SATA PCI Card Problem

[Anthony]

I've recently bought 2 Seagate 120Gb 8Mb SATA HDD and an ST Labs PCI
SATA IDE RAID card.

Unfortunately when I plug the card in and connect both HDD using the
supplied power adapters and SATA cables I can only see the HDD on the
secondary controller.

To try and fix this I have:
- swapped the HDDs around and still the same result
- swapped the power and SATA cables from primary/secondary controller
- disconnected all drives and disabled the onboard IDE controllers
from the BIOS
- bought new SATA cables thinking it must be a loose connection
- taken the card back to the supplier for testing, (they claim it
worked fine for them)

No luck at all.

My system is made up of:
420W Topower PSU
ASUS A7V333 mobo
2 * Samsung 512Mb PC2700 DDR RAM
AMD XP 2100+ CPU
ASUS V8170 video card (GF4MX440)
10Gb IBM HDD (Primary - Master)
20Gb WD HDD (Primary - Slave)
52x Sony CD-ROM (Secondary - Master)
12/Ricoh 9120 DVD/CD-RW (Secondary - Slave)
SwannSmart Internal Modem
Adaptec 2940AU SCSI controller
HP SureStore DAT8
Intel 10/100 NIC

Any help/advice would be appreciated.

Cheers

Anthony

 

[anon]

You installed sata/controller drivers?

 

[Anthony]

You installed sata/controller drivers?

Sorry, I should have stated that the problem is initially evident on
boot as the controller shows what devices are connected before getting
to the loading of Windows.

But in answer to your question, yes - I have loaded the latest drivers
for Windows. Still only the single 120Gb HDD visible.

I have also entered the RAID configuration utility for the card and
that only shows a single drive on the secondary controller.

thanks

Anthony

 

[anon]

Did you install and run Silicon Image GUI utility?

 

[Anthony]

Did you install and run Silicon Image GUI utility?

No, didn't think it would make a difference seeing as the drive isn't
visible at the 'lowest' level.

Can install it though and give it a try - nothing lose, plenty to gain


<5 minutes later>

Sorry, that just showed me what I already knew. Bugger.

I'm considering taking it back to the shop - installed in my PC - and
asking them to look at it or at least show me that the card works -
last time they didn't have the supplied cables (didn't want them
either... mmm... suspicious). Failing that, I'll ask for my money
back.

cheers

Anthony

 

[anon]

I suggested the GUI, since its interface gives quite a clear view of the
raid / controller setup.
I guess it was showing only the single channel, and presumably it did show
the SI controller.
That being the case it would tend to indicate that the card was faulty

 

[Paul]

No, didn't think it would make a difference seeing as the drive isn't
visible at the 'lowest' level.

Can install it though and give it a try - nothing lose, plenty to gain


<5 minutes later>

Sorry, that just showed me what I already knew. Bugger.

I'm considering taking it back to the shop - installed in my PC - and
asking them to look at it or at least show me that the card works -
last time they didn't have the supplied cables (didn't want them
either... mmm... suspicious). Failing that, I'll ask for my money
back.

cheers

Anthony

First thing I'd try, is removing the SCSI controller card. If two
cards have their own onboard BIOS to load, sometimes they can run
out of low memory (i.e. within the first 640KB) and one of them
will fail to load. Maybe one drive is being scanned successfully
and then the driver runs out of memory ? People seem to have
a lot of trouble with multiple disk controller cards in the same
computer.

HTH,
Paul

 

[bill]

<I've recently bought 2 Seagate 120Gb 8Mb SATA HDD and an ST Labs PCI
<SATA IDE RAID card.
<
<Unfortunately when I plug the card in and connect both HDD using the
<supplied power adapters and SATA cables I can only see the HDD on the
<secondary controller.
<
<

<snip>

You jumpered both drives as master/single only?

Bill

 

[Anthony]

<I've recently bought 2 Seagate 120Gb 8Mb SATA HDD and an ST Labs PCI
<SATA IDE RAID card.
<
<Unfortunately when I plug the card in and connect both HDD using the
<supplied power adapters and SATA cables I can only see the HDD on the
<secondary controller.
<
<

<snip>

You jumpered both drives as master/single only?

Bill

No, all PATA drives are cable select. And SATA drives don't require
jumpering - nor do these have jumpers to configure.

cheers

Anthony

 

[m.marien]

says...
<I've recently bought 2 Seagate 120Gb 8Mb SATA HDD and an ST Labs PCI
<SATA IDE RAID card.
<
<Unfortunately when I plug the card in and connect both HDD using the
<supplied power adapters and SATA cables I can only see the HDD on the
<secondary controller.
<
<

<snip>

You jumpered both drives as master/single only?

Bill

SATA is a new standard with one drive per channel. So there is no more
master/slave combinations.

 

[Anthony]

First thing I'd try, is removing the SCSI controller card. If two
cards have their own onboard BIOS to load, sometimes they can run
out of low memory (i.e. within the first 640KB) and one of them
will fail to load. Maybe one drive is being scanned successfully
and then the driver runs out of memory ? People seem to have
a lot of trouble with multiple disk controller cards in the same
computer.

HTH,
Paul

Paul, tried you suggestion - again I think :\, alas it did not work.

Thanks for the try though.

Anthony

 

[Paul]

Paul, tried you suggestion - again I think :\, alas it did not work.

Thanks for the try though.

Anthony

I tried searching for this beast, and only see it for sale here:

http://www.eyo.com.au/items_CatID_7_ShowAll_s.html

What worries me, is there are two models of card. One has two
ports and the other has one port. Is there any chance the wrong
card was in the box ?

I located ST lab here:

http://www.st-lab.com/stlab_download.html

Your product sounds like the PCI-IDESI3112R. Chip made by
Silicon Image:

http://www.cmd.com/products/storage.asp
http://www.cmd.com/products/sii3112.asp
http://www.siimage.com/documents/SiI-PB-0023.pdf

Drivers:
http://www.cmd.com/products/sataraid.asp
http://12.24.47.40/display/2/articleDirect/index.asp?aid=10469&r=0.8158228

Maybe a driver update will help ?

HTH,
Paul

 

[bill]

<Some dude calling himself, bill <[email protected]>
<wrote:
<
<>In article <[email protected]>, (e-mail address removed)
<>says...
<><I've recently bought 2 Seagate 120Gb 8Mb SATA HDD and an ST Labs PCI
<><SATA IDE RAID card.
<><
<><Unfortunately when I plug the card in and connect both HDD using the
<><supplied power adapters and SATA cables I can only see the HDD on the
<><secondary controller.
<><
<><
<>
<><snip>
<>
<> You jumpered both drives as master/single only?
<>
<> Bill
<
<No, all PATA drives are cable select. And SATA drives don't require
<jumpering - nor do these have jumpers to configure.
<
<cheers
<
<Anthony
<

M'kay, I'm using Seagate PATA drives with SATA adapters in one machine and they
both had to be jumpered master to work. The WD Raptors I have on another machine
had a jumper that was used for power for power management. My WAG would be a duff
controller card. See if you can exchange it.

Bill

 

[bill]

<
<[email protected]
<> says...
<> <I've recently bought 2 Seagate 120Gb 8Mb SATA HDD and an ST Labs PCI
<> <SATA IDE RAID card.
<> <
<> <Unfortunately when I plug the card in and connect both HDD using the
<> <supplied power adapters and SATA cables I can only see the HDD on the
<> <secondary controller.
<> <
<> <
<>
<> <snip>
<>
<> You jumpered both drives as master/single only?
<>
<> Bill
<
<SATA is a new standard with one drive per channel. So there is no more
<master/slave combinations.
<
<
<

Mea Culpa, I was caffiene inhibited. See previous post.

Bill

 

[Anthony]

Some dude calling himself, (e-mail address removed) (Paul) wrote:

I tried searching for this beast, and only see it for sale here:

http://www.eyo.com.au/items_CatID_7_ShowAll_s.html

What worries me, is there are two models of card. One has two
ports and the other has one port. Is there any chance the wrong
card was in the box ?

I located ST lab here:

http://www.st-lab.com/stlab_download.html

Your product sounds like the PCI-IDESI3112R. Chip made by
Silicon Image:

http://www.cmd.com/products/storage.asp
http://www.cmd.com/products/sii3112.asp
http://www.siimage.com/documents/SiI-PB-0023.pdf

Drivers:
http://www.cmd.com/products/sataraid.asp
http://12.24.47.40/display/2/articleDirect/index.asp?aid=10469&r=0.8158228

Maybe a driver update will help ?

HTH,
Paul

Yeah, that's the card I have Paul. The box states it is
PCI-IDESI3112R and the card does have the two SATA ports on it. The
cards RAID configuration utility works in that it won't let me set up
RAID with only one HDD connected - the fact that the card doesn't
detect there are two HDD connected to it would be the reason for that
obviously!.

I have downloaded the latest drivers for it but these aren't used
until after Windows starts to load.

Thanks anyway

Anthony

 

[Anthony]

Some dude calling himself, bill <[email protected]>
wrote:

M'kay, I'm using Seagate PATA drives with SATA adapters in one machine and they
both had to be jumpered master to work. The WD Raptors I have on another machine
had a jumper that was used for power for power management. My WAG would be a duff
controller card. See if you can exchange it.

Bill

I'm leaning towards that myself - I'm going to send them an email
tonight actually checking that it is okay with them - if they want me
to bring the whole rig to them I'm okay with that too.

The joys of buying components made by unknown Taiwanese companies

cheers

Anthony

 

[DL]

The sata drivers load prior to win start.
They should be visible on the post screen, prior to starting win.

 

[m.marien]

I've recently bought 2 Seagate 120Gb 8Mb SATA HDD and an ST Labs PCI
SATA IDE RAID card.

Unfortunately when I plug the card in and connect both HDD using the
supplied power adapters and SATA cables I can only see the HDD on the
secondary controller.

To try and fix this I have:
- swapped the HDDs around and still the same result
- swapped the power and SATA cables from primary/secondary controller
- disconnected all drives and disabled the onboard IDE controllers
from the BIOS
- bought new SATA cables thinking it must be a loose connection
- taken the card back to the supplier for testing, (they claim it
worked fine for them)

No luck at all.

My system is made up of:
420W Topower PSU
ASUS A7V333 mobo
2 * Samsung 512Mb PC2700 DDR RAM
AMD XP 2100+ CPU
ASUS V8170 video card (GF4MX440)
10Gb IBM HDD (Primary - Master)
20Gb WD HDD (Primary - Slave)
52x Sony CD-ROM (Secondary - Master)
12/Ricoh 9120 DVD/CD-RW (Secondary - Slave)
SwannSmart Internal Modem
Adaptec 2940AU SCSI controller
HP SureStore DAT8
Intel 10/100 NIC

Any help/advice would be appreciated.

Cheers

Anthony

Is the card in RAID mode by any chance ? The o/s may only be looking for one
drive as it expects a single RAID device.

 

[Anthony]

Some dude calling himself, "m.marien" <mm AT RiverCityCanada DOT com>
wrote:

Is the card in RAID mode by any chance ? The o/s may only be looking for one
drive as it expects a single RAID device.

No. The card actually detects any drives connected to it on each
controller and then after it has done that I can enter the cards setup
to configure any RAID array if I wish. The problem is in the
detection of the primary HDD.

Thanks for trying though

Anthony

 

[Anthony]

The sata drivers load prior to win start.
They should be visible on the post screen, prior to starting win.

Absolutely correct. And it is during this point that I only see the
single drive.

Anthony