Hard Drive Help

zach2k6

zach2k6

zach2k6

Associate
Joined
29 Dec 2005
Posts
37
Location
Newport, South Wales
Hi,

I just bought 3 of these HD's

Western Digital WD2500KS Caviar SE 250GB 7200RPM SATA2/300 16MB Cache

I plugged them all into the sata plugs on motherboard, and plugged a sata power connector into each HD.

When I boot the computer, I can see the 3 drives flash up on the intro/black screen (the one before windows loads). I think they were listed under a RAID title or somthing....on the next screen that flashed up, my main sata hardrive shows up...but not under the same 'title' as my 3 new HD's.

Then when windows has loaded....my new drives dont show up under 'my computer', and the data lifeguard program (program from western digital site) doesent see the new drives either.

Does anyone know how I can get these drives to work???

here are my specs if needed:
dfi lanparty nf4
amd x2 4400
win xp
 
OK, sounds like the BIOS is not detecting them correctly or they need to be setup as RAID / non RAID depending on your preference.

How many SATA ports are on the board, just 4 from the nForce controller or is there another pair on a Promise / Silicon Image controller as well? Which port is your original boot drive on?
 
egvx6.jpg

Thats where they are plugged
 
OK, that's good, narrows down what the issue is nicely. I think the first thing we need to establish is how you want the new drives to appear in Windows - gut feel says 3 separate drives is probably going to be the best option for you but that's your call.

The drives are on the Silicon Image controller so what you'll need to do is go into the SI BIOS - Ctrl+S or F4 when the SI BIOS appears. I'm not sure if the option exists to run the SI ports in an IDE emulation mode or if you'll need to set up 3 single disk RAID arrays to do it but either will give you the same result. It should then just be a case of getting them working in Windows, you may be able to just go through Disk Management and setting up partitions or you may need to add drivers for the SI controller - check Device Manager and see if it's there already.
 
rpstewart said:
OK, that's good, narrows down what the issue is nicely. I think the first thing we need to establish is how you want the new drives to appear in Windows - gut feel says 3 separate drives is probably going to be the best option for you but that's your call.

The drives are on the Silicon Image controller so what you'll need to do is go into the SI BIOS - Ctrl+S or F4 when the SI BIOS appears. I'm not sure if the option exists to run the SI ports in an IDE emulation mode or if you'll need to set up 3 single disk RAID arrays to do it but either will give you the same result. It should then just be a case of getting them working in Windows, you may be able to just go through Disk Management and setting up partitions or you may need to add drivers for the SI controller - check Device Manager and see if it's there already.
Click to expand...

Is still doesent work. I have installed the Silicon Raid drivers, went into the SI Bios and all it sais it stuff about setting up raid 0,0,2,5 ect

Still no detection from windows
 
*UPDATE*

Works now

I made a raid of all 3 drives (750gig)

Then the western digital software noticed the drives and then let me create 3 partions,

1 for Music
1 for Video
1 for Software ect

Thanks for all your help!
 
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