neo2 platinum 939 and RAID

noxidjkram@hotm · 22 Jul 2006 at 11:14

I've read around and found that (just like me) people are having problems getting SATA RAID to work on these. Windows install just hangs at 39mins.

Seems to happen with all versions of the BIOS.

Anyone ever have one of these or come across a solution to the problem??

M

split · 22 Jul 2006 at 11:25

Maybe a lot of people are setting something wrong in the BIOS?

Follow the below, and it should work

Multiple Drive Arrays Setup
Raid 0
Raid 0+1

1. Hook up the drives to serial port 1/2/3/4. You will experience a better overclock if you plan to do so. Put the drive on ports 3 or 4. For 0+1 1/2/3/4 will be used and overclocking will not be as likely.
2. Very first thing we will do is boot into the BIOS and go into “Standard CMOS Features”
3. Check to make sure your drive is located on what SATA channel you have the drive plugged into
4. Go into “Integrated Peripherals”
5. Press ENTER on “ Onboard Devices”
6. Press ENTER on “RAID Config”
7. Locate the “SATA1/2/3/4 RAID” make sure whatever port your hard drives are plugged into are enabled.
8. Return to “Onboard Devices” menu
9. Locate the SATA1/SATA2 – SATA3/SATA4 and enable these options.
10. From here we will exit/save
11. Upon posting you will now see the NVIDIA Raid Bios and press F10 to enter.
12. Here you will see your new drives located on the left side of the 2 panels “Free Disks” and “Array Disks”.
13. If you will be doing a Stripping or Raid 0 you should have 2/4 drives here use your right arrow key and make them both go over to Array Disks.
14. Make sure the Raid mode is Stripping for Raid 0 or if doing Raid 0+1 or Mirroring with 4 drives please make this change now.
15. For Stripping I would leave it at 64k until you better understand these options.
16. Mirroring leave it optimal or 64k.
17. Hit F7 (Finish) to create the array of your choice.
18. You will now see an “Array List”; as long as the drive is listed as healthy we are good.
19. CTRL-X to Exit. The computer should reboot.
20. We need to go directly into the bios right after the system posts.
21. Go into “ Advanced BIOS Features”

*NOTE*

When you have a serial hard drive hooked up to this motherboard and have arrived at this point you will be able to go into “Hard Disk Boot Priority”. Please go in here and you will see NVIDIA Stripe/Mirror here. Please make sure this is the top #1 option with your page up/down to select this.

22. You will want first boot device to be CD-ROM for Windows XP/2k installs.
23. You will want the second boot device to read HARD DRIVE; this corresponds to the “Hard Disk Boot Priority List”.
24. Save/Exit
25. As most of you know when you enter the Setup for Win2k/WinXP you will need to hit F6 to load additional drivers for other SCSI devices.
26. When you arrive at the “Press S” menu please make sure you load BOTH of the NVIDIA SCSI/Storage drivers.

This means you will load "NVIDIA RAID CLASS DRIVE" hit then hit S again and select "Nvidia Nforce Storrage Controller" hit

You must do this step or windows has no idea what you want it to search for in regards to possible storage space.
From here you should be able to complete the install of Windows XP/2K fine. You can go into the bios and make “hard drive” first boot if you wish now.

UPDATE

If you are going to use this motherboard with a raid array of any level with Windows 2k, It must be Windows 2k SP3+ or windows install will see only two seperate drives. You will need to create a bran new win2k cd on a differnt comptuer and upgrade the install with SP6 if you wish to use a bootable raid array!

noxidjkram@hotm · 22 Jul 2006 at 11:35

Tis a good guide. Cheers.

I've already done all that - everything works fine up until it starts to install Windows. The install just hangs at 39mins - the kitt car thing on the screen still moves and the words change and such, its just the install doesn't progress.

It was the same when i tried to RAID0 two Raptor 74s a while back - it just wouldn't work.

I tried RAIDing on both channel sets 1/2 and 3/4 - no joy.

M

Dillinger · 23 Aug 2006 at 20:25

noxi, have you managed to find a fix for this yet?

I've been pulling my hair our trying to sort this. All is fine when I put my single core back in but with the dual core, nothing will install on a SATA RAID array.

noxidjkram@hotm · 23 Aug 2006 at 20:32

Dillinger said:
noxi, have you managed to find a fix for this yet?

I've been pulling my hair our trying to sort this. All is fine when I put my single core back in but with the dual core, nothing will install on a SATA RAID array.

Nope - i'd send that info to MSI support tho, as i didn't realise that was the case with the single-core/dual-core thing...

M

bluesouljah · 23 Aug 2006 at 21:58

I had an issue installing RAID on my Neo 2 after installing an AMD 4600 CPU. It doesn't sound quite the same as yours, though. The issue was that after the reboot after the initial format, then file copy, well, it would just hang and wouldn't do the installing devices section. Anyway, the way I got it installing was to create a driver floppy from the latest driver on the nvidia website. I also only populated SATA 1 and 2 and disabled 3 and 4 in the bios. I figured this out as an install of x64 worked and required the new drivers. I hope this helps.

Cheers,

BlueSoulJah