Problem. Asus P5Q Pro, Intel RAID and multiple SATA controllers

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micksh

n00b
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Jun 25, 2009
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4
Hi
I need 12-13 SATA ports and I listed my SATA controllers below. Everything was working fine until I decided to switch ICH10R to RAID mode. I need RAID 1 for boot drive. Previously I had all JBODs, AHCI mode. Switching 2 drives to RAID1 is the only change.
I reinstalled Windows (WHS actually) when only 2 system drives were connected. Worked OK.
Now when I connect more drives to additional controllers I can't choose RAID1 volume to be bootable.

Scenario:
1. 6 Drives connected only to ICH10. I can select bootable disk from 4 JBODs and 1 RAID 1. 5 disks are in BIOS "hard drive" boot options. Everything is fine.
2. Connect drives to JMicron. Bad. Only 2 drives are listed in BIOS. One from JMicron and one from Intel and it is not my bootable RAID volume. There is no way I can choose RAID volume to boot. ICH10 own BIOS can't do that either.
3. Load setup defaults in BIOS while all drives are connected. Switch Intel to RAID, reboot, etc. Now I have 7 drives listed in BIOS, 5 Intel and 2 JMicron. Everything is fine.
4. Connect drives to Silicon Image. It all breaks again. Only 3 HDD to choose from. 1 SI, 1 JMicron and 1 Intel, not my bootable volume.
5. Load setup defaults in BIOS. This fixes it again. 9 HDDs to choose from.

There are 2 problems that I can't live with, however
1. If I disconnect all drives from one controller it breaks again and I have to reset BIOS defauts. And I need to do it - the drives are in hot swap SATA bays, I will take them out periodically. Server is supposed to be in garage, without monitor.
2. I can't add 4th controller to that equation. If I do, only 4 disks are selectable, 1 from each controller and reset BIOS doesn't help anymore.

Was using Asus BIOS 2002, upgraded to latest (2102?), doesn't help.

What can I do if I want Intel RAID1 and all these controllers with disks? Has anyone seen this?
I figured I could try to move my RAID to Silicon Image Sil5723 (Asus Drive Xpert) or to JMB 36x. It would be the single volume on one of these and it should be always shown in BIOS boot menu.
But I would like to stick with Intel for reliability and performance.
Also if SI or JMicron controller dies will I be able to read RAID1 disks as single drives on Intel ICH10R?
Any advice?

Controllers and SATA ports:
1. 6 ports Intel ICH10R
2. 2 port Silicon Image Sil5723 on board
3. 2 port JMicron JMB 36x PCIe card
4. 4 port Silicon Image 3114 PCI card
 
Part of the problem might be with WHS. I'm not sure how it's setup for RAID, but I know redundancy is a software feature. If you setup a folder with redundancy, it will have another copy somewhere should a drive fail. I'm not sure how WHS handles your own RAID arrays though. I have a feeling it wasn't designed for it.
 
It doesn't get to the point of trying to boot WHS or any other OS. I can't select proper boot drive when I have 4 SATA controllers (2 cards and 2 on-board) enabled.
WHS works with RAID fine when it boots:) RAID volume is just another disk for WHS.

I forgot to mention that when this problem happens ICH10 RAID ROM is not loaded - can't press Ctrl+I. There is a message shown for a split second and looking closely I found that it is something like "No enough space to copy PCI Option ROM".

Google says that somebody had such problem with one video card. Other video card helped.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=116801

There is a discussion about multiple occurrences of the same problem and opinion is "Asus boards seems to have trouble adding additional hdd-controllers".
The remedy for some is to switch from PCIe to PCI graphics. Not sure, maybe I will try it. I have ATI 4350 PCIe video.
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx...del=P5K+Deluxe/WiFi-AP&SLanguage=en-us&page=1

So it looks like BIOS or mobo don't have room to copy Intel ROM. It is loaded last in the list so when I enable 4th controller it reaches tipping point.
Things like disable Memory remap or setting PnP OS to Yes don't help. What helped to add 3rd controller is disabling IDE port and NIC Boot ROM. But it's not enough for 4th controller to work.

Is it safe to use Asus Drive Xpert Sil5723 for bootable RAID1 volume? If motherboard dies will I be able to read RAID1 disks on other system that doesn't have Sil5723 controller?

Edit: Sil5723 won't boot either. Can't load BIOS, too late in the queue of controllers. So the question above is about JMicron.
 
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I have the ASUS Formula Rampage mobo it also has the ICH9R/ICH10R chipset and i get the same issue with 3 different SATA controllers, but only while HDD's are attached and powered on. (a minor technicality i know)

I have 2 raid sets a C: raid0 x 4 and a F: raid0 x 2 i wanted to add other HDD's not in raid mode just normal AHCI mode and i was getting the same "no memory for PCI" error while booting with any of the 3 add in SATA controllers i have.

To get around the problem i used 2 x SATA2 pullout bays witch have power on/off switches and booted the system with the pullout bays switched off, this allowed the system to see both controllers the add in controller with no drives and the on board 2 raids, once in windows I turn on one or both of the pullout bays and the drives come up, the very first time you do this you may have to go into disk management and import the foreign disks window should then remember the HDD from then on.
You have to remember to switch the disks off when you shutdown windows other wise next boot you will have the missing ICH10R controller again, but if you use suspend mode i find i can leave the drives turned on.

I use the pullout bays to back up and just for general dumping of files off to spare drives, and this method is working well do far.

When ASUS released the U3S6 controller I was wondering why my mother board was not listed as compatible as it was PCI-e 2.0 now i have an idea why.

There may be an IRQ or memory change fix by adjusting the ICH10R addressing but i have not looked into that yet!
 
I just don't like that Asus board. I bought one Supermicro 8-port SAS controller to replace all SATA cards that I had.
Initially it worked. But when I connected all drives it started to boot every second time.
I turn it on - no beep, no video signal. Turn off and on again - boots fine. S3 sleep stopped working reliably. It's not PSU, I tested other PSUs. Staggered HDD spin-up is enabled.

Bought Gigabyte EP45-UD3P motherboard, same chipset, same ICH10R - works just fine in place of Asus. I didn't reinstall WHS or changed anything but S3 sleep works again.

Tested that Asus in other setup with 2 HDDs - it works. Weird. But again, it doesn't like when I add SATA controllers and ICH10R is in RAID mode. It's been less than one year since I bought it but don't know if I will be able to return it as RMA.
 
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