Please help fix raid 0 problem...

[Redsho]

I've been trying for days to get my machine working the way it should be. Tried doing just about everything, but still things are not working out!!

Here's my system:
ABIT KT7-Raid w/ 1100mhz thunderbird
2 x 256mg Micron PC133
ATI Radeon 64DDR VIVO (AGP)
Adaptac 2940UW SCSI Controller (PCI 3)
3Com NIC (PCI 6)
Sound Blaster Live! (PCI 4)
Seagate Hawk 4.5GB Int Ultra Wide SCSI HDD(Id=1)
Plextor Ultra Wide 40X Int CD-Rom(Id=2)
Yamaha 16/10/40 Int Scsi CD-RW (Id=3 & terminated)
Zip 100 Ext SCSI (Id=5 & terminated)
2 x 45gb WD 5400rpm HDD (Master drives on IDE 3 & 4)
OS = Windows 2000 Pro
Latest Drivers for all devices installed....

I've been trying forever to get this working... took me almost forever to get everything to work together for some reason... Had to relocate half of the pci cards in order to setup up Win 2000.

After had everything finally working (I thought...). I tried downloading a divx avi file roughly 500mb on my raid drive. After download completed, I clicked on file and my computer just locked. I thought it was a fluke, so I resetted the machine. Tried clicking on it and it still did the same thing. I then thought it might be the file, so I downloaded another divx file, about 460 mg. Once downloaded, clicked on file and it locked up machine again. Restarted machine again thinking that it might possibly be Windows Media Player 7... so without clicking on the file itself, I ran various programs (Global Divx, BS Player, and ATI File Player)and tried to open the file----Still locked up the computer. So again... restarted machine and de-installed Media Player 7.

Now, I took a small video clip off my cd-rom about 45mg, copied it to the raid drive. Once completed I clicked on the file, assuming that the same thing would happen again.... but didn't lock up... however I tried playing it and it locked up again!!!! Seems like the raid drive has problems reading large files????

*.mp3 files plays fine on the drive, but they are all less than 5 megs. Any Suggestions...?? Please help.... So many problems with this computer setup.... Sorry to ramble on for so long, but hopefully someone will try to help me out here, or I'm going to have to re-install everything for about the 6th or 7th time.

Thanks,
Doua

 

[przero]

Just a guess, but remove the sound blaster card. It fouls up the Asus and Abit Raid boards. If that is the problem Creative has a work around.

 

[Pariah]

Where can I find this workaround? That may be what is wrong with my ABIT board.

 

[Redsho]

przero....

Hey could you forward the link to me... I still can't fix the problem

 

[Redsho]

Haven't yank the Sound Card, but would like to try the fix first

 

[Redsho]

Can someone tech guru help me find the root of this annoying problem??

Come on... techies.... HELP!!!

 

[przero]

Here's what they (Creative) sent me:

1. Remove the card and reboot the system 3 or 4 times.
2. Restart your system in safe mode.
3. Go to device manager and remove the listings for your sound card under creative miscellaneous devices and sound, video and game controllers.
4. Go to add/remove programs in the control panel and remove all of the software associated to the sound card.
5. Go to Start > Find > Files or Folders and do a search for the following files and delete any that you find:

CTMISC.INF
EMU10K1.INF
CreativeEMU10K1.inf
DRVDATA.BIN
DRVIDX.BIN
AWEMAN.DLL
AWEMAN32.DLL
EMU10K1.VXD
SFMAN.VXD
DEFAULT.ECW
CTSYN.VXD
CTMM16.DLL
CIFMAN.VXD
AUDIOHQ.CPL
AHQCPRES.DLL
A3D.DLL
2GMGSMT.SF2
4GMGSMT.SF2
6. Go to start>run>msconfig. Choose selective startup and uncheck all of the boxes below. Hit apply and then ok.
7. When the system reboots go into the BIOS.
***NOTE: You should only go into your BIOS if you are familiar with the options. I do not recommend changing anything that you are unsure of. I do recommend that you contact you motherboard manufacturer for assistance with the following steps.***
8. Locate the PNP/PCI section. (It may be worded differently depending on the version of your BIOS.)
9. Award BIOSes have a setting called PNP Aware OS Installed. This setting can be changed from yes to no. Toggle it.
10. Next, on the same page you will see Resources Controlled By. You can change it from Auto to Manual. Set that to Manual.
11. Now you should see a list of all the IRQs. Select IRQ 5 and set it to Legacy/ISA.
12. Now F10 will usually save the changes and exit the BIOS.

13. Replace the card, restart the system and reinstall the drivers and the software.
14. Go to start>run>msconfig. Choose normal startup. Hit apply and then ok. Restart the system

 

[przero]

Hope this helps!

 

[Redsho]

Thnx for the info przero....
Only problem here is my machine wouldn't boot into safe mode....
Wonder if I can do it in regular mode??

 

[przero]

You might have to remove the sound card. I could not boot up at all until I removed mine.Post with results. Good luck!

 

[Pariah]

Is this a win9x only fix, or will it work in win2k as well? And to clarify the problem, is this if you are having a problem with all of the IDE ports on the computer, or just the Highpoint ATA-100 ports?

 

[przero]

Mine would not boot at all from Highpoint IDE. I did not try to boot from other IDE because I had RAID-0 in place. I assume fix is for Win9X only.

 

[Redsho]

I've been trying to post, but b4 I hit the reply button my computer keeps on jamming up.. so let me just submit this update first.

 

[Redsho]

przero... I don't have any devices on IDE1 & IDE2. My only problem was with the IDE3 & IDE4 where I have my two 45GB WD HDD connected on two separate channels as master drives.

I was about to try your suggestion... and also lots of other suggestion on the kt7 faq page... but here's what I decided to do...
have to submit this before it jams on me again

 

[Redsho]

Anyway, I decided to reinstall Win 2K for the maybe 7th time, this time putting the os on the raid drive instead of the UW scsi drive. The operation failed about three times (each with different errors), so I messed around with more cmos settings and after SEVERAL HOURS!!! I was able to finally install the os on the raid (I had to remove the scsi drive totally, because when I used FDISK, the SCSI always showed up as HDD0 and the raid is HDD1, so there was no way I could make the RAID drive bootable).

As soon as the OS booted up, I installed the 4-1 via drivers ver 4.28 from www.viahardware.com, then installed all the latest drivers for all my other devices except for the .... sound card... bc of your suggestion....

So far so smooth....

But few minutes later I decided to install live ware 3(drivers only) and restart the machine--looked like it's still running okay, so I installed my Creative Play Center 2---restarted the machine...

And now noticed that it runs Creative Disc Detector and now my computer started jamming up again (this reply was supposed to be sent out 1/2 hour ago-but I was jammed up with the Disc Detector).

Thought about removing the Play Center, but I've restarted a couple
times and went into cmos & did what you suggested to IRQ5. So I'm going to try to click on that Disc Detector to see if it still jams up... but before I do that... I'll submit this first... bc chances are I'm gonna jam up again :-(

 

[Redsho]

Still very unstable... just jams up whenever...
DAMN!!! Getting very tired of troublshooting this. Never had much trouble with abit board before :-(

 

[przero]

Redsho, have you removed Sound card?

 

[Redsho]

przero...
It's my next step...
Just got up, and still trying to fix that problem.
But just wondering if I even set up my raid correctly.
Now looking at my setup, I have 2 45gb hdd on separate channels.
The abit manual says to connect the "BLACK" (the outer connector) connector to the hard drives.

Question is:
Shouldn't it be the "GREY" (middle connector)??? I've always used the middle connectors before on regular IDE channels...

przero.. have you ever tried running a raid of 2 HDD on 1 IDE Channel
Is there any disadvantage at all?

 

[Redsho]

przero....
looking at your fix from Creative, it's for win 9X
I'm running 2000--msconfig doesn't work for 2000

 

[Redsho]

przero.... I got the SB Live out...
took out some of the files you mentioned (all those were for 9x).
System runs just about flawlessly even overcloked to 1260!

So it is the sound card that's been causing all the headache (should have known)!!

So I do more investigative work. Went into Device Mgr & view all the stuffz by their "connection" and looked under IRQ'S. Most of my pci stuff was sharing IRQ 11 (Scsi,video,raid, & 3com nic). Since my sound car was out I didn't know where that was registering. So I restarted and changed the IRQ 5 into legacy/isa (per your suggestion) and put the sound card in then restarted. Now looking in device mgr, the sound card is registering as IRQ 9!!! But since no drivers loaded, It had no effect on my system.

So I loaded the latest 2000 SB Live drivers and restarted. Once restarted, first thing I checked was device mgr and it the card registed in IRQ 11 (So now I have a WHOLE BUNCH OF STUFF IN IRQ 11) But so far everything is working....

Thanx for everyones help!!

 

[przero]

Redsho Groovy. Glad you at least identified the problem. I left my card out and use onboard audio. Hope you figure it all out. Let me know if you do. Out.