SATA/RAID Need help with HD's.

[Moose777]

Hi all. I'm new here. I was pointed to this forum by a friend who said you guys were quite helpful.

And with that being said. I need some help.

I just put together a new machine. I'm running the Asus A8V Deluxe MoBo 939 Socket, AMD 64 3500+, one stick of 512mb (for now, just to get things up and running).

The problem I'm having is that I've installed 2 Maxtor hard drives.

One is a 300 gig SATA Ultra and the other a 120 gig SATA Ultra.

I'm running an array of 0 on Raid 0 and I'm Stripping the 300gig drive.

The problem is that the Raid Utility is showing both drives but yet the bios is only showing the 300 gig drive as us the Windows Installer.

I managed to partition it and allocated about 10 gigs for the OS (I'm running Win XP Home) and left the rest unpartitioned so I can use it for my games and such.

But when I go into windows I am only seeing the 10 gigs that the OS is on and none of the other drives.

I've been messing with this for 2 days and I'm getting quite annoyed with it. Everythign I've heard, read and talked to people has been about how easy these SATA/RAID drives are to setup but I've had nothing but problems with them.

Can anyone help me out so I can get to playing D00M 3 and have all my HD's visible in My Computer on Windows?

Thanks in advance.

PS: When I open the Raid Tool in Windows I can see both my hard drives. How do I get them so that I can use them?

 

[djnes]

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but nothing your saying is making any sense. Are you trying to RAID two unlike drives together? Not a good idea. You'll also be wasting a lot of space, as the PC will see two 120 GB drives, giving you 240 GB total in a RAID0 array. If your not going to be setting up an array (which is advised, given your setup and lack of performance for a RAID0 array), the RAID functionality should be disabled in the BIOS, and your SATA ports should just be used as regular channels. I'm very against RAID0 due to testing results, but if someone else wants it, wonderful. But given your setup, I wouldn't ever ever try and make an array out of those drives. Also, you mentioned striping your 300 GB drive....that's impossible to do with a single drive.

My advice, make your 120 GB the primary OS drive....and use the 300 GB drive as your storage drive.

 

[Moose777]

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but nothing your saying is making any sense. Are you trying to RAID two unlike drives together? Not a good idea. You'll also be wasting a lot of space, as the PC will see two 120 GB drives, giving you 240 GB total in a RAID0 array. If your not going to be setting up an array (which is advised, given your setup and lack of performance for a RAID0 array), the RAID functionality should be disabled in the BIOS, and your SATA ports should just be used as regular channels. I'm very against RAID0 due to testing results, but if someone else wants it, wonderful. But given your setup, I wouldn't ever ever try and make an array out of those drives. Also, you mentioned striping your 300 GB drive....that's impossible to do with a single drive.

No see I have them on just the SATA drives but in the Utility it made them RAID 0. I followed the directions in the manual to a T and thats what happened. What do you mean lack of performance? I'm am very new at this so I can admit I'm pretty dumb. Is it because of my lack of memory? I'm well aware of that. I'm just trying to get the computer up and running; I've got plans on more memory however at this time I could afford it. And stripping the 300gb drive may be impossible but somehow it's been done through the RAID Utility when you first boot the system. Do you think that if it's changed both my drives will show up? The other thing I didn't mention is the fact I never ran that FastTrack Utility on my initial bootup. I was never given the option. I'm thinking that this may also be a part of my problem. How do you suggest I go about running that program?

My advice, make your 120 GB the primary OS drive....and use the 300 GB drive as your storage drive.

I tried to set it up that way. Believe me. That's why I decided to put the OS on today. Because I was unable to do it all day yesterday and all day today. I fiinally gave up trying to get it the way I wanted since the Windows installer wouldn't show me the other drive, nor does the BIOS. But I can see both drives in the RAID utility and when I oipen up the RAID TOOL in Windows.

I just don't know how to get them so that I can use them.

If I can get it so that I can make them both usable through Windows I can probably move my partitions around without having to redo everything.

 

[djnes]

I would recommend opening the manual back up and reading on how to configure the BIOS. I don't know what RAID utility your referring to, but there shouldn't be one in the BIOS or Windows, because you shouldn't be using RAID in your setup. It should be disabled in the BIOS. My Abit manuals clearly state for each of my boards how to set the BIOS options for every possible SATA configuration. Take some time and read through the manual again. It sounds like your BIOS is still trying to run the drives as an array, and that will only cause problems.

Also, I mentioned lack of RAID0 performance because many of us on here, and many respected tech sites have done testing to prove that RAID0 is all hype. 99% of the computer users wouldn't gain anything by running a RAID0 array, except a greater risk of data loss.

 

[Moose777]

I would recommend opening the manual back up and reading on how to configure the BIOS. I don't know what RAID utility your referring to, but there shouldn't be one in the BIOS or Windows, because you shouldn't be using RAID in your setup. It should be disabled in the BIOS. My Abit manuals clearly state for each of my boards how to set the BIOS options for every possible SATA configuration. Take some time and read through the manual again. It sounds like your BIOS is still trying to run the drives as an array, and that will only cause problems.

Also, I mentioned lack of RAID0 performance because many of us on here, and many respected tech sites have done testing to prove that RAID0 is all hype. 99% of the computer users wouldn't gain anything by running a RAID0 array, except a greater risk of data loss.

Well, I honestly don't have a clue how many times I need to read this manual. II've read this stupid thing more times than I can imagine and care to.

I just reread it actually and again, I changed some settings. And now the computer doesn't even boot up.

There are several utilities that come up aside from the BIOS. There is a Raid Utility that is supposed to create arrays. Theres the elusive FastTrack Utility that is also supposed to create arrays but yet, I have never seen it.

I think I'm just gonna reformat the whole thing and start from scratch. Quite frankly I'm getting tired of computers in general so this thing may be for sale here shortly. I'm getting tired of dicking with it.

I also keep getting this error. "No drive attached to FastTrack controller. BIOS not installed."

I don't know what it is, nor how to fix it because I can't seem to get into FastTrack whatever the hell it is.

 

[djnes]

Your still missing my point though. You shouldn't be using the RAID controller at all. I thought I said that pretty clearly, but maybe not. Forget RAID utilities, and anything RAID. Your not using them, shouldn't be using them at least. You keep going back to a RAID utility.....forget it...not needed. Just plug the drives in to the standard SATA ports, and install XP as normal.

 

[Moose777]

Your still missing my point though. You shouldn't be using the RAID controller at all. I thought I said that pretty clearly, but maybe not. Forget RAID utilities, and anything RAID. Your not using them, shouldn't be using them at least. You keep going back to a RAID utility.....forget it...not needed. Just plug the drives in to the standard SATA ports, and install XP as normal.

Yes. I understand that. I feel that you are missing my point as well.

When I go to install Windows it does not see the drives in the installer at all. It comes up and says there are no drives installed. But yet, I can see them when the computer boots up.

 

[defakto]

Two things
1.) when you disabled raid, you broke up the array that the bios setup for you, so total data loss there, it's gone. Don't worry about that, that's normal when you break a raid 0 array.

2.) Being as this is an amd chipset, you need to hit F6 during the initial install phase when it asks about loading any additional drivers from floppy and load the sata drivers off the manufacturer disc's for the motherboard. Load the Standard drivers, not the disk marked Raid.

That should solve most your problems right there. Sata drives are incredibly easy to setup. YOu don't need to mess with jumpers or cable position. You need to relax a little though, getting all bent out of shape and getting an attitude with people trying to help won't get you anywhere.

 

[Moose777]

Two things
1.) when you disabled raid, you broke up the array that the bios setup for you, so total data loss there, it's gone. Don't worry about that, that's normal when you break a raid 0 array.

2.) Being as this is an amd chipset, you need to hit F6 during the initial install phase when it asks about loading any additional drivers from floppy and load the sata drivers off the manufacturer disc's for the motherboard. Load the Standard drivers, not the disk marked Raid.

That should solve most your problems right there. Sata drives are incredibly easy to setup. YOu don't need to mess with jumpers or cable position. You need to relax a little though, getting all bent out of shape and getting an attitude with people trying to help won't get you anywhere.

I'm sorry. I've been messing with it for now 3 days and it's frustrating. I do appreciate your help.

But, on to the good news. I managed to figure it out with a little help from a friend who decided to come over and take a look at the manual and you. He even says it's kinda vague.

But you were right. RAID was what was screwing me up. I got confused between the ARRAY utitlty and the Promise Controller in the BIOS.

I decided to change the Promise Controller in the BIOS to IDE and see what it does after I had changed my Array to a JBOD setup.

I booted Windows (F6) using the ViasRAID drivers and Windows Recognized both drives. It added both of them together into one. Giving me almost 400 gigs of HD space. Which was fine with me because I have a combined amount of 420. I partitioned the amount and allocated about 8 gigs to the OS and various other things and everything now works.

Thanks for the help. I just didn't understand the directions in the Asus Manual.

How do I post pics on here? Do I use