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Onboard RAID question

T

Thomas Covenant

n00b
Joined
Sep 5, 2004
Messages
30
My mobo has 2 onboard HPT374 controllers. I don't really have a need for RAID so I currently use one of the channels as a standard port for 2 hard drives in a non-RAID configuration. My question is this, why does one of the drives on the channel in use disappear when I connect another drive to another channel. The really weird thing is that when I first connected the third drive it worked fine, but after a reboot or two the drive disappeared along with one of the drives on the other channel. Now it happens when I connect the third drive to any of the other three channels. The Raid bios sees the third drive fine but WinXP gags on it for some reason. Any ideas?
 
This is one of the reasons most people will tell you do not use the onboard RAID ports unless your setting up an array. I've seen quite a few people complain about odd problems in a setup like this. If you need extra ports for your drives, I'd consider getting a controller card, like a Promise Ultra100TX2.
 
1. Do you have the latest BIOS for your motherboard? It will sometimes have a newer RAID BIOS.
2. Do you have the correct drivers installed for the RAID chip? The version number must match the RAID BIOS.
3. Do you have the jumpers on the drives set correctly? If you're using 80-conductor ATA cables the drive at the end of the cable should be master.

Now a few "other things":
I had to find a custom BIOS for my motherboard...the newest MB BIOS didn't have the latest RAID BIOS, so I got one that had been modified (I used to do it myself, with CBROM, but Highpoint changed their BIOS's). Go to Highpoint's web site and see if the latest RAID BIOS is the one you're using. In general, the older BIOS's have some problems. Again, make sure the drivers installed in Windows are the ones that match the BIOS.
I have four drives connected to my Highpoint 370 RAID controller, and I haven't had any problems. But I had serious problems with the original BIOS and drivers...I kept getting "broken stripes" on the RAID arrays.
The 2.34 drivers I was using were unstable...I see on Highpoint's website that they've been withdrawn, and the 2.35 series mentions a timing problem that was fixed.
I have my four drives all set to cable-select, but that's not a 100% solution...setting one to "master", and the other to "slave" on each IDE channel is a better solution.
Hope this helped...keep us informed, please!
 
Sorry I waited so long to reply. I decided to go ahead and get a controller card. It's on it's way from Newegg. Thanks for the replies guys.
 
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