Problem Adding anther SATA HDD to an existing SATA RAID - Please Help

[saifbukhari]

Hi Folks,

Im in a mess here, would appreciate your able advise on the same.

The Issue:-
I bought this via vt6421 pci sata card to plug in my extra HDD, And it didnt worked.

The system boots to the card bios first and detects the extra HDD which i connected & there is a option for pressin <TAB> which doesnt work, after that when my existing configured Raid screen in Bios comes, it thinks for a while and throws up an error saying "there is some problem with your hardware" and sits there.

My Configuration is:-

CPU
AMD Phenon II X2 550 BE
Gigabyte GA MA790GP UD4H
Memory 8GB 800 Mhz Dynet
Graphics Card Saphire 1GB DDR5 ATI Radeon 5850
Hard Drive 2x80GB IntelX-25M in RAID 0
+1x320GB+1TB Seagate external HDD
Power Supply: Corsair 750W HX
Case : Cooler Master 690 II Advanced
OS:Genuine Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit Retail Monitor
Monitor: DELL ST2210

I have six SATA IIports on my Mobo out of which:
2 are occupied by the SSD's
2 are occupied by the Top Panel of the Case for the Cooler masters X Dock (basically to attached a HDD externally
1 is occupied by the DVDRW
1 is occupied by the Card Reader

Now I had this spare 1 TB HDD for which i bought this card but this problem came up.

When i removed my extra HDD's sata cable and rebooted , at this point the machine booted fine, showing the Via Bios again but with no drives now as i unplugged the cable.

My Queries Are:-
> Since i have an onboard exisiting Raid configuration it might not work?

> Does the Via Expansion Card doesnt support HDD capacity of more than 1 TB ( i just reaad some where)

>Is it possible that atleast my DVD RW+Card Reader can be utilised via this Via Expansion card and in this way i could free up two sata ports on my Mobo for utilising my spare HDD's again?

Please some one throw some light on this,would highly appreciate.

Regards
Saif

 

[alzan]

I didn't see in the motherboards manual that it has onboard RAID but maybe I missed it (not enough caffeine.) I've never worked with a setup that included motherboard RAID and expansion card RAID but my guess would be that they're conflicting with each other. If it were my setup I would turn off the motherboard RAID, if possible, and put the drives to be RAIDed on the expansion card, leaving the motherboard ports for other devices. I'd want my RAID on a dedicated controller as opposed to a $5 chip on the motherboard.

I wouldn't think that the VIA card had a built-in hdd capacity limit and my perusal of it's specs didn't mention anything, but it's possible. Maybe email VIA Support and ask.

alzan