Adaptec 4805SAS help needed

naro · 14 Apr 2007 at 07:57

hi guys, i need some help with my Adaptec 4805SAS controller card.

I've already got Windows XP installed and i added the Adaptec 4805SAS card to the system. I installed the drivers in windows.

Afterwhich, i initialised an HP OEM Seagate Savvio drive and created an array and formatted it.

Then, i reboot and after the verifying DMI pool data screen, it just hangs there with a black screen.

can anyone help!!! thanks

rpstewart · 14 Apr 2007 at 10:31

People who have cards as funky as that don't deserve help :mad:

Just kidding!

Sounds like it's hanging at the point where the Adaptec BIOS should come up. I assume from the fact that you've installed the drivers for the card in XP that the system boots with no drives attached to the card?

naro · 14 Apr 2007 at 15:41

yup.. i installed the drivers for the card in XP and it manages to boot without the SAS hdd..

anyway, i think i'm going to flash the firmware later.

naro · 15 Apr 2007 at 08:02

okay, i've flashed the Adaptec card to the lastest firmware. I've also updated my motherboard (AOpen i915Ga-HFS) to the last firmware. But it keeps failing to boot into windows. It keeps hanging with a black screen just before the Windows XP screen with the scrolling bars.

I tried something rather dangerous by booting into windows without the SAS hdd and plug it in when i'm in Windows. This only works when I have created an array in the Adaptec BIOS and then remove the hdd before booting up. In the Adaptec Storage Manager, it'll be detected as a logical drive.

If i do not create an array in the Adaptec BIOS, the SAS drive will only appear as a hotspare in Adaptec Storage Manager

rpstewart · 15 Apr 2007 at 08:27

I think you need to try and work out if it's getting as far as starting to boot Windows - there's a wee text mode bit of the boot process going on before the XP logo comes up.

Have you tried safe mode?

naro · 15 Apr 2007 at 15:51

hmm.. i've not tried safe mode though..

but its very irritating that its not working!!

anyway, some benchmarks i did on the HP-branded Seagate Savvio 10k.1 36gb

with Adaptec 4805SAS

with LSI 8408E