S-ata HDD's Not Recognized in ASUS BIOS

[RangeRover 11]

To anybody that can help,

I would appreciate help on a S-ata issue that no one seems to get. I am
a tech and I ALLOWED the techs at the shop where I got my PC to
assemble it.
Here it is:
I have an ASUS A8N-Sli (not deluxe)
Two Maxtor 200gb S-ata HDD's
AMD X2 4200+
4X's 512 Corsair ValueSelect (mistake I know)

Problem is sort of a mystery. I have read the thread about Master/Slave
(it's all master with S-ata, IMHO) and I have a question you might
understand better than I since Hardware is my soft side.
To be brief, The Nvidia Raid controller that is built in the MoBo seems
to show a Healthy Raid 0 of 200gb
In the BIOS the drive config is as follows:
1-4 master/Slave IDE
1-4 S-ata
ALL enabled
No HDD's are recognized. It's as if I had no drives installed.

From what I understood, the BIOS should automatically detect the S-ata

drives (so says ASUS)
I think that maybe the techs just didn't configure the BIOS correctly
or set it p in the correct order. I am surprized that it boots. When I
go into the BIOS, I would expect to see my drives and not to see all
drives/channels enabled.
I am thinking about tearing it all down and starting over, but this
will be my first Raid setup with these specs. I don't want to mess it
up.
Also, the 4gb of RAM is set to 333MhZ and I want it at 400., that's why
I got DDR400 in the first place...
I know the MoBo will default to 333 from factory for stability with
some memory modules. The problem is that it's set to 333, all following
config is Auto and trying to change it to 400 doesn't seem to change
anyhthing once inide Windows and is benchmarked.
Please give advice if this makes any sense and what I ca do about the
mem settings which won't change if it is put to 400 and Auto. It just
says 400 with all other variables the same and seems to still be
running at 333.
I can be more specific if anyone will kindly post, just running off to
fix someone else's PC while I am a little stumped by mine.
P.S. I would like a dual boot system but don't see how that is possible
with Raid 0 (assuming no third party software is involved)

Thank you,
Range Rover 11

 

[Vagabond Software]

To anybody that can help,

I would appreciate help on a S-ata issue that no one seems to get. I am
a tech and I ALLOWED the techs at the shop where I got my PC to
assemble it.
Here it is:
I have an ASUS A8N-Sli (not deluxe)
Two Maxtor 200gb S-ata HDD's
AMD X2 4200+
4X's 512 Corsair ValueSelect (mistake I know)

Problem is sort of a mystery. I have read the thread about Master/Slave
(it's all master with S-ata, IMHO) and I have a question you might
understand better than I since Hardware is my soft side.
To be brief, The Nvidia Raid controller that is built in the MoBo seems
to show a Healthy Raid 0 of 200gb
In the BIOS the drive config is as follows:
1-4 master/Slave IDE
1-4 S-ata
ALL enabled
No HDD's are recognized. It's as if I had no drives installed.
drives (so says ASUS)
I think that maybe the techs just didn't configure the BIOS correctly
or set it p in the correct order. I am surprized that it boots. When I
go into the BIOS, I would expect to see my drives and not to see all
drives/channels enabled.
I am thinking about tearing it all down and starting over, but this
will be my first Raid setup with these specs. I don't want to mess it
up.
Also, the 4gb of RAM is set to 333MhZ and I want it at 400., that's why
I got DDR400 in the first place...
I know the MoBo will default to 333 from factory for stability with
some memory modules. The problem is that it's set to 333, all following
config is Auto and trying to change it to 400 doesn't seem to change
anyhthing once inide Windows and is benchmarked.
Please give advice if this makes any sense and what I ca do about the
mem settings which won't change if it is put to 400 and Auto. It just
says 400 with all other variables the same and seems to still be
running at 333.
I can be more specific if anyone will kindly post, just running off to
fix someone else's PC while I am a little stumped by mine.
P.S. I would like a dual boot system but don't see how that is possible
with Raid 0 (assuming no third party software is involved)

Thank you,
Range Rover 11

Ok, we'll use this thread instead.

If you have two 200GB drives, your RAID-0 size should be 400GB. If what
your saying is not a typo, and you have two 200GB drives appearing as 200GB,
then you do have a problem and should tear down the array and start over.

Of course, you will lose all data on both drives.

You should have set no jumper settings on either drive or at least configure
each for Master. Hook each one up to it's respective SATA controller (0 and
1), then use CTRL-S (or whatever it is) when prompted during POST to enter
the RAID Configuration. Manually configure your RAID-0 and set the
block-size to 16K unless you'll be doing more file-streaming than any other
type of usage. Oh yeah, you'll need to have your RAID drivers on a floppy
diskette.

When you boot to the Windows XP installation CD, hit F6 when prompted to add
additional drivers. Insert your floppy and select your RAID drivers. At
the Windows XP Setup Partition dialog, manually set the partition to be
logical drive C. I've had several attempt to default to F: even though the
only other drive was a DVD-RW drive.

I don't know what has happened at Asus and their newer boards, but I am
having trouble getting my Patriot Dual-Channel DDR400 memory to run at
400Mhz. I've never had any trouble with this in their older boards, but
their newer ones that suppot the 775 CPU socket seem to want to run it at
333Mhz. The only way around this that I know of is to use a different make
motherboard.

carl

 

[RangeRover 11]

Carl (or anyone),

Excuse me but that was a typo... I meant to say Raid 1 or Mirrored
array.
So, the problem was if the BIOS should see this healthy Mirror array.

With this in mind, does my question take on any new meaning about
having 8 drives enabled but nothing shown as installed (even though I
obviously installed the NVraid drivers and XP works)?
The ASUS MoBo has a 939 socket if not mistaken (no support for DDR2)


Thank you,
RangeRover11

 

[RangeRover 11]

A CORRECTION:

Sorry to anyone who takes the time to help with the question, but I
meant to say that it was a Mirrored array.
So if the Raid 0 part of the message throws anything, please understand
I meant 'Mirrored array'
That leaves the same question if I should have every drive enabled and
no drives showing as installed (XP works)

Thanks,
RangeRover11

 

[Bob I]

IF you enable the RAID BIOS to REPORT at BOOT TIME you will see them as
the PC BOOTS. THE RAID BIOS IS WHAT DOES THE REPORTING if you are using
RAID.

 

[RangeRover 11]

Thank you Bob I,

I appreciate the response.
I get a flash screen from the RAID BIOS that says that there is a RAID
mirror array. That I knew.
I gues in an indirect way you are saying that I SHOULDN'T see the S-ata
drives in the regular BIOS even though it has S-ata drives listed (not
sure why it would list them and give you an option to enable or not
enable if there was no use)
Also, in looking at others configuration through ASUS fourms, there
were screen shots showing the enabled S-ata drives, the disabled
non-used drives, etc.
To be clear, my raid controller is integrated in the MoBo, not a
third-party controller that I chose. This leads me to be even more
confused as to why the MoBo comes with S-ata detection screens built
in, yet you (I am assuming from what you wrote) are pretty much saying
that screen is there for no functional reason. Hmmm. Unless you mean
that it would be used only if they were S-ata drives NOT in a RAID????
Okay. If I have this wrong, let me know.
I will assume that the RAM issue (and whoever had said "why a mistake
buying Corsair ValueSelect", well, it's bcz after reading up on it, I
realized that it may be the weak link on why I cannot run past 333 when
I bought DDR400 for it's very ability to be that speed or even beyond)
was not part of my question you were addressing.

Thank you,
RangeRover11

 

[Bob I]

Since this has absolutely nothing to do with XP and everything to do
with reading the documentation for the motherboard this will be my last
response on this thread.
Item 1. In your configuration the RAID BIOS has control NOT the
Motherboard BIOS.
Item 2. If the MB doesn't support 400, you wasted money if you paid
extra for 400.