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.

 

[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...

 

[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?

 

[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....

 

[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!