Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe

[Martin Racette]

Hi,

I have that motherboard, but I have a question that I can not get any answer
from Asus or the Mobo's instruction

I already have the nVIdia SATA controler fill, and when I try to add another to
the second SATA connector set, all I get is an error message telling me that
there is no proper device connected, but that same drive if I connect it to the
other SATA connector set is seen and working (BTW the error happebes whatever
drive is connected)

If it needs to be a RAID, what good is it to put them there, when I pay over
$700 for 2x400Gb HDD, I want to be able to use the whole 800Gb for data

--
Thank you in Advance

Merci a l'Avance

Martin

 

[dawg]

Kinda confusing. You say you have the sata controller fill(filled?) and you
want to add another drive? or another controller?
I think you might want to check your BIOS settings.

 

[Martin Racette]

I want to add another drive to the second controlor, and the BIOS setting all I
have is enable or disable for the second controler

--
Thank you in Advance

Merci a l'Avance

Martin

 

[Transformers]

I have a SATA RAID configuration. I use stripping which makes two HD's look
like one and doubles the space. The other option is mirroring which just
make the HD's look the same for backup purposes in case one of them fails.

 

[Paul]

I want to add another drive to the second controlor, and the BIOS
setting all I have is enable or disable for the second controler

I still don't know if I understand your question. Yes, the Nvidia
interface has some direct control in the BIOS. Remember that the
Nvidia ports are part of the "chipset", and chipset interfaces
get a "place of honor" in the main part of the BIOS.

Add-in controllers, are separate chips. Each chip which is added
to a motherboard, but is not part of the chipset, may have a
body of code called the "Option ROM". This is added to the BIOS
flash file, but is, in a sense, a separate piece of code. In
your case, pressing F4 in the BIOS, gains access to the interface
provided by the Option ROM code.

That being said:

1) In Onboard Devices, set "Silicon SATA Controller" [Enabled]
It is set that way by default. Do a Save and Exit, to save
the new setting. I think that is necessary to get the
controller to appear on the PCI bus. If disabled, you might
not be able to see the chip when using Everest Home Edition
(lavalys.com).

2a) The next time you start the BIOS, press <control-S> or
press F4. The Silicon Image RAID BIOS screen should
appear. See section 5.5.3 in the A8N-SLI Deluxe manual,
for instructions on what to do next. Note - Use this
interface, if you wish to set up a RAID array, or if
you want to do JBOD.

2b) If you want to use the disks separately, as IDE devices
but not as RAID, don't bother entering the RAID BIOS. The
consequences of doing this, AFAIK, is you cannot boot from
that disk, but still use it for data.

3) Install a driver. Now, there are drivers that claim to be
IDE and drivers that claim to be RAID. My suspicion is,
on your Asus board, you use the RAID driver for both
RAID or vanilla IDE use, as the IDE version might not
even install. There is no separate IDE driver for 3114 on
this page (click Driver at top):

http://support.asus.com/download/do...product=1&f_name=&type=Latest&SLanguage=en-us

The large download size of the drivers on the Asus Support
page, likely includes RAID Management software. In fact, the
bare disk driver files, are tiny in size.

If you go here (Silicon Image support)

http://www.siliconimage.com/support/supportsearchresults.aspx?pid=28&cid=3&ctid=2&osid=4&

and select the 1.2.3.1 RAID entry at the bottom, you get a
tiny file.

If you then examine Si3114r5.inf in that download, you can
see entries like PCI\VEN_1095&DEV_3114&SUBSYS_81361043 .
The 1043 is the Subsystem ID for Asus. I don't know how to
decode the 8136 part - it could be per-motherboard or generic.
In any case, the IDE download from the siliconimage.com site
doesn't have a "1043" subsystem entry, so it should not even
install on the Asus board (going to Device Manager and trying
to update the driver with the IDE version, should in my
estimation, fail).

Anyway, I hope some of the above helps. I cannot figure out
exactly what you want to do, but enabling the controller and
installing a RAID driver, should solve most of your problem.
You could press F4 key, when the BIOS starts, and set up a
stripe (RAID 0) of two disks, or you can set up JBOD if you
want to span two disks and make it look like one disk. Both
options will give you 800GB of storage.

Personally, I would run the disks as separate entities, as
data recovery in the future might be easier (i.e. if you have
no backups and like to live dangerously, without a backup).
To operate the disks separately, install the driver, and then
enter Disk Management in Windows and finish the installation
process. I would hope to see two separate disks in that case.

Page 18 through 38 of this Foxconn manual, gives some info
on SIL3114. It says, if you want to run a disk separately
and boot from that disk, specify JBOD. If you want to use
a disk separately as a data only disk, then don't use the
RAID menu to set up the disk. That is my interpretation of
reading this manual (the contents of this manual should
also be in the Manuals folder on your motherboard CD):

http://www.foxconnchannel.com/pdf/925XE7AA-raid manual-EN-V1.0.pdf

The only downside of using JBOD, might be that Windows
prepares the disk as a Dynamic Disk. You should do further
research to see if there are any disadvantages to using
Dynamic Disk. I don't remember all the reasons Dynamic is
bad, but if I find one of my drives is Dynamic in
Disk Management, I strive to return it to Basic if I can.

Just some guesses,
Paul

 

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

I have a SATA RAID configuration. I use stripping which makes two HD's look
like one and doubles the space. The other option is mirroring which just
make the HD's look the same for backup purposes in case one of them fails.

Are you having any problems wiith our SATA RAID? And are you using
a Nforce4 board?

Im actually getting a bit paranoid now with claims of random data
corruption.

 

[Martin Racette]

I'm having an Nforce4 motherboard, and on it I have an NvRAID controller and a
SiliconImage RAID controller.

My current setup is that I have 4 SATA HDD already plug-in to the NvRAID, and
I'm attempting to connect an another one to the SiliconImage without creating a
RAID with this one

--
Thank you in Advance

Merci a l'Avance

Martin

 

[Martin Racette]

Tell me, if either of of your HDD that use stripping fails, what happens to the
data on the good one ?

--
Thank you in Advance

Merci a l'Avance

Martin

 

[Martin Racette]

The problem is that if I don't create a RAID on the SiliconImage controller, the
computer does NOT boot at all.

I don't understand why I should need to create a RAID, if I don't want or need
to

All I want to do is to install a HDD on that controller and to be able to use
it.

As for the driver part, I have already installed those drivers when I first
installed the motherboard to that computer.

BTW. I think that RAID are just a better way to loose everything, since when
someone want to just change the motherboard to upgrade the computer, one will
loose all the data on those drive since the new RAID controller will undoubtably
not be the same, and therefore will not be able to use whatever was on the
disk(s) before

--
Thank you in Advance

Merci a l'Avance

Martin

I want to add another drive to the second controlor, and the BIOS
setting all I have is enable or disable for the second controler

I still don't know if I understand your question. Yes, the Nvidia
interface has some direct control in the BIOS. Remember that the
Nvidia ports are part of the "chipset", and chipset interfaces
get a "place of honor" in the main part of the BIOS.

Add-in controllers, are separate chips. Each chip which is added
to a motherboard, but is not part of the chipset, may have a
body of code called the "Option ROM". This is added to the BIOS
flash file, but is, in a sense, a separate piece of code. In
your case, pressing F4 in the BIOS, gains access to the interface
provided by the Option ROM code.

That being said:

1) In Onboard Devices, set "Silicon SATA Controller" [Enabled]
It is set that way by default. Do a Save and Exit, to save
the new setting. I think that is necessary to get the
controller to appear on the PCI bus. If disabled, you might
not be able to see the chip when using Everest Home Edition
(lavalys.com).

2a) The next time you start the BIOS, press <control-S> or
press F4. The Silicon Image RAID BIOS screen should
appear. See section 5.5.3 in the A8N-SLI Deluxe manual,
for instructions on what to do next. Note - Use this
interface, if you wish to set up a RAID array, or if
you want to do JBOD.

2b) If you want to use the disks separately, as IDE devices
but not as RAID, don't bother entering the RAID BIOS. The
consequences of doing this, AFAIK, is you cannot boot from
that disk, but still use it for data.

3) Install a driver. Now, there are drivers that claim to be
IDE and drivers that claim to be RAID. My suspicion is,
on your Asus board, you use the RAID driver for both
RAID or vanilla IDE use, as the IDE version might not
even install. There is no separate IDE driver for 3114 on
this page (click Driver at top):

http://support.asus.com/download/do...product=1&f_name=&type=Latest&SLanguage=en-us

The large download size of the drivers on the Asus Support
page, likely includes RAID Management software. In fact, the
bare disk driver files, are tiny in size.

If you go here (Silicon Image support)

http://www.siliconimage.com/support/supportsearchresults.aspx?pid=28&cid=3&ctid=2&osid=4&

and select the 1.2.3.1 RAID entry at the bottom, you get a
tiny file.

If you then examine Si3114r5.inf in that download, you can
see entries like PCI\VEN_1095&DEV_3114&SUBSYS_81361043 .
The 1043 is the Subsystem ID for Asus. I don't know how to
decode the 8136 part - it could be per-motherboard or generic.
In any case, the IDE download from the siliconimage.com site
doesn't have a "1043" subsystem entry, so it should not even
install on the Asus board (going to Device Manager and trying
to update the driver with the IDE version, should in my
estimation, fail).

Anyway, I hope some of the above helps. I cannot figure out
exactly what you want to do, but enabling the controller and
installing a RAID driver, should solve most of your problem.
You could press F4 key, when the BIOS starts, and set up a
stripe (RAID 0) of two disks, or you can set up JBOD if you
want to span two disks and make it look like one disk. Both
options will give you 800GB of storage.

Personally, I would run the disks as separate entities, as
data recovery in the future might be easier (i.e. if you have
no backups and like to live dangerously, without a backup).
To operate the disks separately, install the driver, and then
enter Disk Management in Windows and finish the installation
process. I would hope to see two separate disks in that case.

Page 18 through 38 of this Foxconn manual, gives some info
on SIL3114. It says, if you want to run a disk separately
and boot from that disk, specify JBOD. If you want to use
a disk separately as a data only disk, then don't use the
RAID menu to set up the disk. That is my interpretation of
reading this manual (the contents of this manual should
also be in the Manuals folder on your motherboard CD):

http://www.foxconnchannel.com/pdf/925XE7AA-raid manual-EN-V1.0.pdf

The only downside of using JBOD, might be that Windows
prepares the disk as a Dynamic Disk. You should do further
research to see if there are any disadvantages to using
Dynamic Disk. I don't remember all the reasons Dynamic is
bad, but if I find one of my drives is Dynamic in
Disk Management, I strive to return it to Basic if I can.

Just some guesses,
Paul

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

Tell me, if either of of your HDD that use stripping fails, what happens to the
data on the good one ?

With a simple striped system you lose everything if one disk fails. There
is an alternative called RAID 5 which adds a parity disk to a stripped
system which allows you to reconstruct the data if one disk fails. The
minimum number of disks for a RAID 5 system would be 3.

 

[kony]

The problem is that if I don't create a RAID on the SiliconImage controller, the
computer does NOT boot at all.

I don't understand why I should need to create a RAID, if I don't want or need
to

All I want to do is to install a HDD on that controller and to be able to use
it.

Have you tried entering that controller's bios menu (hit a
key just after the main module of the motherboard bios is
finished), then defining the connected drive as a single
drive span? That is the typical way to do it. It should
then treat each drive as a single and be able to boot (at
least till (windows?) the operating system gets to the point
where it might need the driver installed but you mention the
driver below.

Don't define it as a stripe, that requires repartitioning
and formatting the drive.

As for the driver part, I have already installed those drivers when I first
installed the motherboard to that computer.

BTW. I think that RAID are just a better way to loose everything, since when
someone want to just change the motherboard to upgrade the computer, one will
loose all the data on those drive since the new RAID controller will undoubtably
not be the same, and therefore will not be able to use whatever was on the
disk(s) before

You'd have to backup the data first, something that should
be done regularly with a single drive and especially if
there's a RAID0 array. If it's a RAID1 array you should be
able to read the drive on a new controller.

 

[Paul]

The problem is that if I don't create a RAID on the SiliconImage controller, the
computer does NOT boot at all.

I don't understand why I should need to create a RAID, if I don't want or need
to

All I want to do is to install a HDD on that controller and to be able to use
it.

As for the driver part, I have already installed those drivers when I first
installed the motherboard to that computer.

BTW. I think that RAID are just a better way to loose everything,
since when someone want to just change the motherboard to upgrade
the computer, one will loose all the data on those drive since the
new RAID controller will undoubtably not be the same, and therefore
will not be able to use whatever was on the disk(s) before

The Foxconn manual says use the JBOD option in the SIL3114 RAID
BIOS, for disks that you want to boot from. But check Disk Management
and see if the disks appear as Dynamic or Basic. I would try to set
the disk to Basic if possible, in which case you will have achieved
the objective of running separated disks, and having them bootable.

Paul

 

[Gary Colligan]

The problem is that if I don't create a RAID on the SiliconImage controller, the
computer does NOT boot at all.

I don't understand why I should need to create a RAID, if I don't want or need
to

All I want to do is to install a HDD on that controller and to be able to use
it.

As for the driver part, I have already installed those drivers when I first
installed the motherboard to that computer.

You put the wrong SiliconImage driver on, there are two vers, one for
Raid & one for IDE, look in your MB disc....

 

[kony]

You put the wrong SiliconImage driver on, there are two vers, one for
Raid & one for IDE, look in your MB disc....

RAID driver doesn't support single drives? If not, that'd
be a first.