HDD problems

[nexrus]

Hello.

I have a small problem with my computer, it has a lot of HDs in it and I recently bought two new sata2 disks. When I attempted to plug them in, the system wouldnt boot anymore. BIOS recognizes all disks though, but it just jams before getting to the OS.
This is my setup at the moment:

4 x SATA @ motherboard (Asus - Socket 939 - ATX Nforce4 (A8N-E) - Gblan / Raid)
3 x PATA @ motherboard (Asus - Socket 939 - ATX Nforce4 (A8N-E) - Gblan / Raid)
2 x PATA @ Promise ULTRA133TX2 IDE Controller Card (pci)
2 x SATA @ Promise SATA300 TX2plus (SATA300TX2PLUS) Controller Card (pci)

I have tried to switch around the disks a bit, and pci slots for the controller cards, could never get them all working, however the new disks themselves do work if you plug out two of the ide disks for example. What could be wrong, am I possibly running out of resources or something, where should I start looking for the problem (running linux), and how to solve this? If more details are needed, let me know please.

TIA

 

[lamere]

11 hard drives require alot of wattage, plus anything else you're running.
If you can unplug others and get the new ones to work, it sounds like you need a stronger PSU, theoreticly speaking.
What is your PSU unit now?

 

[Rommel44]

Originally posted by: lamere
11 hard drives require alot of wattage, plus anything else you're running.
If you can unplug others and get the new ones to work, it sounds like you need a stronger PSU, theoreticly speaking.
What is your PSU unit now?

Yeah I also think its PSU. btw why do you have so much HDDs?

 

[nexrus]

My psu is Cooltek PowerSupply (PSU) 600W ATX 2.2, it should be enough.
I have an amd athlon 64 3200+ cpu in it, a weak gfx card that shouldnt take much.

It has a lot of old hdds in it, I dont want to get rid of anything 🙂 Especially if I cant replace them with bigger ones...

edit: How would I go on to try and calculate how much each hardware needs, if indeed that big a psu isnt enough!

 

[Raduque]

You can use http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp to get an idea, just plug in all your system components.

Does the system boot into the OS if you unplug the IDE cables, or the power cables?

11 hard drives, damn. You should start by getting rid of the smallest two and copying everything on them to bigger disks, or buying external USB2/firewire boxes and keeping them like that. Just plug a drive into a USB port when you need something on it.

 

[nexrus]

Originally posted by: Raduque
You can use http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp to get an idea, just plug in all your system components.

Does the system boot into the OS if you unplug the IDE cables, or the power cables?

11 hard drives, damn. You should start by getting rid of the smallest two and copying everything on them to bigger disks, or buying external USB2/firewire boxes and keeping them like that. Just plug a drive into a USB port when you need something on it.

I ran through the psucalculator, it shouldnt even need half the power I have, so I dont think thats a problem. Also tried to boot without the SATA cables plugged in, but power plugged in - worked, so nice tip there thanks!

While I was on it, I tried a few possible combinations, found out that if I unplug all the drives from the motherboard, and only leave the system disk and two controller cards with two drives in each (2 x ide and 2 x sata), it wont boot! I tried to check the IRQs a bit with lspci -v, this is what I got (after editing out system busses and such):

(1) 0000:00:06.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation: Unknown device 0053 (rev f2) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP])
Subsystem: Asustek Computer, Inc.: Unknown device 815a

(2) 0000:00:07.0 RAID bus controller: nVidia Corporation: Unknown device 0054 (rev f3) (prog-if 85)
Subsystem: Asustek Computer, Inc.: Unknown device 815a
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 11

(3) 0000:00:08.0 RAID bus controller: nVidia Corporation: Unknown device 0055 (rev f3) (prog-if 85)
Subsystem: Asustek Computer, Inc.: Unknown device 815a
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 5

(4) 0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation: Unknown device 0161 (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
Subsystem: CardExpert Technology: Unknown device 0403
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 11

(5) 0000:05:06.0 Unknown mass storage controller: Promise Technology, Inc.: Unknown device 3d73 (rev 02)
Subsystem: Promise Technology, Inc.: Unknown device 3d73
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 72, IRQ 3

(6) 0000:05:07.0 Unknown mass storage controller: Promise Technology, Inc. 20269 (rev 02) (prog-if 85)
Subsystem: Promise Technology, Inc. Ultra133TX2
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, slow devsel, latency 32, IRQ 5

(7) 0000:05:08.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c940 10/100/1000Base-T [Marvell] (rev 10)
Subsystem: 3Com Corporation 3C941 Gigabit LOM Ethernet Adapter
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11

(4) and (7) for gfx and nic obviously, (6) is the IDE controller card (Ultra133TX2) mentioned at my original post, (5) must be the sata2 controller card, rest are on the mobo.

Yeah I know its a lot of drives, there are some crappy ones I should definately ditch, but they hold nothing of importance and id just like to know whats wrong before simply giving up, its not like people havent had more drives connected to their computers before, shouldnt be a problem. I also thought the two disk controller cards didnt want to work with eachothers, but since I plugged the other one out and connected 4xSATA on the remaining card and it didnt boot..something else is up!

Lots of information again, hopefully someone has more clues and ill keep trying, thanks!

 

[moonsite]

Maybe it is trying to boot off the new drives you just installed instead of the old one. I think Windows only allowed 4 primary partitions at a time. I don't know what will happen if you have more than that. I would go into the BIOS and check your boot sequence and such to make sure you are booting from the right drive first.

 

[nexrus]

Originally posted by: moonsite
Maybe it is trying to boot off the new drives you just installed instead of the old one. I think Windows only allowed 4 primary partitions at a time. I don't know what will happen if you have more than that. I would go into the BIOS and check your boot sequence and such to make sure you are booting from the right drive first.

If it did, from past experience atleast, it should inform me that theres no loadable OS or something similar. Also, from what ive tried, this shouldnt be the case. I am using linux not windows.

 

[savvy]

Nice rig, by the way.

 

[nexrus]

still not solved, im totally out of ideas 😀 Anything someone might think could help, all ideas appreciated!