and when he turned it on, it worked, so he went to install Windows (XP Pro). Here's where the problem is, windows setup doesn't see his hard drive (either of them), so how do you enable SATA? I thought it was as simple as hitting F6 (or whichever key) and then pointing to a floppy or CD that contained the SATA drivers so the OS will see them, but he can't seem to find anything with them on it, and had trouble navigating the Asus webby. Does anyone what file he needs? Is it the SATA RAID driver, or a single SATA driver?

[Knipex]

Has he loaded the motherboard drivers ???

Its been a few months since I built machine but I seem to remember I didnt have to do the F6 floppy method. But them again memory aint what it used to be and Im just ut of my bed...

[Da_Rude_Baboon]

I'm not familiar with SATA but with RAID setups i've installed you need to do the F6 thing and probably have to set in the BIOS to boot from SATA.

I know thats an obvious answer but if its his first time he may have missed it. ;)

[richman]

In the bios SATA is sometime disabled, try enabling it. Windows XP dosent detect the drive unti you have loaded the drivers which requires the F6 method, then it will load them drivers and your drive should be formatable.

Richman

[Psykotik]

You have to load the SATA RAID drivers found on the chipset disk from a floppy when Windows asks for the RAID drivers during initial install.

I had a bitch of a time installing my copy of Windows, as I haven't got a floppy drive in any of my machines and had to nick one from a mate!

[Fibbles]

I'll just lead him here, since he's a few states away in North Carolina. It'd be easy if I could go over there, but trying to explain this on the phone or using teamspeak is nuts, since it cuts out or everything gets quiet. Phone lines in the US suck, at least on my end.

[Fibbles]

Nothing has worked, would anyone happen to know what bios settings he needs?

[Darv]

Well first off make sure there isn't a jumper that's manually disabling the SATA. Then mkae sure it is enabled in the BIOS.

Also the board has two sets of SATA connectors. Try it in another set.

[Fibbles]

Well first off make sure there isn't a jumper that's manually disabling the SATA. Then mkae sure it is enabled in the BIOS.

Also the board has two sets of SATA connectors. Try it in another set.
Thx for the replies, but I'm not bothering with him, he refuses to acknowledge that the bios probably holds the answer. He did try all the slots too, and I had him change settings, but since he didn't understand them, he reset it back to default.

I got my Raptor today. As soon as my AMS Venus external box comes, I'll save all my data and then install the Raptor. I don't forsee any problmes though. :)

[Psykotik]

He doesnt need to be arsing about with any BIOS settings other than setting the SATA HDD to boot as Primary.

The files that are needed are on the chipset disk, and are (if supplied by Silicon Image) called Sil3xxxr or something along those lines

Put the drivers on a blank floppy

Now try to install Windows as normal, but when it says "Press F6 now to install a third party RAID driver" hit F6

Find the driver that you loaded onto the floppy drive, and install it

Install Windows as per normal

If that doesn't work then your mates a monkey ;)

[Fibbles]

If that doesn't work then your mates a monkey ;):unsure:

[Fibbles]

Well, he ended up taking the computer down to some store in the area and had them fix it. It took the "pros" 4 hours, but it's working.

[Greeny]

ASUS don't seem to include a floppy with RAID drivers on it, but that's exactly what it would have been needing. I recently setup a K8V Deluxe, ASUS supply the RAID drivers on the CD, but you are expected to extract them to a floppy yourself. Cheap bastards.

I would avoid the store with the "Pro's" since it takes them 4 hours to figure out a simple task like this.

Personally I'd say your mate definately is a monkey for spending all that cash, but that's his problem.

[furious trout]

I would avoid the store with the "Pro's" since it takes them 4 hours to figure out a simple task like this.

Personally I'd say your mate definately is a monkey for spending all that cash, but that's his problem.Yeah right "4 hours"....... 3 & 1/2 of which involved sitting around playing Far Cry and drinking tea i'll bet

I knowa guy who was cahrged £150 for installing a new HDD :blink: --- the look on his face when i told him it would take approx 10 mins was priceless.Whilst i'm not advocating this kind of activity,i have little sympathy as i did offer to do it for him or talk him through it.
Oh yeah and he's an arse <_<

[Fibbles]

Yeah right "4 hours"....... 3 & 1/2 of which involved sitting around playing Far Cry and drinking tea i'll bet

I knowa guy who was cahrged £150 for installing a new HDD :blink: --- the look on his face when i told him it would take approx 10 mins was priceless.Whilst i'm not advocating this kind of activity,i have little sympathy as i did offer to do it for him or talk him through it.
Oh yeah and he's an arse <_<Yep, all the "custom" builders around here are insanely expensive. Back when I was working for this one medical office, they had wanted new computers and were too cheap to go for a Dell small business lease, so they had some local guy give an estimate, lets just say he wanted more than Dell would have charged for the whole office, plus he wanted all sorts of "builders" fees.

My mate though, he spent "all that money" because of me, and I got him to spend less than he was going to at first. It all started on Teamspeak last week. I was sitting in my clans TS server playing CoD HQ (Oxygen Gaming Community - we're ranked #1-3 in the 4v4 ladder on Teamwarfare, and #1-3 in the Teamwarfare 4v4 League), and he came into the room and reuqested my input on a computer from Dell that he was thinking about buying. If you go to Dell and custom configure the "gaming rig" they have, it totals around $3600. I then explained the P4 EE's are way overpriced and fall to the mighty FX53, and then we went to Newegg, and when he wanted something, I told him which was the "best". He then wanted me to build it, and offered $200. I didn't really want to build it (I have had some bad shipping experiences with computers I've built for people), so I convinced him it was easy and gave him a bunch of webby's with computer building info, and I told him how to get and use the SATA drivers. You're right, those guys probably did sit around and drink tea (or their favey beverage - probably cheap beer).

To spend even more $$$$ and sort of reach the Dells' price I suggested Aqua Computer or Alphacool for beauty and performance, or a silver TDX and a high power 1/2" system for more "performance" (1/4" isn't for everyone ^_^ ), then I suggested he should buy a MachII/Vapochill if he was still looking to spend more money, but he declined.

[Psykotik]

:eek:


Just................... :eek:

[Breach]

Is your friend Bill Gates or something :blink:

This might be your problem, and I did this by accident too with a Soltek board- The asus site says this about the a8v on the SATA

The VIA K8T800Pro chipset incorporated two Serial ATA connectors with RAID 0(striping), RAID 1(mirroring), and JBOD(spanning) functions while the Promise 20378 controller provides another two Serial ATA and two UltraATA133 connectors for RAID 0(striping), RAID 1(mirroring), RAID 0+1, and multiple RAID functions. The motherboard is the ideal solution to enhance hard disk performance and security.

Now, I may be making a mistake about this board without more research, but that to me says that this board is SATA RAID only. There is no stand alone SATA port. That sounds wierd but its more common than not on new socket 754 and 939 boards ive noticed.

I would highly question what the "pros" could do to make a singe drive RAID work (assuming I am correct), since thats impossible. Something aint kosher here...Id say your friend got robbed.

It sounds like your friend has a printing press in his basement, grab another 80 and maybe do a RAID 1 since it is the data drive.

Thats my 2 cents

Brew

[cools]

Single drive raid isn't a problem.

Since I have both my Raptor's RAIDed, and the Samsung hanging off the same controller, I have a Single drive "Stripe" for the samsung.

Although I've not tried taking this single drive out of the machine and plonking it in another I see no reason why it shouldnt work - Windows sees the real stripe as Sil0 RAID stripe and the Samsung as its firmware name.

4 hours though. Did they install Windows and all the updates/latest drivers at the same time?

[Breach]

i dont quite get your setup cools, can you be more detailed?

As far as Ive ever know in my life as a PC tech you cant run half a RAID array, and beleive me I tried with the SATA RAID on the Soltek out of desperation.

Its time for more research!

Actually i thought of another point tat needs clarity, this (and yours cools) is all Hardware and not software RAID right?

[cools]

Yep, hardware RAID. Si3114 in RAID mode (hence the stripe). Cheapo controller, but does the job.

The RAID controller has 4 SATA ports on the motherboard. It can be set to either SATA or RAID mode from the normal BIOS. Setting it to SATA doesn't load the RAID BIOS and Windows is perfectly happy to install without needing 3rd party drivers.

I have a Raptor connected to one, another raptor connected to another, the Samsung on another. It doesn't matter which ones I connect up where (although swapping them around normally means I have to go into the RAID BIOS and select "Resolve Conflicts" since it gets confused).

The Raptors are set up as a RAID0 stripe and while I don't want to go check right now, I can remember setting the Samsung up as "Create Array" as well, but choosing only the one drive.

I've ran a similar setup in the past on an Abit Socket A board (KR7A-RAID springs to mind) with hardware IDE RAID. Two Seagates in RAID0 and an extra Seagate on its own.

I know that logically "RAID" SHOULD only be more than one disk, and in the case of RAID1 and RAID5 and their variants then you do require more than one, but if you think laterally a RAID0 stripe simply treats the disks in its array as one disk. Surely it makes sense that a RAID0 stripe can apply to 1, or more disks :)

I would be really p'd off if I couldn't run a setup this way, addon cards when theres a perfectly good controller on the motherboard would annoy me!

[Breach]

Ok I see. The Soltek I was using or trying to had twin SATA RAID controllers that had no option to make them standalone ports, they were both RAID or nothing. Ive never used an A8V so i wouldnt really know if thats possible with that board to do that.

I havnt used more than 1 RAID0 setup so far with twin 40gb WD drives for a friend, Ive never heard of doing a RAID 0 with one disk:wacko: . Is there separate partitions or? Im curious how that works now:D Is this what the computer store guys did to your friends system too?

[Greeny]

His logic is incorrect you cannot have a RAID-0 stripe with a single disk, rather that single disk is just a standalone disk connected to the RAID controller. You can put a single disk on a RAID controller and use it as such if you want without a problem. I'm surprised that the SI would let you select a single disk to create a stripe, but I can assure you a stripe requires 2 or more disks, that is not a stripe it is a standalone disk.

[Fibbles]

Either way, what's the point in striping a single disk?

I have no idea what "they" did to my "friends" comp. To get my Raptor working I used the disk included with my Abit IC7 P4 board. After everything was loaded I bought a 160gb SATA Seagate and it worked fine after I plugged it in.

[cools]

Greeny: fair enough. Si's fault then. I was required to select "new stripe" for the standalone drive so I'm blaming Si for my terminology :)

[Greeny]

No problem at all I've seen the SI do some funny things, the guys over PCPer found a bug or 2 in the controller's firmware before so nothing really surprises me.

Most of the time however to use a standalone disk on the controller's you just have to plug it in, no setup is necessary other than to set the drive as the boot volume in the RAID BIOS if necessary. This is how the disks can be easily swapped between different controllers, the disk contains no information specific to the controller.

RAID'ed disks can be swapped about on controllers of the same family usually as well i.e. swapping disks from a Silicon Image array to a different Silicon Image controller. The disks RAID setup is largely specific to the manufacturer though so you can't usually swap disks from a Silicon Image to a Highpoint or similar without deleting the array and rebuilding it.

[thenephilim]

well i thought id setup my new pc, minus its case, to see that all was well. fired it up, POST gave the heartwarming single beep, and thence onto installation of the OS. the fun began almost immeadiatly, yep no atapi compatible drive. its taken me an hour but the hard drive is formatting prior to install of the OS. im so bloody glad i looked here, F6 saved my day, cos all systems are go. gr8 advice guys, thanks a lot.

[fivecheebs]

hehe! thats one of the biggest thread bumps i have seen here. Very nearly 2 years!

Oh well, good job for getting it working ^_^

[Reitau]

hehe! thats one of the biggest thread bumps i have seen here. Very nearly 2 years!

Oh well, good job for getting it working ^_^

I think a round of applause is in order for a new user who can see the link between New Posts and Quick Links.... :h34r:

:clap:

[fivecheebs]

^^ your absolutely right!

Someone give him an "I use the search" CT ;-)

[thenephilim]

cheers guys, all went ok up and running minor niggle...............i forgot SP4 was needed once i got that on i had sound and usb2 but hey im here lolol thanks again