Can't Install Win XP Pro on SATA (RAID1) Drive(s)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Steve
  • Start date Start date
S

Steve

Hi there,

Firstly I apolgise for the length of this but I wanted to put in ALL
the details, as I am really deperate for an answer !
I have just built a new Computer system as follows :-

ASUS Motherboard P5GDC-V Deluxe
Pentium 4 3.4GHx
1 GB Corsair DDR2 Memory
Gainward Ultra 1960PCX XP Geforce 6600GT Video Card
TWO Westen Digital 200GB WD2000JD SATA Hard Drives
Philips CD-RW (CD Player/Recorder)
PIONEER DVR-109 (DVD Player/Recorder)

I have connected the "add-on" components to the motherboard as follows
:-

Primary IDE Connector (40-pin) :-
Philips CD-RW as Master and Pioneer DVD-RW as slave.

IDE RAID Connectors (40-pin) :-
These are marked PRI_Raid1 and SEC_RAID1
NOTHING is connected to either !

Serial ATA Connectors (7-pin) :-
These are marked SATA1, SATA2, SATA3, SATA4
The two WD 200GB hard drives are connected to SATA1 and SATA2 (the two
'Red' connectors) as directed in the manual) and according to the
manual (Page 2-30) are then designated as Setting :Master ; Use : Boot
Disk.

What has happened so far :-
I am trying to install Windows XP Pro SP2 (Full Retail) onto the RAID1
disk(s).
I have followed the instructions in the manual which I have detailed
below, and emailed ASUS THREE times but still no useful help !

I have gone into the BIOS and firstly enabled the RAID configuration,
exactly as it says in Section 5.4.2 of the Manual.
I then rebooted, pressed Ctrl + I and set up the RAID configuraion as
RAID1(Mirror).
It reports it as ID0 RAIDVolume_0 186.3GB
Status = Normal
Bootable = Yes
Also underneath says 2 Physical Disks on Port 0 and Port 1 and says
they are both "Member Disc(0)".
All seems to be OK there I think !

I then went into the BIOS again and this time set the ITE 8212F RAID
configuration in the Advanced Options exactly as described in Section
5.4.3.
This is where I now have the problem !!!!!!!
When it re-boots the IT8212 RAID BIOS (V1.7.1.92) says :-
DRIVE 0: Not Detected
DRIVE 1: Not Detected
DRIVE 2: Not Detected
DRIVE 3: Not Detected

At this point I now quote what ASUS said about this :-
"The ports you have used are "Intel RAID", which are SATA connectors.
The Red IDE connectors on your main board are the "ITE 8212 RAID"
controller connectors, it will show you no devices connected as you
haven't connected any devices to that port."

OK, I have no problems with that :-)

They then went on to say :-
"In the BIOS boot sequence enable the 'Boot from SCSI' option.
This will allow the system to see the SATA drives.
Copy the SATA drivers from the motherboard CD to a floppy disk,
install the drivers from the 'F6' prompt during Windows XP setup."

This is where I have the problem !
When Windows XP gets to reporting the 4 options there are NO disks
available .. the 4 sections just say <not detected> .. end of
installation !
What I can't understand is that ASUS say put the drivers on a floppy
and these drivers are for the "ITE 8212 RAID Controller" BUT ASUS says
:- "The Red IDE connectors on your main board are the "ITE 8212 RAID"
controller connectors, it will show you no devices connected as you
haven't connected any devices to that port."
In other words these drivers are for the IDE Hard Drives and NOT the
SATA ones, no wonder they don't work !

At this point all I can say is help, PLEASE !
I now have a £1,000 sytem which has been sitting here for over a week
that I can't use !

Hope someone can help !

Steve (in the UK)
 
Steve said:
Hi there,

Firstly I apolgise for the length of this but I wanted to put in ALL
the details, as I am really deperate for an answer !
I have just built a new Computer system as follows :-

ASUS Motherboard P5GDC-V Deluxe
Pentium 4 3.4GHx
1 GB Corsair DDR2 Memory
Gainward Ultra 1960PCX XP Geforce 6600GT Video Card
TWO Westen Digital 200GB WD2000JD SATA Hard Drives
Philips CD-RW (CD Player/Recorder)
PIONEER DVR-109 (DVD Player/Recorder)

I have connected the "add-on" components to the motherboard as follows
:-

Primary IDE Connector (40-pin) :-
Philips CD-RW as Master and Pioneer DVD-RW as slave.

IDE RAID Connectors (40-pin) :-
These are marked PRI_Raid1 and SEC_RAID1
NOTHING is connected to either !

Serial ATA Connectors (7-pin) :-
These are marked SATA1, SATA2, SATA3, SATA4
The two WD 200GB hard drives are connected to SATA1 and SATA2 (the two
'Red' connectors) as directed in the manual) and according to the
manual (Page 2-30) are then designated as Setting :Master ; Use : Boot
Disk.

What has happened so far :-
I am trying to install Windows XP Pro SP2 (Full Retail) onto the RAID1
disk(s).
I have followed the instructions in the manual which I have detailed
below, and emailed ASUS THREE times but still no useful help !

I have gone into the BIOS and firstly enabled the RAID configuration,
exactly as it says in Section 5.4.2 of the Manual.
I then rebooted, pressed Ctrl + I and set up the RAID configuraion as
RAID1(Mirror).
It reports it as ID0 RAIDVolume_0 186.3GB
Status = Normal
Bootable = Yes
Also underneath says 2 Physical Disks on Port 0 and Port 1 and says
they are both "Member Disc(0)".
All seems to be OK there I think !
Click to expand...

The bit above looks good, I would skip the part below
I then went into the BIOS again and this time set the ITE 8212F RAID
configuration in the Advanced Options exactly as described in Section
5.4.3.
This is where I now have the problem !!!!!!!
When it re-boots the IT8212 RAID BIOS (V1.7.1.92) says :-
DRIVE 0: Not Detected
DRIVE 1: Not Detected
DRIVE 2: Not Detected
DRIVE 3: Not Detected

At this point I now quote what ASUS said about this :-
"The ports you have used are "Intel RAID", which are SATA connectors.
The Red IDE connectors on your main board are the "ITE 8212 RAID"
controller connectors, it will show you no devices connected as you
haven't connected any devices to that port."

OK, I have no problems with that :-)

They then went on to say :-
"In the BIOS boot sequence enable the 'Boot from SCSI' option.
This will allow the system to see the SATA drives.
Copy the SATA drivers from the motherboard CD to a floppy disk,
install the drivers from the 'F6' prompt during Windows XP setup."

This is where I have the problem !
When Windows XP gets to reporting the 4 options there are NO disks
available .. the 4 sections just say <not detected> .. end of
installation !
What I can't understand is that ASUS say put the drivers on a floppy
and these drivers are for the "ITE 8212 RAID Controller" BUT ASUS says
:- "The Red IDE connectors on your main board are the "ITE 8212 RAID"
controller connectors, it will show you no devices connected as you
haven't connected any devices to that port."
In other words these drivers are for the IDE Hard Drives and NOT the
SATA ones, no wonder they don't work !

At this point all I can say is help, PLEASE !
I now have a £1,000 sytem which has been sitting here for over a week
that I can't use !

Hope someone can help !

Steve (in the UK)
Click to expand...
Try moving the optical drives to the secondary IDE and leaving Primary
empty. Some motherboards map the SATA ports to the primary IDE.
Mike.
 
Hi Mike,

Thanks for your suggestion but there is no Secondary IDE connetcors
:-(

The only connects are as I mentioned :-

ONE Primary IDE Connector, supports 2 devices on 40-pin cable.

TWO IDE RAID Connectors, these are also 40-pin and marked :-
PRI_RAID1 and SEC_RAID1
The manual says these are for Ultra ATA 133/100/66 signal cables and
support up to four IDE hard disks that can be configured as a disk
array through the onboard IDE RAID controller.
The manual goes on to say :-
These connectors are set by default to IDE mode, you can connect IDE
devices such as boot/data hard disk drives or optical drives.
If you intend to create an IDE RAID set using these connectors set the
ITE8212F Controller item in the BIOS to RAID Mode.

Should I try disabling the ITE8212F controller in RAID (i.e. [put it
back to the standard IDE default) mode to allow these back to IDE,
then connect my optical drives to either the Primary or Secondry cable
?
This would leave the Primary IDE connector on the board empty.
I still think that I DON'T need the ITE8212F controller or the drivers
and they are for IDE drives on these sockets (i.e. PRI_RAID1 and
SEC_RAID1) and (as ASUS says and agrees with) my RAID1 configuration
is not on these sockets but on the two SATA (7-pin) connectors.

The only other connectors are the FOUR SATA (7-pin) connectors. of
which my two WD SATA 200GB hard drives are connected to two of those
sockets (SATA1 and SATA2) which are the designated Master/Boot ones.

Steve
 
Steve,

Since you've created a RAID 1 array with the 2 SATA drives on the onboard
Intel ICH6-R ports, you'll need to create an "F6" floppy disc with the Intel
drivers on them for a clean Windows XP installation, not the ITE RAID driver
disc that you used earlier. Instructions and a floppy disc creator can be
found at
http://tastycomputers.com/support/download/intel_application_accelerator_raid_edition_floppy.htm.
I hope this helps.
--
Russell Sullivan
http://tastycomputers.com

Steve said:
Hi Mike,

Thanks for your suggestion but there is no Secondary IDE connetcors
:-(

The only connects are as I mentioned :-

ONE Primary IDE Connector, supports 2 devices on 40-pin cable.

TWO IDE RAID Connectors, these are also 40-pin and marked :-
PRI_RAID1 and SEC_RAID1
The manual says these are for Ultra ATA 133/100/66 signal cables and
support up to four IDE hard disks that can be configured as a disk
array through the onboard IDE RAID controller.
The manual goes on to say :-
These connectors are set by default to IDE mode, you can connect IDE
devices such as boot/data hard disk drives or optical drives.
If you intend to create an IDE RAID set using these connectors set the
ITE8212F Controller item in the BIOS to RAID Mode.

Should I try disabling the ITE8212F controller in RAID (i.e. [put it
back to the standard IDE default) mode to allow these back to IDE,
then connect my optical drives to either the Primary or Secondry cable
?
This would leave the Primary IDE connector on the board empty.
I still think that I DON'T need the ITE8212F controller or the drivers
and they are for IDE drives on these sockets (i.e. PRI_RAID1 and
SEC_RAID1) and (as ASUS says and agrees with) my RAID1 configuration
is not on these sockets but on the two SATA (7-pin) connectors.

The only other connectors are the FOUR SATA (7-pin) connectors. of
which my two WD SATA 200GB hard drives are connected to two of those
sockets (SATA1 and SATA2) which are the designated Master/Boot ones.

Steve

The bit above looks good, I would skip the part below

Try moving the optical drives to the secondary IDE and leaving Primary
empty. Some motherboards map the SATA ports to the primary IDE.
Mike.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Yep. If he would read my posts from a day ago, he
would see about the same thing. I learned this one the
hard way too ... keep stuff off IDE 0 if you are going
to boot to a SATA drive. I'll bet WinXP is having a fit
with this. Heh!

johns
 
get rid of raid more problems than they are worth i know raid is good
but its not that good. go ide or scisi how ever you spell that dam
word :)
 
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