Bad Velociraptor or configuration issues?

Canon

2[H]4U
Joined
Aug 12, 2004
Messages
2,614
Well I have been fighting with this thing since I picked it up a couple days ago.

The Bios sees it, windows sees it, I can partition it in Disk Management under Windows Vista. As soon as I go to format the thing, it just sits there and I get the following error messages in the the System Event log:

The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Ide\IdePort2.

I consulted my motherboard manual and they suggest using the ports 1,2, or 5 for drives you plan to boot from. I have the drive connected to Port #5. For fun I tried connecting it to another port, same error just different port number referenced in the event log...

I planned to just grab an image using WinPE and imagex so I figured I'd try and do the partition and format there. I partitioned using diskpart etc. but when I tried to format, it just came back with a message saying that the format failed...

I downloaded the WD HD Diagnostic utility they reccomended for this drive. When I boot from the CD, it takes a good 4 minutes or so and then comes back indicating that it can't find a license file... I put the same disk into my laptop (which doesn't have a WD HDD anyway) and I got right to the diagnostic screen... Hmmmm.

Another thing I found was that when I performed my first windows install, it took a LONG time, we're talking a few hours. At the time I thought maybe this was normal since everyone was complaining so much about windows Vista install time... Maybe this issue is related.

Currently the BIOS SATA configuration is set for IDE mode. For troubleshooting purposes, I changed this to AHCI and tried to load this utility/windows install etc. with exactly the same results... I have since switched back to IDE since this is the mode that my copy of Windows Vista was installed with originally.

The strange part of this whole scenario is that I was able to run HD Tune and HT Tach hard drive benchmarks without an issue. Speeds seemed ok. HD Tune scores were:
Minimum: 77.7 MB/sec
Maximum 125.7 MB/sec
Average: 104.2 MB/sec
Access Time 7.0ms
Burst Rate: 184.8 MB/sec

Motherboard has the latest BIOS, no overclocking going on. Windows performance seems good (and I have been using it since last August for that matter) currently.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. I'm having a heck of a time trying to figure this one out. See my sig for details about my hardware.
 
HD Tune's Error scan completed with no errors... Hmmm...

I have downloaded the windows version of the Western Digital Data Lifeguard tools, so I guess I'll run the extended test and see what happens. This is kind of strange behavior...

--Results--
Test Option: QUICK TEST
Model Number: WDC WD3000GLFS-01F8U0
Unit Serial Number: WD-WXL408725423
Firmware Number: 03.03V01
Capacity: 300.07 GB
SMART Status: PASS
Test Result: PASS
Test Time: 01:22:29, June 21, 2008

Test Option: EXTENDED TEST
Model Number: WDC WD3000GLFS-01F8U0
Unit Serial Number: WD-WXL408725423
Firmware Number: 03.03V01
Capacity: 300.07 GB
SMART Status: PASS
Test Result: PASS
Test Time: 09:41:56, June 21, 2008
 
Well... Apparently the Asus P5K Premium has trouble with WD, Samsung SATA-II hard drives, at least according to what I have found in my research. Honestly, I never would have thought something as simple as a hard drive would not be compatible with a motherboard's SATA controller...

I'm running 0504 bios revision, so not an old or early BIOS at any rate.

I purchased a Silicon Image Sil 3132 based SATA-II controller card and the drive is now formatting from windows Disk Management just fine and there are no more controller errors listed in the System log...

The BIOS doesn't list any option to boot from the drive connected to the controller card though. There are no options to add a "SCSI" boot device as some resources on the net seem to indicate. Any tips on this? It would be too bad not to be able to run my OS off of this speedy drive.
 
Well probably this will be my last post in this thread before I return all this stuff and eat the 15% restocking fee.

Basically the question I have now is if it is possible to have my machine boot from this drive via the add-on SATA card. Exact model is indicated as Syba SD-SA2PEX-21R and is based on the Silicon Image Sil 3132 chipset. I can't find any options in the BIOS that even indicate that it is aware that this controller card is even installed, and hence no option to set an appropriate boot device.

I'm taking everything back Monday if I can't figure it out because there's not point in having a fast drive like this unless the OS is loaded on it IMHO. Sure, a little game load here and there may benefit slightly but that hardly seems worth the ~$380 spent between the controller card and the HD.

Let this thread serve as a warning for those not already aware, the Asus P5K Premium motherboard DOES NOT like the WD Velociraptor and possibly many other Samsung and WD drives. The general recommendation is stay with Seagate drives.
 
Holey Crap Canon, you've had a helluva day!

I wasn't aware of these incompatibilities and you're right. That's freaking unbeliveable!

I've used a Sil 3132 based controller card but never tried to make it bootable.

I dunno if this will help ya, or not....

How can I boot Windows from a drive or RAID set connected to a Silicon Image controller?

In order to boot from a SATA drive or RAID set attached to a Silicon Image controller, you must add the driver for the controller when prompted during Windows setup installation so the OS bootstrap process can load the driver to access the attached drives or RAID set during boot.

Windows setup prompts with something like "Press F6 to install SCSI/RAID controller driver" Setup only checks the floppy diskette for drivers.

To create a driver diskette, download and extract the driver contents from Support Copy the extracted contents to the top level folder of a formatted diskette. Be sure to get the type of driver that matches your BIOS. Get a SATARAID or SATARAID5 driver if you have RAID BIOS or IDE/nonRAID driver if you have "SATALink", IDE BIOS. Some of the newer drivers have a multi-level structure to support multiple OS variants. If you have problems loading the driver from the driver diskette, make sure the extracted contents on the diskette match the locations specified in the txtsetup.oem file which must be in the top level diskette folder.

I found it on the SI site, but it doesn't give any specifics.

Good Luck!
 
Unfortunately I already basically tried their suggestion. I loaded the drivers up on a USB Flash drive and selected the option during the Windows Vista setup to load a driver. I found the driver etc. (had to clear the show compatible devices checkbox), selected the the entry referencing the model, it sat there for a few minutes with a status bar and then came back, refreshing the drive listing did not make the HDD appear. I tried doing the same from the supplied CD as well as the driver downloaded from the website with no success.

It looks to me as though this card may only really be useful if your just looking to add a storage drive. For that purpose, I'd say it works quite well since drive performance appears to be very similar to the on board SATA implementation according to HDTune.
 
Ok... Man I just can't put this stuff down once I get started. LOL!

I flashed the card with the latest non-raid firmware from the SI site. Then I was finally able to see my Velociraptor as a boot device!

I updated the driver on the windows vista install on my 500gb Seagate drive just to confirm operation and everything looked good.

I rebooted, set the WD Velociraptor as the first boot HDD and booted into the Windows Vista install. I was able to load the latest drivers off of my flash drive and the windows install completed before I finished this post!

If anyone else is looking for answers on how to get this card to boot, I'll share:
1. Install the device in the machine, boot the machine into windows and install the drivers included on the device CD
2. Download the and extract 7.4.05 *Sil3132 BASE, SATARAID5 and system BIOS from:
http://www.siliconimage.com/support/supportsearchresults.aspx?pid=32&cid=15&ctid=2&osid=0&
3. Download and extract * SiI 3132 32-bit Windows BASE Driver version 1.0.22.0 from:
http://www.siliconimage.com/support/supportsearchresults.aspx?pid=32&cid=3&ctid=2&osid=10&
4. Open device manage and open the device properties
5. Under the Flash Bios tab you will see options Program Flash. Click the browse button
6. Now browse for the 7405.bin file (this is for non-raid setup and what I used, I think r7504.bin must be for RAID if you want it. B7405.bin, not sure.
7. Copy the contents of the driver package you downloaded earlier to to a USB flash drive
8. Reboot, set drive attached to the controller card as boot device in the BIOS
9. When you get to the point in the windows install (right after you put in your product key) where you are being prompted to choose the install location, select the option to load a driver and then click OK. It will find the drivers on the flash drive and you just click next.

I can't find the exact review that I was reading, but I would like to thank a reviewer on Newegg for the tip on the BIOS upgrade. I was a bit leery about doing it but so far it looks like it paid off. I am getting the Vista install all patched etc. right now and things look good. What a relief...
 
This was a scay read. Thanks for the great info and the guide! I hope I wont need it.
 
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