Raid 0 + Data drives problem

frubes

frubes

frubes

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3 Apr 2008
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I have recently setup a raid 0 solution on my home rig using the onboard controller from my Asus Commando motherboard. When i installed the raid i only connected the two drives which i wished to raid together (2x80gb sata drives).

I now wish to connect up 2 more sata drives which contain my work and personal data in a standard setup which would leave me with my 2 raid drives and my 2 data drives.

Unfortunately if i connect the drives up before booting the bios hangs on something like "detecting AHCI device" or something along those lines. Yet if i connect the 2 data drives when i have booted into vista i can just hot plug them in and they are recognised just fine.

I can only assume that it has something to do with the fact A) i didnt have the drives connected when i first setup the raid and B) that the "configure sata as raid" option is enabled in the bios. The only other solution is that it has something to do with the order in which the drives are plugged in?

Does anyone happen to know a solution to this problem as its immensely annoying having to the plug in the drives everytime i wish to use them :(

Thanks

Frubes
 
You should be able to do what you want without any problems. Gimme 5 mins to grab the manual and have a check.
 
Just had a look at the book and it uses the Intel ICH8R southbridge for the SATA ports, that supports a mix of RAID and non RAID devices without any problems. The question is why you're getting an error.

Have these drives been used for anything unusual before - other RAID arrays etc?
 
Nope, pre having them in a raid setup they where just data drives. When i converted the 80gb to raid they where obviously formatted. The data drives are just plain ol data drives. I have tried a couple of formations for the connectors. Sometimes i manage to get ports 2/3/4 identified on boot but not 5. Other times only ports 2/3 will get identified and it will hang on 4. 2/3 are the raid drives ofc.
 
OK, sounds like we need to take this step by step. Start off with making sure the RAID disks work in ports 1 & 2 (I assume you've done this already), then try one of the data disks in port 3. If that works try the second data disk in port 4.

If it's still hanging then post back and I'll have a rethink.
 
I know I'm on a different board, but don't you have to explicitly specify each SATA port to be RAID or non-RAID in BIOS?

Gotta be in the features somewhere, mine are listed individually (x6) to configure.
 
hmmm, i have given the aforementioned a go, it doesnt seem to have worked. On one of my drives neither port 3/4 will work on their own and it just hangs in bios. On the second drive i can get port 4 to pass the intial bios stage but then it comes up with "error loading operating system".

It doesnt appear that the port numbers in the bios correspond to the actual connectors on the motherboard. The two raid drives are connected to 1+2 on the motherboard but when booting it shows ports 2+3 (im guessing the ide connection is port 1?) I dont know if it could be some sort of jumper configuration although i believe they are all set to the same thing, either that or the order the drives are connected on the actual cable?
 
When you have either of the storage drives connected does the system boot as far as the Intel RAID BIOS? If so is the extra drive being detected as a non raid volume correctly?
 
Yeah it gets to the raid controller screen fine, i entered it and its saying that the data drive is connected to port 3 and itsa non raid member and the two raid drives are connected to 4+5 and are part of the raid array. After exiting it then fails to load the OS.
 
That's not the end of the world, just a simple problem with the BIOS boot priority having the storage drive ahead of the RAID array.

What is odd though is that the RAID BIOS reckons the drives are on different ports to what you're saying they are.
 
im just gunna reboot and double check now as i did have a play around with them the otherday to see if it was an order problem, ill come back in a mo
 
Ok cool, i have the 3rd data drive in and working now and it gets into windows fine and recognises the drive.

The connectors where in the wrong order, i was going from the diagram in the motherboard book as opposed to what was written on the mobo itself. They are now detecting in the correct ports:

Raid drives, 0+1 and my data drive which works is in 2. Having said this i still cant get the last data drive to work. I have changed the boot priorities in the in the bios which has obviously fixed the bug which was stopping the OS loading. Gunna try a couple more combinations to check out why the bios is still hanging on the last data drive.
 
I have tried the last data drive in the remaining ports (3,4,5) and none of them work, it hangs everytime on Auto detecting AHCI device when the bios loads. I dont know whether this one is a drive problem, maybe i had a previous OS on it that i dont remember? its the same type of drive as the other data disk which is working. It still gets recognised when i hot plug it into vista.
 
ahhhh i think i may have spotted a problem, it could still be partioned from a previous OS intallation, guess i will backup the stuff on it and just format it and see if this works :)
 
You got enough spare space to clear that last drive out and format it?

EDIT: looks like you're thinking the same...
 
yeah thanks rpstewart. Im confident that should fix the problem. Thanks for all your help on this, its been driving me mad for a while now :)

Regards

Mark
 
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