KT7a RAID IDE Hell, Need Help!

[igor01]

I got ABIT KT7A Raid and a 1GHz Tbird at a computer show on the weekend, switching from a ABIT BX6 and PIII 650. Pulled all the guts out of my computer, put the new mobo in, put everything back, reconnected the drives (40GB Maxtor 7200, 27 GB Maxtor 5400, Plextor 8X CDRW, Toshiba 24X CDROM). Windows 98 booted fine, installed the drivers, I installed all the via drivers and the service pack for the mobo (Via 4in1 4.28) and everything seemed to work fine except this weird problem - BIOS identifies my drives setup correctly:

Primary Master: 40 GB
Primary Slave: Toshiba CDROM

Secondary Master: 27 GB
Secondary Slave: Plextor CDRW

When the system boots, it has a messege: Scand Devices... Please Wait. This takes a minute, then a screen flashes that says something like Primary Master - None, Primary Slave - Note, Secondary Master None, Secondary Slave - None.

I can boot into Windows 98, but the 27 GB does not show in the Windows Exlorer. The biggest problem is that all my backup harddrive images are on that drive, I can't even reghost now because Drive Image does not see the drive either! I put the harddrives into my old PIII box and I have the same problem - the 27 gig doesn't show up, the BIOS sees it no problem. Is there a reason why Windows would not recognize this drive?

Please help people, I've reached the limit of my wits and patience on this one. On a bright note, the CPU does 1330 MHz - 10x133, whohoo!

Here's my system info:

Abit KT7a RAID (KT133a chipset)
198 MB No Name PC133
TBird 1Ghz (it's not overclocked right now)
Creative Annihilator2
Creative SB Live!
Realtech NIC
350 Watt Power Supply
Klipsch 4.1 Promedia Speakers
17" Optiquest V75

Thanks a lot!

 

[igor01]

Anyone?

 

[Kappo]

you will probably need to format after changing the mobo...espeically going to a via board...I had all kinds of problems when I wend from a BE6-II to a Via based board...once I formatted and reinstalled...worked great...

 

[igor01]

Got it working - someone suggested to put all the drives as masters, with HDs connected to the Raid controllers and the CDROM and CDR hooked up to the two first IDE controllers - and the drives detected fine! I still had to reghost the machine but that only took 8 minutes and then another 20 minutes to install all the drivers and reboot - and now the system benched 9400 score in 3DMark 2000. Right now I am running at 1266 Mhz (9.5 on 133 Mhz bus), rock solid. Thanks for your help!