Computer doesnt boot into windows with raid 5 card installed.

[BigFatCow]

First off the specs of the system are a A7n8x, 2400+, gig of ram, 80 gig seagate as boot drive with windows 2, 3x 160 seagates for the raid 5 and the raid 5 card is a Promise FastTrack SX 4000.

The problem im having is that whan i have the raid card installed the sytem wont boot into windows, it goes through the bios and it detects the raid card and the raid is shown as functional, and it does the Updating whatever thing and thats succesful. But it just wont boot up into windows, it doesnt even show the initial 2000 screen where you can select safe mode and stuff. I have tried changing PCI slots and running with no HDs connected to the Raid card and it always does the same thing. I have the bios setup to boot with HDD-0 first and it works perfectly as soon as i pull the raid card and turn the comp back on.

Edit: i even tried to reinstall windows but it wont let me boot off the CD becasue the system hangs in the same spot.

 

[mechBgon]

Is your usual boot drive running off another PCI-based controller (such as the soldered-down SATA controller on the motherboard)? If so, the board is probably trying to boot from whichever PCI-based disk controller it comes across first in the PCI-bus scan when it's getting fired up. On some boards you could reverse the scan order to get around this, and on others you could tell it to boot from SCSI and then tell it if "SCSI" referred to the onboard RAID chiplet or plug-in.

I don't know if there's a way around that impasse or not, on the A7N8X.

 

[BigFatCow]

My A7N8x isnt the deluxe so it doesnt have the SATA, the OS drive is just on IDE-0. Ill try changing the boot order around a little and see if that fixes it.

If that doesnt fix is do you think i will just have to get a different MOBO?

 

[BigFatCow]

Ok i just tried changing the boot order around and i still got the same problem.

 

[mechBgon]

To jump to the bigger picture for a minute here, why are you moving to ATA RAID5, if I may ask? Fault-tolerant data storage?

Back to the little picture: the best PCI slot for that would be PCI slot #4 on an A7N8X, so if you haven't tried that one yet... yeah. It doesn't share its IRQ with any other PCI devices or slots. In the BIOS, you should select "SCSI" as the boot device if you didn't do so already, because that's how the BIOS will generally view a PCI-based controller.

If the problems persist... is the card known to be working? Try it in a different computer and see if the other computer picks it up.

 

[BigFatCow]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
To jump to the bigger picture for a minute here, why are you moving to ATA RAID5, if I may ask? Fault-tolerant data storage?

Back to the little picture: the best PCI slot for that would be PCI slot #4 on an A7N8X, so if you haven't tried that one yet... yeah. It doesn't share its IRQ with any other PCI devices or slots. In the BIOS, you should select "SCSI" as the boot device if you didn't do so already, because that's how the BIOS will generally view a PCI-based controller.

If the problems persist... is the card known to be working? Try it in a different computer and see if the other computer picks it up.

I lost a HD a while back and it really pissed me off so i decided to go to Raid 5 for my home server with family videos and stuff on it.

I had it in PCI slot 4 originally. I dont want to boot off the Raid 5 i have a 80 gig drive that i use as my boot drive, so i have it set to HDD-0 for the first boot. Yes the card is known to work i used to have it in my K7s5a but i got this A7n8x for a good deal.

 

[mechBgon]

Your K7S5A didn't happen to die while the card was in it, by any chance...? "Splash damage" comes to mind as a possibility... might want to try the card in a known-working system if that's the case. Otherwise I can't think of any great suggestions right at the moment... anyone else?

 

[BigFatCow]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Your K7S5A didn't happen to die while the card was in it, by any chance...? "Splash damage" comes to mind as a possibility... might want to try the card in a known-working system if that's the case. Otherwise I can't think of any great suggestions right at the moment... anyone else?

No it didnt die. Ill try it in another system in a second.

Thanks for the help and quick respones.

 

[BigFatCow]

Ok, I just tore apart my whole server and am running the K7s5a and it boots up fine with the raid card installed. I think im just gonna stick with the k7s5a.

 

[BigFatCow]

Alright, I got my server back up and running with the raid 5 setup but when i try to access the drive it says it isnt formatted and i need to format. I dont want to format the drive though, is there anyway around this or do i have the raid setup wrong and thats what is causing this?