onboard raid, windows does not see drives to install to

[TSCrv]

Ok, my problem is installing windows to a mirrored volume (hardware) on a Promise FastTrak100 "Lite" controller. this controller is imbedded into a SOYO K7V Dragon Plus! Bios revision 2BA7

this setup is for data integrity, without having to run backups, and prefer hardware raid over software raid, another reason is because i can never get the OS drive to mirror in windows, even if it is dynamic (basic converted to dynamic)... i havent been able to create a dynamic disk and install to it yet, with it being the only disk in the system, is this possible?

I consider my self fairly skilled in slipstreaming and raid controller installs/support as part of my job is installing windows on servers that use hardware raid controllers.

i have 2 200gb seagate drives in raid 1 (mirror) on this system, 1 drive per channel. i am aware that the mainboard cannot support larger than 137gb drives, but i have read that later bios revisions correct this.

i have tried single drives (12gb bigfoot drive, a classic), and also a unreliable 120gb WD, which the controlelr autodetects, creats a volume for that single drive, then restarts and all is well, except that windows still doesnt see it.

when installing xp, i have used my slipstreamed copy that i use at work for every sata/scsi controller i have come across, with no luck. i have downloaded the drivers from BOTH promise's site and SOYO's site (which happen to be the same zip) and still no luck, and i have confirmed that xp is loading the drivers from the floppy correctly. also used an older version, but that bluescreens the setup, a step in the wrong direction.

when i say windows doesnt see the drives, its the typical 'there are no suitable drives on your system, press f3 to restart'

i have burned my brains enough on this system, i havent hit driversguide yet, and still have a diff configs to run (like put both drives on the same channel)... and wow, it just bluescreened again, this time with a 7b code, which is aiming the problem at drivers, but im out of ideas.... hopefully theres enough information here for people to feed me ideas to solve this...

 

[TSCrv]

still having problems, even tried my companies sp1 vlk, and windows 2k...runnin out of ideas

 

[LiLithTecH]

Did you try the 'ULTRA' drivers?
The Promise PDC 20265R IDE RAID chip used by OEM's can be either FastTrak or Ultra.

 

[Lord Evermore]

BIOS 2BA6 does show that it fixes the Fastrak controller to support 130GB+ drives.

Software mirrored drives are only allowed in WinNT, Win2k and W2k3 Server versions (though I believe there are hacks you can do, which involve hex-editing binary files). Note that the "hardware" RAID controllers like the FastTrak are also largely software-based, most of the work is done in the drivers.

Windows can't be installed onto a native volume on a dynamic disk. You can create a basic disk, put a partition on it, then convert it to dynamic, and install to the partition/volume, but only because it wasn't originally a volume on a dynamic disk. The end result is that you can't do some things like extending the System volume, since you can only extend native dynamic volumes. (If you do the conversion in Win2k, the volume retains its entry in the partition table. If you do it in XP, the entry in the partition table only remains if the partition was a System or Boot partition to start with. The entry in the partition table is what defines whether you can install Windows. The Windows help file on dynamic disks has a lot of this.) Lots of info here.

Of course that all just applies to your software RAID questions. It sounds very much like you're having driver issues of some type with the RAID controller, but I can't imagine what, if you're using the current drivers. The only other possibility would be that the controller has failed in some weird way which lets its own BIOS see the drives and configure them as an array, but is not passing the array information back to the drivers to say that there's a hard drive available.

Can this controller function in non-RAID mode, as just an add-in IDE controller? I know many of them can't, but some can. Maybe try it that way if possible.

Promise doesn't have any information in their FAQs about this issue. The closest they come is regarding issues booting from the device, where resolution involves making sure the system is set up so that the Promise controller is detected by the BIOS and configured as the boot device instead of the chipset IDE controller. Set the BIOS up properly for that, if it isn't, maybe that's causing some issue where the system isn't accepting the Promise controller as a valid drive controller?

 

[ZYFER]

I had the same motherboard, at no time could I ever get the Raid function to work properly on it. Single drive operation no problem. Raid, nothing but problems.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Originally posted by: ZYFER
I had the same motherboard, at no time could I ever get the Raid function to work properly on it. Single drive operation no problem. Raid, nothing but problems.

Hooray for ancient hardware with unresolved issues!

 

[RebateMonger]

You might want to save yourself further anguish and pick up a cheap PCI RAID card. Newegg has a well-reviewed Rosewill SATA RAID card for $30. It'll handle RAID 0 and RAID 1. I've used HighPoint's RocketRAID 133 card successfully, but it's more like $60-$70. HighPoint sells a similar SATA card.

BTW, even if you go RAID 1, I STRONGLY advise keeping separate offline backups. This Forum frequently has help requests from people who've lost their RAID 1 arrays due to hardware or user error.

 

[TSCrv]

problem solved, finnally. all it took was me installing the drivers for the raid card, then installing the drivers again manually (2 instances), uninstalling the ide controller, (or setting it to standard, cant remember) restart, completly disable the 2 onboard ide channels, boot to the raid (no arrays), it works, restart, mirror and copy, then restart and make sure everything works, uninstall the rogue raid controller (whichever 1 fails to start) and let it run for a while to make sure there are no kinks... then finnally i was able to reenable the onboard ide and put my cd drive in, stuff like that... phew what a mouthful

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
BTW, even if you go RAID 1, I STRONGLY advise keeping separate offline backups. This Forum frequently has help requests from people who've lost their RAID 1 arrays due to hardware or user error.

oh i know, i allready got (getting) that covered. i work for a computer consulting company and im up on all kinds of backup solutions, but this is only a tempory fix, say 6 months,..... also soon as my 750s arrive i can swap out my scsi drives in my fileserver, thus allowing me to have enough space to store images of my critical pcs.....

thanks guys, oh and rebate what offline backup solution would you choose? that doesnt require images, but can still restore a full backup either on a preinstalled copy of windows, or installs windows for you with all of your fixins... i currently use Altiris

 

[Lord Evermore]

Oh was that all it took? That wasn't the first way you tried it?

 

[TSCrv]

i have tried that a number of times, but with a fresh install of XP, not 2K... in my eyes xp and 2k are essentially tyhe same, but i have failed at primeing drivers into xp for use with mass storage controllers (but setting to standard dual works fine, unless its mass storage)

something isnt adding up, i must have done something differently this time around for it to work, which i am using the SAME driver now on 2k, which causes the bluescreens in XP installation... when i get to work monday ill run some tests to see if i can recreate a few things, where data is not critical... <(^.^)> ...that is unless its my turn to run errands for the company, (picking up free 21'' monitors a city away, in a tiny suv)