Nvdia Raid 1 How Do I make it Bootable

[imported_computerfarmer]

I am trying to Set my system with Raid 1.
Asus A8N-VM CSM motherboard
In the raid bios I set up Raid 1 (mirror) but the letter "B" for make bootable is greyed out and not available. My hard drives are 2x(wd2500js)250gigb sata2.
I have tried Raid 0 anb the same thing.

How do I make raid bootable?

I have been able to setup a single drive without Raid. I found out that I needed to install the drivers even if I do not use Raid, else there is a 131gigb drive limit.

I have posted this issue here
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=29&threadid=1862652&enterthread=y

 

[imported_computerfarmer]

So far I have not been able to solve this issue.

I have Contacted ASUS about this issue and am waiting a responce.

I have seen this problem posted on the ASUS Forum, but no resolutions.

Any input is welcome

 

[letdown427]

I didn't need to do the 'make bootable' option on my RAID 0 installation. I'm on a DFI Ultra-D, which uses nvraid.

If that helps.

 

[imported_computerfarmer]

Thanks letdown427

During install of RAID 0 or RAID 1, at the first auto restart, the message Insert Boot Media comes up and that is where it stops. The Nvdia Raid is ID'd as the boot item in the Main Bios and raid is emabled with the drives being emabled as well. If the windows disk is left in the DVD unit, it will boot to it without asking me, on the auto restart during setup. I am loading the 2 drivers required during install using F6 then S and S. Windows sees the Array but upon auto restart is when it all goes Ka-Foo-Eee.

The Nvdia manual tells me to ID the array as bootable, yet "B" for make bootable is greyed out and unavailable.

I used Western Digital Tools to examine the drives. I used write 1's and 0's to eliminate all info on each drive. Then had another look at them using the same tool. I examined each one sepperately, only 1 in the system at a time, I used another system for obvious reasons. To my supprise each drive is ID'd twice. I appears asthough a Marker is placed on the drives that does not come off with writing 1's and 0's to the drive with Western Digital tools. This is suppose to get the drive back to square 1.

This is my third system with RAID. My first Asus A7V-133, my second ASUS A7N8X Deluxe. I had no issues with RAID on the first two motherboards.

I have asked for technical help from ASUS , Nvdia. I hope they will reply and if they do I will post their reply(s).

Any input is welcome

 

[imported_computerfarmer]

UPDATE

I called Western Digital Support today, to see if they would have some insite. After expaining my situation, I was moved up to the next level of support. Here it was explained to me that regular desktop hard drives are not ment for raid setups. This is due to fault tolerance. Apparently Error Recovery is slow enough on on regular hard drives and this can cause Raid Chipsets to see this as an error. This will be seen as raid failure.

Western Digital makes Raid Drives. These drives are built to overcome this issue.

Western Digital Support did not solve my problem, although they did make a recommendation. I should return the drives I bought and purchase Raid Drives. an example: wd4000yd $250.00 Canadian

Advice is good, but there should be some kind of a notice from all the manufacturers involved as to compatibility.
example: there are charts for memory compatibility.

It was good of Western Digital to take the time and explain things to me. However after looking through their site, all I could come up with is that there are higher quality drives with longer warrenties. But never was there a mention of any of them, not recomended for RAID use.

I have not seen a posting from ASUS or NVDIA regarding these issues.

So if I spend $290.00 more than I have, will this solve my problem?

I will wait for ASUS and NVDIA to reply before deciding what to do.

Any Thoughts?

 

[imported_computerfarmer]

letdown427 which hard drives are you using?

 

[imported_computerfarmer]

Nvdia's Responce to my problem

Hello,

This support website is designed to support NVIDIA direct sales products, such as the NVIDIA DualTV tuner card and the NVIDIA PureVideo DVD decoder, and also pre-sales questions about NVIDIA technology.

NVIDIA is a market leader in graphics and digital media processors. NVIDIA does NOT build graphics cards, motherboards or PCs. While our partners and customers all choose NVIDIA's technology as a core component for their solutions, they do implement them differently and therefore it is not possible for NVIDIA to directly support their products.

To obtain support, please contact the appropriate manufacturer or vendor of your product. For your convenience, a partial list of our partners and customers can be found here.
http://www.nvidia.com/page/partner_support.html

Best regards,
NVIDIA

ASUS, I am still waiting for a reply

 

[letdown427]

I've got a pair of Maxtor DMAX10s.

Make a slipstreamed disk with the RAID drivers in. If you're installing the nvidia RAID drivers I presume you are, then basically, what happens is, you do your F6 thing, and Windows makes it look like you're isntalling them, however, they aren't digitally signed (for some stupid reason) and so windows thinks, pah, I'm not using that sh!t and installs the normal ones. Thus it worketh not.

nlite is your friend for that. There's a website somewhere detailing what to instal/integrate and how, I'll dig it up for you.

This'll hit the spot
This is my original thread on DFI-street

Might help with any problems you encounter. There's some links in the thread to useful sites, and some explanation as to what I did to make it work. Hope that helps!

 

[imported_computerfarmer]

Thank You letdown427 Good Links

ASUS's Reply To This Issue
From:ASUS TSD
To:computerfarmer@nexicom.net
Date:2006-05-23 10:12:00

There still bootable even though the option is grayed out.



David

My Answer!
If it did work I would not have this issue.

Further to this, I can setup a mirror arrary.
Bios settings then Raid Bios then boot to XP, load both drivers, it sees the Array, I format, OS installs, the problem is when it does its first restart, it asks for me to insert boot media, it does not say the Array does not exist, it is just not booting. If I leave the XP CD in the drive, then it boots to it again and tries to initait an install.