PCI-X Sata controller and drive setup issues

Dr Zoidberg · 5 Jun 2008 at 21:13

I recently added a Adeptec sata controller to the PC,

There was already 3 drives in the PC, and i added a 4th at the same time as the controller,

New drive added to the controller and formatted in the controller bios, windows was happy and let me use the drive with out issue,

1 of the existing drives connected to the 3rd and 4th sata port on the motherboard which are controlled by a promise controller and this did not seem to like the adaptec controller so i disabled the promise in the bios,

With the drive now unavailable i moved it to another port on the adaptec and another of the original drives,

So now i have 1 drive on motherboard as c drive
3 drives on adaptec controller,

But for some reason i can not get all 3 to ever show together, 1 or the other of the old drives will not show, the new drive always shows.

Im sure power is not an issue, the PSU should be more than up to the job asked of it,

The only thing i can think of is that these 2 drives already contained files so i just added them to the controller and booted windows,
I did not format them with the controllers bios, do i need to do this for any drive i add to the card for it to work correctly or should i be able to just plug it in and run?

Pandobear · 6 Jun 2008 at 00:02

Most raid cards require you to 'create an array' even if this a single drive, to allow the operating system to see the drive. If you are saying that the raid card itself does not 'see' the drives, then this is likely a power issue, normally due to low 5V line.

If the drives are seen by the raid card, but not Windows, then it is likely because you have not created an array. You will lose all of data stored on the drives when creating a new array, so make sure that it is backed up elsewhere.

Dr Zoidberg · 6 Jun 2008 at 21:02

Pandobear said:
Most raid cards require you to 'create an array' even if this a single drive, to allow the operating system to see the drive. If you are saying that the raid card itself does not 'see' the drives, then this is likely a power issue, normally due to low 5V line.

If the drives are seen by the raid card, but not Windows, then it is likely because you have not created an array. You will lose all of data stored on the drives when creating a new array, so make sure that it is backed up elsewhere.

The card is seeing the drives, most of the time, but windows will only pick up one at a time,

Had one plugged in and shifted all the files off, formatted it in the controller cards bios and windows is happy, connected the other drive hoping that the card and windows might be happy with just one non formatted drive but nope,
So all the files are moving off that drive now then back to the card bios to format that and see if windows can see them all then.

Pandobear · 6 Jun 2008 at 22:15

Yep, great fun isn't it? I have just changed from an adaptec 21610sa to two Supermicro 8 port SATA II controllers, and had to rebuild a 7.5TB array from scratch, which included copy off and back around 3 TB of data. Realy really don't want anything to go wrong and lose data.

I think that you will find that once you have created an array for each drive your problem will go away.

Dr Zoidberg · 7 Jun 2008 at 16:07

That is what i was hoping for Pandobear but it didn't work.
But i did find the problem, 1 of the 2 drives giving me a head ache had a jumper on it telling it to work at sata 1 instead of sata 2, removed that and all is ok after both drives are formatted by the controller.

Dont know why it took so long for me to notice the jumper thing, the boot screen for the controller has the speeds of the drives listed every time it boots. :rolleyes:

But then again as the controller can use sata 1 & 2 it shouldnt have been a problem any way should it ? not that it matters, i have solved the problem and one drive is now working faster

Pandobear · 7 Jun 2008 at 17:36

I am glad that you have got it sorted