So I got an identical Intel X25-M 80G for Christmas and I thought I would like to RAID 0 the drives. I feel like the problem I'm having is directly related to my limited knowledge of how RAID works with SATA connections on my mother board. Abit 35Pro is the motherboard I'm using and it has six internal SATA inputs, seemingly plenty for my needs. Now from what I can tell I have the two drives I want to RAID hooked up to 1 & 2, an optical drive hooked up on 3, and an additional hard drive on 5. I went into BIOS setup and enabled RAID instead of IDE, saved, and restarted. When it booted up this time it instructed me to hit Ctrl+I to access the RAID setup menu. It seemed like I was able to create the array without any problem, everything looked good to go so I hit Exit and was ready to boot from CD to get started with installing. But even though I had boot from CD enabled as my 1st priority it didn't even try, it just went immediately to NTLDR not found. I restarted and checked BIOS and of course my additional SATA hard drive and Opitcal drive did not show. I attributed this to my enabling of RAID and once I put it back to IDE everything worked as you would expect. So from what I can figure enabling RAID does so for all SATA ports rendering the additional drives unusable. What am I doing wrong?
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First Time RAIDer (0) - Help Please
- Thread starter Klynt
- Start date
Would this be a possible solution?
The mere fact that you have two HDD's set up in a RAID array should NOT prevent a third SATA device from working as a non-RAID device. Did you check in your RAID Management screens to verify that only the two HDD's are assigned to a RAID array, and the third SATA device was being used as non-RAID?
Anyway, now you have an IDE device for your optical drive. To use it you need to set a few things correctly. On the drive, its jumpers MUST be set to the Master position, since obviously this is the ONLY IDE device on that one data ribbon. Then it ought to be connected to the END connector. A ribbon cable with three connectors is normally used with the BLUE connector to the mobo port, the BLACK connector on the other end to the Master device on this port, and the GREY connector in the middle to the Slave device if there is one. Master and Slave refer only to that one IDE Port you are using, NOT to the whole machine and all its devices.
Secondly, you must check the BIOS Setup screens to verify that the IDE port you are trying to use actually is Enabled and set to Auto-Detect devices on it. The BIOS should show you right away whether it can detect that hardware. If it can then Windows OUGHT to be able to see it and use it. If Windows can't "see" a device that the BIOS does see, then Windows has a configuration problem. Actually, in your situation I would suggest that you disconnect the new optical drive, boot the machine, and go into Windows Device Manager and find any reference to the old SATA optical drive and Remove that device. Shut down, make sure the old SATA optical drive is disconnected, and connect up the new IDE optical drive. Boot up and let it find that new device and get its drivers set up so Windows can use it.
Now reboot and go directly into BIOS Setup again. Look for where you set the Boot Priority Sequence. Most people would choose to set it to boot from the optical drive as first choice (it will only show up as a possible choice if the BIOS does recognize it), and the RAID array as the second choice. Set it as you choose and Save and Exit.
See if that gets your optical and RAID units working.
The mere fact that you have two HDD's set up in a RAID array should NOT prevent a third SATA device from working as a non-RAID device. Did you check in your RAID Management screens to verify that only the two HDD's are assigned to a RAID array, and the third SATA device was being used as non-RAID?
Anyway, now you have an IDE device for your optical drive. To use it you need to set a few things correctly. On the drive, its jumpers MUST be set to the Master position, since obviously this is the ONLY IDE device on that one data ribbon. Then it ought to be connected to the END connector. A ribbon cable with three connectors is normally used with the BLUE connector to the mobo port, the BLACK connector on the other end to the Master device on this port, and the GREY connector in the middle to the Slave device if there is one. Master and Slave refer only to that one IDE Port you are using, NOT to the whole machine and all its devices.
Secondly, you must check the BIOS Setup screens to verify that the IDE port you are trying to use actually is Enabled and set to Auto-Detect devices on it. The BIOS should show you right away whether it can detect that hardware. If it can then Windows OUGHT to be able to see it and use it. If Windows can't "see" a device that the BIOS does see, then Windows has a configuration problem. Actually, in your situation I would suggest that you disconnect the new optical drive, boot the machine, and go into Windows Device Manager and find any reference to the old SATA optical drive and Remove that device. Shut down, make sure the old SATA optical drive is disconnected, and connect up the new IDE optical drive. Boot up and let it find that new device and get its drivers set up so Windows can use it.
Now reboot and go directly into BIOS Setup again. Look for where you set the Boot Priority Sequence. Most people would choose to set it to boot from the optical drive as first choice (it will only show up as a possible choice if the BIOS does recognize it), and the RAID array as the second choice. Set it as you choose and Save and Exit.
See if that gets your optical and RAID units working.
Old Hippie
Supreme [H]ardness
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- Oct 31, 2005
- Messages
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You may want to try a few things....
1.) When doing an OS install only connect the drives that you need for the install...nothing else
2.) Sometimes it helps when previously used drives are cleaned/cleared before install. I've had problems with that before and while it shouldn't have made a difference, it did.
3.) When setting the BIOS for the first boot install, don't give the machine an option to boot from anything BUT the CD. Just "blank" the rest out.
4.) I had an Abit IP35-Pro and I had to install the OS from an IDE optical drive. Some early IP35 MBs chipsets did not natively support SATA drives and the SATA driver is installed with the OS. You can swap back to a SATA CD/DVD after the install.
However if you've installed an OS from a SATA drive on this MB before, it will be a moot point.
1.) When doing an OS install only connect the drives that you need for the install...nothing else
2.) Sometimes it helps when previously used drives are cleaned/cleared before install. I've had problems with that before and while it shouldn't have made a difference, it did.
3.) When setting the BIOS for the first boot install, don't give the machine an option to boot from anything BUT the CD. Just "blank" the rest out.
4.) I had an Abit IP35-Pro and I had to install the OS from an IDE optical drive. Some early IP35 MBs chipsets did not natively support SATA drives and the SATA driver is installed with the OS. You can swap back to a SATA CD/DVD after the install.
However if you've installed an OS from a SATA drive on this MB before, it will be a moot point.
Thanks, I'm going to try that along with a couple other things. It really seems like if I enable RAID on the six Intel internal SATA ports that nothing else connected to those ports gets picked up. I set everything as much as I can to see the optical drive on POST but nothing happens and when I go into BIOS it's like nothing is there. When I switch from IDE to RAID it's like I don't have anything else hooked up.
Old Hippie
Supreme [H]ardness
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It probably won't "see" anything in SATA mode because there's no SATA drivers and some of these chipsets didn't "see" SATA natively....It really seems like if I enable RAID on the six Intel internal SATA ports that nothing else connected to those ports gets picked up.
Some early IP35 MBs chipsets did not natively support SATA drives and the SATA driver is installed with the OS.
Oh, I see. Seems weird to me that they wouldn't natively support SATA drives on the chipset when offering over 8 on the board. Oh well, I think I'm just going to have to borrow an IDE CD-ROM and a floppy drive from work in order to get this working. Is that what you would recommend?
So once I got the floppy and IDE CD-ROM hooked up everything seemed to be going fine until when installing Windows XP it said that it couldn't find Iastor.xxx (can't remember extension) which I thought was odd since I installed that from the floppy? I chose to 'Skip' several times (same file) since I didn't see an option to tell it where it was and it proceeded to copy all the install files and restart. The Windows loading screen came up and then it just blue screens and says something about hard drives.
Old Hippie
Supreme [H]ardness
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- Messages
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XP didn't include SATA drivers 'till SP2 or SP3 or you'll need to do some kinda floppy install.
Do yourself a favor and get W7.
Do yourself a favor and get W7.