XFX revo64 raid controller problems

[MikeHunt79]

This controller works fabulously with one computer, everything is tickety boo.

With sods law at work, this raid controller won't actually work with the computer which I want to use it in! It doesn't get detected half the time, and when it does it reports a fault with one of my drives when I know there isn't a fault, as all my drives are fine in the other machine

So, I was wondering if there are any known issues with certain motherboards?

Or could it be I have an IRQ conflict or something?


FWIW, the problem machine is a P3, 450Mhz, and the motherboard says QDI LEGEND on it, whatever that means...


mods: If this thread would be better in hard drives, feel free to move.

 

[decto]

Hi Mike,

I've got a couple of the Revo 3 ports and I haven't seen issues similar to yours though I haven't used them in an older PC.

The non detection of the card does sound like either an incompatability or a configuration issue.

Are you trying to boot from the array or just using it as a additional drive?

Does the drive 'error' manifest itself on the boot sequence (Revo detection sequence) or once the operating system is loaded?

Are the drives plugged into the same ports on the controller card as in your sucessfull test setup?

Are you configuring the RAID array from the card it'self or from the windows software?

If you've added in the card and the drives to the new machine, is the existing power setup capable of managing the spin up current of the drives?

The QDI website seems to list boards that could be yours under the LegenX neme.
You might be able to match up either visually or by specification / chipset. Most board of the era were intel LX , BX etc.

http://www.qdi.nlwww.qdigrp.com/qdisite/eng/products/lx1z.htm

The are some hints in the FAQs around manually setting the PCI Interrupt in the BIOS and a potential incompatability with ISA lan controllers.

Regards

AD

 

[MikeHunt79]

Are you trying to boot from the array or just using it as a additional drive?

I'm trying to boot from it.

Does the drive 'error' manifest itself on the boot sequence (Revo detection sequence) or once the operating system is loaded?

The Revo detection sequence, my OS won't even load.

Are the drives plugged into the same ports on the controller card as in your sucessfull test setup?

Yep, I've written on the drives, and I'm using different colour sata cables to be sure.

Are you configuring the RAID array from the card it'self or from the windows software?

I do the ctrl-n at startup - I use that util to set it up.

If you've added in the card and the drives to the new machine, is the existing power setup capable of managing the spin up current of the drives?

Power is fine, the drives use around 7w each, they spin up and are detected, just 1 is reported as having a fault.

The QDI website seems to list boards that could be yours under the LegenX neme.
You might be able to match up either visually or by specification / chipset. Most board of the era were intel LX , BX etc.

http://www.qdi.nlwww.qdigrp.com/qdisite/eng/products/lx1z.htm

The are some hints in the FAQs around manually setting the PCI Interrupt in the BIOS and a potential incompatability with ISA lan controllers.

Regards

AD

There are no ISA card in the machine, just a PCI LAN card and an AGP gfx card.

I've firied up a system info tool, and found that it is indeed a BrillianX-1s with a 440BX/ZX chipset, and it's BIOS is version v4.51 PG (8/2/1999) - This means this machine is probably a decade old! I'll have a hunt thru the FAQ's and maybe update the BIOS if I can find a floppy...

 

[decto]

I can't think of any reason other than power or connection that would cause the Revo to see a drive connected to it as faulty.

I did have an issue with Freenas which insisted that any array is approx 750GB no matter how many or what size drive are connected. However at a basic hardware level even it the old EPIA 5000 m-ITX board found and loaded the Revo BIOS and allowed configuration of the drives.

Have you tried disabling the onboard IDE controllers or setting the board to boot from SCSI? SCSI is a long shot but it may force detection and use of the Revo BIOS.


AD

 

[MikeHunt79]

I'll try that, it may do something...

I'm just about to update the BIOS, I'm just making a bootdisk... I'm gonna have hope there's no powercut during the update...

 

[MikeHunt79]

BIOS is now updated without any drama, so I'm just going to try it again... I'll try different sata cables and different power cables, in case it is some sort of connection problem.

Would it be worth trying to disable anything like INT13 or anything else in the "advanced options" of the revo64?

 

[decto]

Out of interest I've been having a play...

I dug out my historic box and found an old PII 350 board, 96MB SDRAM, Geforce 2 AGP and found a pair of WD 250GB SATA drives

Anyhow plugged in my spare Revo ( I use 2 and bought a spare while they were cheap).

So far so good,

Booted and REVO detected with a single 230 ish MB array, 1 drive unconfigured
CTRL + N
Deleted the existing array and created a mirror - apply changes
Detected again at boot.
Got a Revo message (in blue that INT 13 enabled)

Restart and config BIOS
Set Boot order to CDROM - HDD
Set HDD order to SyncRaid

Restart

Slipped in my XP SP2 CD

Revo Bios Loads
Int 13 enabled

Start setup
Finds drive with existing partions (softraid freenas)
Delete this
Create new and quick format NTFS
Copies files

Reboots

Currently installing XP

I didn't have to do anything fancy with the card. The revo is just set as default.

Just thinking... the only thing I did read was that the revo can be funny with SATA II so some drives need to be jumpered to SATA I. Not had that problem personally and I have 3 x 1TB RE2's on a Revo in my media server.

Any questions... let me know.

Edit

Might also be worth trying different PCI slots since some mainboard only supported bus master in a couple of the slots.

 

[MikeHunt79]

Ok, it isn't being detected at all now...

Tried different cables, and SCSI set in the BIOS, still nothing... I'm going to try another PSI slot, see if that helps things...

 

[MikeHunt79]

Only just seen your last post...

Anyway, I tried the different PCI slot suggestion, and up popped the blue box on boot!

Even better, it found the array and told me "all is well" in a very Zen like way.

I'm now waiting for a live CD to boot so I can clone all the things form an old IDE drive to a more reliable RAID 1 array. Thanks very much for your help... doing thing like this in a semi-hungover state is never nice....

 

[decto]

No problems, hope it turns out to be a success.

You can't beat a good puzzle.... though I'll agree, hangovers never help. Should be a chuckle later .. XP SP2 with 96MB.... taking a while to install....

Have a good day

AD

 

[MikeHunt79]

It's working great (so far).... I have yet to put the LAN card back in tho... I hope they don't conflict.

My rig has 256mb but it's running Windows NT4. I guess that's to be expected from such an old rig tho!