PCI raid controller question

[Chris Wilson]

I have 2 matched hard drives in a Raid 0 configuration, with them split as C and D. They have Windows 2000 on them. My Asus m/board only has two SATA connectors. I want to add a 320 gig Barracuda as a third hard drive, so I have bought a cheapo PCI SATA card with one external and one internal connector. The PC sees the now installed controller card, and the cards BIOS sees the new HD. However, with the new drive connected, (as bought, no format, nothing), Win 2000 fails to boot (No OS shows in boot up screens). Disconnected the SATA cable from the new drive restores the Win 2000 boot up OK.

I want the new drive to be usable initially to experiment with Obuntu Linux, but if I don't get on with it I want to use it as back up space. The SATA card BIOS intimidates me, I expected the card to just allow the new drive to be seen, and for me to partion it and format it as I liked. I didn't expect all these various RAID options in the menu. Can someone, in the most basic terms possible, kindly explain how I should attend to its BIOS settings, and how to have the new drive connected without causing 2000 to stop booting please? I have played around a bit and the SATA card BIOS now has this new drive shown as bootable, and I see no way to remove this attribute... I should have asked this BEFORE mucking about ...

Thanks for any tips you can share. BIOS is ALi and the card itself Card is an M5283

 

[Chris Wilson]

Not sure as to what level your knowledge is so apologies for this if you would already know, but it sounded to me like you may not have set the boot order in BIOS having added it? i.e. Maybe its set to not see your RAID array first and hence boot properly?

I have very limited knowledge of this, but in the m/board bios i have it set to boot scsi, floppy then CD. The windows OS will ONLY boot if I disconnect the new drive from the SATA PCI card. I am wondering if what I want to do is impossible with this card, and that is to keep the existing on board Sil ports running a 2 disk RAID 0 Striped set, and use the add on card to run the new single disk as extra storage, and eventually to load Ubuntu linux onto it. I am getting the feeling this card NEEDS 2 drives connected to it, in a RAID, and won't work with just one drive?

Thanks for your reply, my level of knowledge of this is very scanty!

 

[Chris Wilson]

Yup, that sounds like what the problem is. The solution might be a bit tricky though, you could try changing the slot that the controller is using and see if that makes any difference. The resources for the slots are assigned to the one nearest the CPU first so if you move the card to the PCI slot nearest the left edge of the board it may appear to the BIOS after the onboard RAID - it's a long shot but it might just work. If it doesn't then the only option will be to delve into the BIOS of the PCI card and see if the boot ROM can be disabled.

I have tried moving to each end slot, no change. I liked that idea, but sod it, worth a go... I agree sounds like a SATA card bios prob, how would one "delve into it"? I have looked for an update but cannot find anything. Thanks everyone.