SATA problem ...

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johnny5alv
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Aug 10, 2004 8:56 pm
Location: UK

SATA problem ...

Post by johnny5alv » Wed Aug 18, 2004 5:33 pm

Hi

I've had a new system up and running for about a week now with just 1 160GB ATA drive installed... Now I have just put in two 120GB SATA drives and would like them setup up as a RAID-1 array. So my 160GB ATA drive will remain my primary boot drive.. and I want my 2 SATA drives as a secondary RAID-1 array.

I'm not 100% sure what I need to tell it to do in the MAIN BIOS...But I've tried several setups. It's currently set on Enhanced mode, RAID.

The problem is I can't enter the configuration utility (F4 at boot) - It says, 'no device detected ! utility disabled. Press any key to continue.'

.. This is a bit confusing since I DID have it working at one point, but I had to turn PC off to re-connect my ATA HDD (came loose).

They are recognized in WinXP disk management as 'not initialized'... I have formatted them as NTFS/Basic...And they work fine in WinXP as normal drives.

I've installed all relevant drivers that came with my MB - I have no yellow icons in my device manager...

Could anyone possibly tell me what settings are needed in the BIOS and how to get into the utility?

Thanks for any help

Jon
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CoolerMaster Wave Master
Abit IC7-Max-3
Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz 'Northwood' Retail
Corsair TwinX 1GB DDR XMS4000PT
Hitachi 160GB Deskstar 7200RPM ATA
2x Seagate Barracuda® V 7200RPM 120GB Serial ATA 150 8MB Cache
Point Of View GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB DDR3
Zalman ZM400B-APS 400W PSU
----------------------------

markjia
Posts: 171
Joined: Sat Apr 24, 2004 4:31 pm
Location: Vancouver BC

Post by markjia » Thu Aug 19, 2004 1:48 pm

Looking at the manual for the Abit IC7-Max-3, it seems that there are 2 SATA RAID possibilities, Intel's on-chip solution and a seperate SiliconImage chip. I'm not sure which is better though...

Regardless, both should work.

My guess as to why entering the "configuration utility" doesn't work is because it is for the SiliconImage chip, and you have the drives connected to the Intel chip's ports. So, if you want to setup the drives this way, just reconnect them to this controller.

To use the Intel controller, you need to enable it in the BIOS. The manual says to set "RAID Function" to "OnChip Serial ATA". Then, reboot the machine and hit CTRL+I to enter the RAID setup utility.

In either case, you should install the windows drivers before configuring the drives (but after enabling Intel's option in the BIOS).

markjia
Posts: 171
Joined: Sat Apr 24, 2004 4:31 pm
Location: Vancouver BC

Post by markjia » Thu Aug 19, 2004 1:50 pm

BTW, Intel's option requires XP. and the BIOS setting should not affect using the SiliconImage controller

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