• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

RAID issue

R

rondocap

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 7, 2005
Messages
254
I changed my bios version for my 955 motherboard recently, and did something to the startup menu that appears right after the initial bios screen.

There used to be a RAID setup screen that had my two drives and showed their status. Now, there is a message that says to hit F4 to enter the raid utility, but then it said not found. I believe it is some sort of Silicon 3111 SATA raid driver or something similar.

It does not seem to affect the raid or system, as I can boot fine, but to be safe, I would like to restore the original screen if possible. What can I do?
 
BIOS updates for motherboards will often update BIOSes and firmware for RAID controllers built into the given motherboard, especially chipset integrated ones. BIOS flashing is much safer than it used to be, but there is still risk involved, and it is generally accepted that BIOS updates should be performed only when the user experiences problems.

You mention that it's a 955 board. That means it should have SATA ports from ICH7R, but you mention a SI311x controller. Are you using the ICH7 SATA ports, or the SI ports? If you're using the ones integrated into the southbridge, which is recommended, then you can disable the SI controller in the BIOS. This will shorten your boot time and reduce chances for hardware resource and driver conflicts. A BIOS update usually resets the CMOS to factory defaults (you're supposed to do this yourself before flashing), you may have had it disabled before and it's now enabled after the reset to defaults.

Can you still get into the RAID BIOS utility to manipulate your drives/arrays? Are you using SLED with the ICH7R, in which case it simply detects them as ATA drives and doesn't run a separate BIOS?
 
I am using ICH7R. When I reinstalled XP, I inserted my floppy disk for drivers and seleted this option.

I can't get into the RAID utility, but where do I disable the SI311x controller message from poping up within the bios? Iooked around the bios, but I did not find anything specific to this. Where do I go?
 
rondocap said:
I am using ICH7R. When I reinstalled XP, I inserted my floppy disk for drivers and seleted this option.

I can't get into the RAID utility, but where do I disable the SI311x controller message from poping up within the bios? Iooked around the bios, but I did not find anything specific to this. Where do I go?
Click to expand...

It will be in your BIOS, where exactly depends on your MB.. Look in "integrated perifrials(sp?)" or the like. It might just be called SATA and not RAID..

Your MB manual should have this info.

==>lazn
 
rondocap said:
Won't disabling something to do with SATA remove my RAID drives?
Click to expand...

Depends on if you disable the Silicon Image controller, or your ICH7 controller.

Just be sure you are disabling the SI one.

==>Lazn
 
I checked the bios, and I saw two things that could be it:

One said to enable to disable the secondary SATA controller.

The second said to either have the hard drives in IDE, or RAID. It is now set to IDE, but the RAID shows up correctly as one drive in windows.

No mention of SI or Intel though. what should I do? Do I disable the secondary SATA controller? Won't that affect my boot?
 
Thanks. I disabled it, and that screen is now not there. Two more questions:

1.) How do I know if the RAID drives are installed and functioning properly in RAID 0 now? The two drives show up as one in windows, so does that mean it is working?

2.) At boot up, after the Intel/bios screen, the screen goes black for a bit and there are numbers that run down the lower right. 5A, B9, 0, etc. Is this the system loading? Right after this screen, the Windows logo starts to load.

Is there a way to disable that screen in between the bios and Windows Logo for faster boot up, or is that part of the system process?
 
I don't think my RAID is working properly. In Windows, my two 74gig raptors show up as 138gigs, but it says that the drive has about 76 gigs full, when in reality, it is only 6 or so. That means one of the drives is not activated, right?

In the BIOS, where it shows the drives, I have it set to IDE. RAID is another option, but it is not selected. When I select it and boot, it takes me to the Intel Storage Matrix RAID utility.

In this utility, it says tha the RAID volume is "failed" and not functioning. I have a third backup hard drive as well, along with the two raptors. It says the raid is not bootable, though.

My question is: It gives me the option to create a raid volume, and says the size will be 138gigs- the two raptors. Is this what I want to do? Will it boot normally and leave my backup drive alone without deletion? I guess I will then have to reformat windows, since the RAID creation says it deletes what is on the drive.

Is it safe to select that option to create a RAID volume? Or will I end up messing things up?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top