IWILL KA266-R Mobo--Can I run RAID & Standard?

[Garynyc]

Hello! Im running a win2k system on an Iwill KA266-R mobo with two standard IDE Hard Drives, one internal zip drive and one internal CDR drive. The system works very well. Today I picked up a new 7200 RPM Maxtor hard drive and was considering running it as a third hard drive off of the RAID port on the mobo. I installed it, and the bootup process seems to have seen the drive. I have it as a master drive..the RAID config utility sees it as such and I left it as a stripe drive. The drive isnt formatted. The problem occurs when the boot process gets to the win 2K splash screen. At this point the entire system locks up. Is it possible to run a RAID drive as well as the standard IDE drives at the same time, or will I need all hard drives connected as RAIDs? Thank you!:|

 

[mschell]

You can use the RAID ports as regular UDMA/100 IDE ports in addition to the regular IDE ports, you don't even have to configure the RAID controller but you do need to load the Windows SCSI/RAID drivers. Try booting the system with no drive attached to the RAID port. You might need to install the drivers in Safe Mode if the system is locking on boot even with the drive connected. Another possible problem is a resource problem with the RAID controller which sits on the PCI bus, check the manual for the PCI slot it shares, remove any card in that slot.

 

[Garynyc]

Well, I have the Megaraid IDE application installed and its running in the systray. Also, in the device manager I see an AMI MegaRAID IDE 100 controller, and it seems to have no problems. The RAID drive I added is visible upon bootup--it shows its configured and is functioning--the HD space and brand seem to be autodetected. Still locking up on the Win2K boot screen! What could I be missing? Thank you for helping out!:frown:

 

[NelsonMuntz]

Have you tried running the new hard drive on the regular IDE channels to see if it works there? There is no particular reason to have it on the RAID channels if it is not being used in a RAID array.

 

[Garynyc]

I already have 4 IDE devices on my 2 IDE ports--2 HDs, a CDR, a Zip drive. That is why I need to use the RAID port.

Can anyone help?

Thanks!

 

[HarryLui]

What power supply do you have? Why do you need to have 3 harddrives at the same time?

 

[Garynyc]

Well,

I do video editing and need at least 2 hard drives(1 for the OS and one for video files). I find that I need more space than my 70 gig HD video drive has, so I figured I'd use the RAID port. I have a 300W supply, but I really dont know how to get the RAID drive active!

Later

 

[HarryLui]

What is it that you're trying to do exactly? Are you trying to raid the drives? What types of harddrives do you have? What cpu do you have?

 

[Garynyc]

JUST TRYING TO RUN A 3RD HARD DRIVE. ON THE IWILL KA266R MANUAL, ITS SAYS ABOUT THE ONBOARD raid PORT THAT I CAN RUN A RAID DRIVE AS A SINGLE RAID. I HAVE 2 IDE 7200 RPM DRIVES RUNNING ON AN ATHALON 1.4 GIG PROC. 768 MB RAM. IM NOT RUNNING THE RAID DRIVE AS AN OS DRIVE, SO I DONT NEED IT AS A BOOT DRIVE. WHAT ELSE DO YOU NEED TO KNOW. THANKS!

 

[HarryLui]

Are you trying to raid the 2 7200rpm drives so that they act like one drive?

Or do you just need 3 harddrives running togather without raiding any of them?

 

[Garynyc]

No Im not trying to make them act like one. I dont need that. If you have any experience with this kind of configuration I would appreciate any help! The system is already operational except for the RAID drive.

All I want to do is add the 3rd drive and give it a drive letter

All I want to do is get the PC booted up --but it wont when the RAID drive is attatched

 

[HarryLui]

Put the put the your (you 2 old drives) boot harddrives on primary and the second one on secondary of the raid port. Do NOT STRIPE or MIRROR them. JUST LET IT BE. Put the 3rd drive in a empty IDE port, perferbly not the one the CD-Rom is using.
Now, go to the motherboard's bios and have it boot from the ATA100 raid. Then go to the raid and select the boot on the primary drive.

If this doesn't help, let me know.

 

[Garynyc]

You sure I wont lose any of my existing drive info?

I'll give it a shot when I get back from Xmas break. I'll keep you posted...

THANKS Harry

Merry Xmas/Happy Holidays

 

[HarryLui]

You won't lose anything as long as you don't try to stripe or mirror them. Otherwise, YOU WILL. and beside, I think the RAID BIOS will tell you if it is going to delete your data, just read everything before you click OK.

Merry Christmas to you too.

 

[HarryLui]

how did it go?