Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 RAID

[gsparesa]

Got my Mobo today but I'm still waiting for more parts to come in. I tried looking in the user's manual for the RAID driver's that are required for the GA-K8NF-9. Page 71 of the manual states to run menu.exe from the BootDrv directory on the CD-ROM. A generic menu appears listing many different types of RAID drivers. The manual only says to "please select the proper chipset model". WTF. I tried looking in the Features Summary for info on the SATA RAID chip used. No Luck there. I physically looked on the MoBo but all I found was a empty space for the SLi3114 flatpack. Went on Gigabytes WEB site and the found that the downloadable SATA driver for the K8NF-9 is the Silicon 3114r5. I downloaded the file and ran it. It failed stating, "Get install key failed". I went back to the CD and ran option I)Sil3114 Raid5. Is this the RAID driver used for those of you who setup a RAID on this MoBo? I really didn't want to setup a RAID on this MoBo. I just wanted to load the drivers just in case in the future I want to. So far I'm not impressed with how this manual is written. I don't even see a driver load order mentioned. Damn these generic manual and generic CD-ROMS.

1)IAA_RAID
2)GIGARAID
3)SiI
4)SiIRAID
5)SCSI
6)Promise 20276 ATA
7)Promise 20276 RAID
8)Promise 20265 ATA
9)Promise 20265 ATA(XP)
A)Promise 20265 RAID
B)Promise 20265 RAID(XP)
C)VIA 8237 Series ATA
D)SiS 964 SATA
E)nVIDIA Series ATA(XP)
F)nVIDIA Series ATA(2K)
G)Sil3114
H)Sil3114 Raid
I)Sil3114 Raid5
0)exit

 

[Trente]

Yeah, I also downloded the manual - Gigabyte sucks at documentation. From my understanding, our board uses the native nForce4 chipset capabilities for RAID functioning. The reason you saw the Silicon is because Gigabyte did copy&paste of the K8NXP-9 list of features. As I said, the K8NF-9 has no 3rd party chip to take care of SATA/PATA Raid. Hence, I think you should either go with E or F depending on the OS you intend to install.

 

[Dureth]

If you arn't intending to use RAID you can always Disable SATA/PATA RAID (and also the individual RAID for each SATA channel). When you do this the motherboard treats each SATA channel as another IDE channel, detecting them automatically at boot-up. Windows can see and use these as it would a normal IDE channel hard drive, no raid or sata drivers required.

I'm sorry to say I havn't been able to get my RAID working (2x80GB Barracuda) with any drivers (I even tried every single driver on the menu.exe list).

Bit of a ah heck but I'm only using this board as a stop over until the MSI Diamond is out. After experiencing Giga-bytes manuals, drivers and website I think I'm much happier to stick with MSI.

Good luck.

 

[Trente]

Originally posted by: Dureth
If you arn't intending to use RAID you can always Disable SATA/PATA RAID (and also the individual RAID for each SATA channel). When you do this the motherboard treats each SATA channel as another IDE channel, detecting them automatically at boot-up. Windows can see and use these as it would a normal IDE channel hard drive, no raid or sata drivers required.

I'm about to install a single SATA drive too; Can you please explain how to configure it so the motherboard treats it like a regular IDE drive? Explain it thoroughly, AKA "step by step". 10x!

 

[bobalong]

M NF-9 should be arriving tomorrow, I'll be looking into getting RAID setup so I'll post soon to let you know how I managed it

 

[Trente]

Originally posted by: bobalong
M NF-9 should be arriving tomorrow, I'll be looking into getting RAID setup so I'll post soon to let you know how I managed it

25 minutes ago, you were still thinking about buying it; What made you reach that decision of yours?

 

[bobalong]

Originally posted by: Trente

Originally posted by: bobalong
M NF-9 should be arriving tomorrow, I'll be looking into getting RAID setup so I'll post soon to let you know how I managed it

25 minutes ago, you were still thinking about buying it; What made you reach that decision of yours?

I saw it for £69 and pressed the buy button - the web site always ships out next day delivery -I trying to put together the cheapest 939, PCI-x gaming platform possible as a bet with a friend of mine ashe is saying that I can't get Doom3 to work at 12x10 4xAA, 4AF above 30FPS for less than £400 - I think I'm going to prove him wrong

 

[Dureth]

Trente: I'll go through the steps when I get home from work and post a short guide.

 

[Trente]

Originally posted by: Dureth
Trente: I'll go through the steps when I get home from work and post a short guide.

:thumbsup::beer:

 

[gsparesa]

Originally posted by: gsparesa
Got my Mobo today but I'm still waiting for more parts to come in. I tried looking in the user's manual for the RAID driver's that are required for the GA-K8NF-9. Page 71 of the manual states to run menu.exe from the BootDrv directory on the CD-ROM. A generic menu appears listing many different types of RAID drivers. The manual only says to "please select the proper chipset model". WTF. I tried looking in the Features Summary for info on the SATA RAID chip used. No Luck there. I physically looked on the MoBo but all I found was a empty space for the SLi3114 flatpack. Went on Gigabytes WEB site and the found that the downloadable SATA driver for the K8NF-9 is the Silicon 3114r5. I downloaded the file and ran it. It failed stating, "Get install key failed". I went back to the CD and ran option I)Sil3114 Raid5. Is this the RAID driver used for those of you who setup a RAID on this MoBo? I really didn't want to setup a RAID on this MoBo. I just wanted to load the drivers just in case in the future I want to. So far I'm not impressed with how this manual is written. I don't even see a driver load order mentioned. Damn these generic manual and generic CD-ROMS.

1)IAA_RAID
2)GIGARAID
3)SiI
4)SiIRAID
5)SCSI
6)Promise 20276 ATA
7)Promise 20276 RAID
8)Promise 20265 ATA
9)Promise 20265 ATA(XP)
A)Promise 20265 RAID
B)Promise 20265 RAID(XP)
C)VIA 8237 Series ATA
D)SiS 964 SATA
E)nVIDIA Series ATA(XP)
F)nVIDIA Series ATA(2K)
G)Sil3114
H)Sil3114 Raid
I)Sil3114 Raid5
0)exit

Take a look on page 11 of the manual. The definition for Onboard SATA RAID, "Onboard nForce-4X chipset...". Notice how the SATA drivers have been remove from the Gigabyte's WEB site.
http://tw.giga-byte.com/Mother...r/Driver_GA-K8NF-9.htm

Here is the response I recieved from the Gygabyte support group:



hello,

Nforce 4 controller driver , First you need the motherboard driver CD, a blank floppy diskette, and a working PC to create a driver disk.
1. Place the motherboard CD into a working PC.

2. Place the blank floppy into the floppy drive.

3. On the motherboard CD, go to " BOOTDRV" folder, and to "Menu" file, double click on the "menu" file, and choose the driver that you need to make by pressing the number /letter key. For instance, if you want to create a NVIDIA native RAID driver disk, and the correspondence option for the driver is letter "E", all you need to do is insert a good formatted floppy diskett to floppy drive then press "E? on the keyboard, and the PC will copy the driver files onto the diskette for you automatically.
Note : to make things easier here I send you the driver just unzip it to a good formatted floppy disk do not remove any file

After the O/S is installed, install the mother drivers by placing the mother driver CD into the PC and select the "Express Installation" option and click on the "Go" button it install all drivers belong to mother board .


I guess the F) selection in the menu above is for Windows 2000.

 

[Trente]

I guess the F) selection in the menu above is for Windows 2000.

I don't get it. Gigabyte says you DO need to load the driver?!

Maybe they got the wrong impression and think you are about to setup a RAID array?

I mean, if you only use a *single* drive, you need to disable RAID and the mobo thinks it is dealing with a "normal" IDE drive; Hence: the OS has no need for a driver since it has a native one ready for IDE devices!

 

[gsparesa]

Originally posted by: Trente

I guess the F) selection in the menu above is for Windows 2000.

I don't get it. Gigabyte says you DO need to load the driver?!

Maybe they got the wrong impression and think you are about to setup a RAID array?

I mean, if you only use a *single* drive, you need to disable RAID and the mobo thinks it is dealing with a "normal" IDE drive; Hence: the OS has no need for a driver since it has a native one ready for IDE devices!

I asked tech support, "What drivers are required to build a SATA RAID using Windows XP OS?" That was the answer that I recieved. You only need to load the drivers if you are intending to build an array.

 

[richardnewlove]

gsparesa
I've had exactly the same problem - only one SATA drive to install.
Use a PC with an existing OS and get the correct driver from the BootDrv folder. I found for my XP install that "E" worked.
In the BIOS, disable all the SATA RAID options, but not the drives themselves. I found I had to leave the IDE / SATA Raid ENABLED so that the board would see my DVD Drive, but all other RAID options should be disabled.
When you boot from CD to install XP, press F6 to install the SATA drives and there are two on that floppy; one's a mass storage device and I can't remember what the other one is, but you have to press "S" to load that additional driver. It may then re-boot so it can continue installing XP.
It took me a while to get this figured out (there also some help over at pc perspective forums, look here:
http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=374615Useful!
Good luck in sorting this one out, and let us know how it went.

 

[Trente]

Hey guys, please take a moment to look at my thread here:

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=27&threadid=1497236

You may be able to help since we have almost identical setups...

 

[gsparesa]

Originally posted by: richardnewlove
gsparesa
I've had exactly the same problem - only one SATA drive to install.
Use a PC with an existing OS and get the correct driver from the BootDrv folder. I found for my XP install that "E" worked.
In the BIOS, disable all the SATA RAID options, but not the drives themselves. I found I had to leave the IDE / SATA Raid ENABLED so that the board would see my DVD Drive, but all other RAID options should be disabled.
When you boot from CD to install XP, press F6 to install the SATA drives and there are two on that floppy; one's a mass storage device and I can't remember what the other one is, but you have to press "S" to load that additional driver. It may then re-boot so it can continue installing XP.
It took me a while to get this figured out (there also some help over at pc perspective forums, look here:
http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=374615Useful!
Good luck in sorting this one out, and let us know how it went.

richardnewlove,

I got home and started and completed Windows XP install on a single hard drive. It was the fastest I ever loaded XP on a system. Here are the steps I took.

Steps I took:

1. Setup System Bios
a. IDE/SATA RAID function = Disabled

2. Ran Memtest 86 v3.1

3. Ran Seagate DiscWizard ? Prepaired HD for my system. (BIOS 80 hex, 160 GB)
Windows XP, w/SP1 or greater
Limited my partition to 137GB to prevent data loss. (Note: Re-run DiskWizard after install to re-partition)

4. Loaded Windows XP Pro w/SP2 (slipstream created)
http://www.winsupersite.com/sh...sxp_sp2_slipstream.asp

5. Inserted GA-K8NF-8 CD-ROM. CD found nVidia System Driver (A2), RealTek AC97 Codec Driver, nVidia USB 2.0 Driver and nVidia IDE Drivers that needed to be installed. Utilized the Express Installation.

 

[digital8doug]

To load XP Pro on SATA RAID, I physically disconnected all my other HD drives. After loading E, (Bootdrive menu.exe) onto floppy. I left SATA enabled in BIOS. Windows setup, F6, loaded the two NVidia drivers [RAID Controller, Mass Storage (?)].
Using WD360GDs I have tried RAID 0 and RAID 1, both installed Pro very fast. I also just disconnected & then reconnected HDD to see what happened. All OK in f10 RAID setup. Only problem is darn SATA data cables coming loose!
Am Experimenting w/ Profiles & Disabling RAID in Device Manager.
I am disappointed in bootup though since the extra steps systems performs, does not seem that much better than PATA RAID (Max 300-16 MB).

Problem on running OS on IDE MAx 250 w/ both RAIDs hooked up. NO TASKBAR appears on screen! Still investigating.

Anybody load F2 BIOS yet??

I would Avoid loading the Software apps on the mainboard CD. EasyTune5 don't work, GA said download ET4 from site. DMI Viewer appears useless. DO scroll down & load Cool n Quiet!

NOTE: In manual statement on USB drivers @ bottom, if using XP, do not load (pg 47?). Documentation poor, SOLTEK K8TPro much better!

Anybody know how to load RED Hat Linux (Enterprise 3) w/ XP PRO using GRUB? Neither recognize the other's partitions on HDD!

 

[gmchiryder]

I have a strange problem with this motherboard. Running raid 0, loaded the raid drivers, quick format, XP dumps the files and do the reboot. XP doesn't come up, instead I get a black screen and it stops there with no drive activity. I decide to try again but do a full format instead. The format screen comes up, it hangs at 0% with the hd light just doing a blink every 10 seconds or so. I went back and disabled raid and ran a single drive. Same thing, it hangs at format with no drive activity. Both the raid setup and XP setup detect either the single drive or raid array just fine. Any ideas what the problem could be?

 

[digital8doug]

posted by: gmchiryder[/i] [snipped]
I have a strange problem with this motherboard. Running raid 0, loaded the raid drivers,

d8d-I had similar problems along the way, actually you describe two different problems I think. First was XP formatting HDD & rebooting to start install, then XP not even completing the format.
Did you load both drivers (Bootdrv menu option E) from floppy (F6 option)? [ie, must select from the floppy two times b4 Win XP starts to install]
What are settings in BIOS? Hard drive Boot order and BIOS boot priority (2nd page), and SATA/RAID options (3rd page)
R U using SATA 0 & SATA 1 connectors?
Do you have any other HDD w/ an OS on them connected to mainboard?
What HDDs in RAID 0? [WD36 or WD74DGD]
On the 1st reboot did U see F10 option (RAID array) after POST, but b4 the OS should install/load?
Where is DVD/CD drive IDE 0 or 1, Master or slave?
Which Ver XP (H/P), SP (1/2) ?

RAID or single drive; quick or full (which hangs with no drive activity) format, XP dumps the files and reboots. XP doesn't come up, instead I get a black screen and it stops there with no drive activity.

Both the raid setup and XP setup detect either the single drive or raid array just fine.
d8d-RAID setup (f10 option) should not see a single drive if BIOS is correct!
What does XP setup show for drive size, partitions?

Any ideas what the problem could be?[/quote]

 

[gmchiryder]

I did load both drivers from floppy. I believe I had the boot priority set to cd first and hard drive second. I'm using SATA 0 & SATA 1. No other Hard drives connected and the drives are WD74DGD. I did see the F10 option and set up the array as a stripe. The XP install I have is pre-sp1, could this be a problem? This is my first attempt at putting anything together with the Nforce4 chipset. As far as the raid setup seeing a single drive.....I could have been mistaken. I did disable all of the raid options before trying a single drive.

 

[Longerr]

Could you send me the drivers that they have send you, I don't know what's the problem but I can't run the Menu from the BootDrv, The filesystem is not suiteble to run MS-Dos application, I have the same Mobo as you Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 RAID, and want to install Sata Raid, thank you, my mail is Kjuro@seznam.cz

 

[rhwimmers]

Anyone here happen to have 2 video CAPTURE cards they can test with this mobo? I am unsuccessfull gettting 2 capture cards to work at the same time with this mobo. I have tested with Dvico FUSION, Hauppauge PVR150MCE, and an ATI Rage card.
Thanks
Ross

 

[grooge]

I dont know why you have to install RAID drivers to use only one single drive on that board... I just set up one this morning, all I did was to plug the drive in SATA0, then I went in BIOS, and, while keeping Serial-ATA 1 and Serial-ATA 2 enabled, I disabled all the SATA1 and 2, primary and secondary RAID options.

I put the WinXP cd in, let the install go, select the drive I wanted to install it, and 20 minutes later, Windows was installed, ready for system drivers install.