SATA RAID Epox EP-8RDA3+

[Beetle]

Hi All.
I hope somebody reported following problems and can help me.
I've just completed new PC:
MAINBOARD EPOX 8RDA3+ NFORCE2 SOCA
AMD ATHLON XP 2500+ /333
HDD WD WD800JD 80GB (7200) SATA 8MB CACHE (just using only one HDD now)
Actual Drivers/BIOS:
SiI3x12A: PC Serial ATA (SATA) BIOS ver. 4.2.12 (the newest from Sillicon
Image)
SiI3x12A: Serial ATA (SATA) Windows RAID Driver - Released NEW - Version
10050

Under WindowsXP and also Win2000 I've reported many errors/events:
Event ID: 51
Event Type: Warning
Event Source: Disk
Description: An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk0\DR0 during a
paging operation.
HDD freezes from time to time.
Did you reported something similar ?

If other HDD is connected by IDE all works fine.
I guess something wrong with driver or sata raid bios (?) :-(. Any
experiences, please.
"beetle"

 

[DL]

It is not necessary to have identical drives for an array, advisable yes
You can install a single sata drive, with all up and running, then later
install a second and build the array without losing any data
If you used SI drivers from winupdate that may be yr problem, as the
winupdate drivers were defective.
If you used SI drivers direct from SI web site there are those that say you
should only use SI drivers from yr mobo site, as these may have been tweaked
by yr mobo.manu.
Personally I've used SI drivers, from SI, on my Asus mobo without problems,
for some time

Well, first of all, before you can install your OS you need to setup a

raid array. Your motherboard must support raid and there should be a way to
configure one at startup. Then, when you start the install you will be
prompted for 3rd party drivers, like a raid driver. You must install it
then. I actually have that same WD HD as you. But I have two of them. They
need to be two hard drives identical in type. This is necessary. You can't
add another HD later and try to setup raid. All your data would be lost if
you set it up sucessfully after the fact.

Maybe you know all this. But, since you're getting a paging error... (A

Pagefile is space on your HD that Windows uses as RAM) Go to Control Panel,
System, Advanced Tab, settings for performance, advanced tab, change virtual
memory. Set it on a different HD.

 

[Beetle]

Hi again.

Thanks for your suggestions.
I'm using drivers from SI.
Just for better uderstanding:
I need to install two HD for solving my problems ?
My idea was using one HDD (mainboard EP-8RD3+ /support RAID/ is something
like gift for me - I don't need RAID in fact).
If it is solution I will buy next WD HDD SATA 80G.
If not I'll waste some money :-(
Unfortunately mission impossible to get next HDD for testing

beetle

 

[Nathan McNulty]

I hope you do know that RAID requires two hard drives. You shouldn't
use the RAID drivers unless you have two hard drives set up in RAID
configuration. Otherwise, you need to just use the normal drivers (for
IDE, Windows will do it for you, for SATA, Windows may do it for you or
you may need to manual install them).

I recommend using SATA RAID 1 if possible. You need 2 SATA Harddrives
(they do not need to be the same size or make or model, but same is
preferable) and your BIOS needs to have that enabled.

 

[Beetle]

Dears Nathan, Travers, DL.
Thanks for your all help & suggestions.
Have a nice day.
beetle