Asus P4PE & Serial ATA

[mistahspakuru]

Has anyone with an Asus P4PE mobo tried using a SATA drive with it? I just picked up a Seagate Barracuda V SATA 80GB, and my system will not recognize the drive at all.

I have tried:

1) Turning on and off the SATA/IDE Raid controller in the bios--neither configuration works
2) Installing Promise Fasttrack drivers included with the Asus setup disc
3) Installing a new version of WinXP directly to the Seagate drive (after pressing F6 during install to add a new RAID driver)
4) Installing the drive as a secondary data storage device--installation from my current harddrive
5) Praying, including liberal but jucidious use of incense and holy water
6) Holding my tongue just so
7) Pounding my head against hard objects

So far, nada.

Anyone have success with this?

I have had only one minor success: When turning on the RAID controller, at the post screen I have an option to configure the RAID array. If I select this option, I can see the Seagate drive as the only candidate for RAID array setup. This is encouraging because it suggests that the drive is functioning (yes, I checked to make sure it's powering up), but it is the ONLY time that the drive is visible. I am getting this sinking feeling that the P4PE onboard SATA setup requires a RAID array to function, though this is not advertised or specifiec by Asus.

I'm going insane. Help!

 

[boomerang]

I've got the same board but no SATA drive yet. I'm looking through the manual and on page 5-26 Asus lists the configuration for a RAID setup.

As usual the translation, although good, is slightly confusing. I do believe that the SATA connectors will only function in a RAID array.

You could try hooking your existing drive to the PRI_RAID1 connector and your SATA drive to it's corresponding connector. If you can then see both drives, I would say that you have your answer. You could even build a RAID 1 array. The utility will allow you to delete the array without data loss. Better be backed up first though.

I think the key as you stated, is that you can only "see" the drive when in the RAID config utility.

I really wish I could offer you more help. I am very interested in what you find out, as I had intended to try out the SATA functionality of this board when the drives became more readily available.

Asus really should have some clarification of this situation at their website. But I have been unable to find it.

 

[dbwillis]

Is the BIOS set to boot from CDRom and then Floppy, then SCSI?
I had to set it in that order on my P4G8X to get it to install XP onto the Seagate Sata drive.

(PS-your drive get hot? mine does)

 

[mistahspakuru]

Asus's support of this SATA on this board is decidedly vague. Much as I'd like to try the RAID test with my current drive, I'm reluctant to risk sacrificing my only bootable drive.

It definitely seems as though the SATA feature on this board is tied to the RAID functionality, though this would be both disappointing as well as very misleading on Asus's part.

I'll try messing with the boot order some more. I had it set to floppy, then CD.

Btw, my drive gets surprisingly hot--as in, a few degrees shy of being physically painful to touch. I'd say it's noticably hotter than my other drives, but not alarmingly so.

How does your P4G8X handle SATA? Is it onboard, or through a separate controller? I suppose if worse comes to worst I'll pony up for a separate controller card, though I'll be irked to have bought a mobo that was supposed to support SATA...:|

 

[dbwillis]

My board handled the Sata fine, booted off the CD, directed XP to the Sata drivers i put on the floppy, then installed on.
Its onboard, silicon image is the chipmaker, but mine didnt say if it was Raid only or single use either..glad it wasnt Raid only!

Yeh, mines that hot too..Im gonna put a fan in front of it...but thats really hot, aint it?

-good luck!

 

[boomerang]

Yeah I have numerous extra drives around. I Drive Image onto a spare and use it for possibly sacrificial tests such as I recommended.

So these drives get hot eh? Wonder why that would be. Doesn't seem like it should, but what do I know.

Two drives in a RAID array would cause some heat problems sounds like.

 

[mistahspakuru]

Well, this is interesting.

At wit's end, I finally decided to go ahead and set up a RAID array, only I figured I would use only the SATA drive--given that the Promise onboard controller handles both RAID and SATA, I had a hunch that it might see both in terms of RAID.

Believe it or not, the RAID configuration menu actually has an option for a 1+0 Stripe array. It won't let you choose a mirrored array in this configuration, so I have to figure that this option is reserved to run a single SATA drive. At any rate, the drive boots like RAID, but seems to run just fine. I copied about 6 GB worth of files, and they seem to access without problems.

I really don't know if this is the "proper" way to setup a P4PE for SATA, but since Asus has no documentation on creating an actual SATA setup, this seems to be a good place to start. If anyone else has similar experiences, please share.

Cheers.

 

[boomerang]

Thanks for posting your results. My plan as of now, is to hold out for the WD Raptor to hit the streets. But then again I haven't heard the price on them yet.