Asus A7N8X RAID trouble

[tharef]

Ok, I recently purchaced and installed the following upgrades to my ccomputer: 512MB Corsair XMS PC3200, Athlon XP 2400, and the A7N8X Deluxe. My problem is that even though my two 30GB IBM ATA100 HDs are noticed by the BIOS and by Windows XP, I am unable to enter the RAID configuration software at startup. I get a message like "DEVICE NOT FOUND" and Windows just starts up.

Basically I want to set up a RAID 0 array and reformat the drives.

My setup right now is as follows:

Primary Master: IBM drive 1
Primary Slave: Lite-on 52x24x52x
Secondary Master: IBM drive 2
Secondary Slave: Pioneer DVD drive

What gives? How can I get this controller to see my drives and load its setup software?

PS: My old mobo, Abit KT7-RAID, had 2 RAID and 2 regular IDE channels so I didnt have to put my optical drives as slaves, why the heck would Asus put only 2 channels on the mobo?

TIA
Confused,
Rob

 

[mechBgon]

The onboard RAID is the Serial ATA controller. You would need to use SATA-to-PATA adapters like this and then you could run RAID.

 

[Sahakiel]

I have the A7N8X Deluxe as well.
It will not enter the RAID setup screen at all if you don't have any drives connected to it.
The RAID function is implemented using the Silicon Image 3112A? chip. It'll provide two more IDE channels, SATA style.
The other two IDE channels are hooked up to the IDE interface built into the Southbridge (MCP-T, if you're feeling anal).
Basically, if you want RAID, you're limited to the two SATA channels.

On a side note: The SATA channels for my board work fine on read, but really seriously suck at write. Somewhere on the order of 1-2MB/s. This is because the chip uses the same IRQ as the USB 2.0 controller. Disable USB 2.0 support and your SATA will suddenly work fine. It's damn annoying, but there's really nothing you can really do about it. I have yet to figure out a way to get the USB 2.0 to work on a different IRQ.