RAID!!! My system can't see my drives!

[GrimReefer]

I have an Asus A7V333 and two WD 80gb 8mb cache harddrives hooked up to the Promise IDE connections. Both drives have power, are set to Master, RAID is enabled on the mobos jumper setting, inside the BIOS I have Onboard ATA set to Enabled (like it says in the manual), I've done everything my mobos manual has said to do about 50 times. I have a cdrom and a burner eached hooked up to their own IDE connections. I've flashed to their latest official BIOS 1008 but still to no avail. When the system reboots with the promise setup program, it doesnt see the drives. Its almost like the Promise IDE connectors on the mobo aren't working or something.

Any suggestions?

edit: in the Promise program it says "No disk detected: check your power and cable connections. Press any key to exit" instead of letting me select the RAID array I want.

 

[Wolfsraider]

try formatting the drives

what os?xp asks you to hit f6 to load raid drivers

 

[GrimReefer]

dude, my mobo doesn't even SEE the drives... how can I format them? In the FIRST step of setting up the array, the controller setup program doesn't even detect the drives that are attached to the Promise slot on the mobo next to the standard IDE slot.

Im also using Windows XP pro, but before that f6 thing, I need to setup my RAID 0 array, that F6 step doesn't come untilo after the BIOS Promis setup.

 

[Markfw]

OK, here is probably a stupid suggestion, but I will give it a try anyway. The raid connectors are the two on the right(as you look at the motherboard from the front, and with the CPU on your right). Also, you have to have 80 wire cable density cables with the blue connector on the motherboard side, and use one cable for each drive. Also, ignore the CDroms and DONT even hook them up until the hard drives are detected correctly. Let me know if this any of any help, as I don't want to insult your inteligence, and please reply if this is of any help.

 

[CZroe]

*grin*
Set Western Digital drives to "Single" mode, not Master when they occupy a single cable on a RAID. This is why Tom's Hardware said IDE RAID Strip+Morroring is pointless: When the slave fails the master must now be set to single to operate and so it usually goes down too. Of course, this is usually just a Western Digital requirement, but I have seen a few others (And a few WDs that would run alone when set to master)

I'm pretty sure that was it. Don't get all storage-happy and forget to report back!

 

[GrimReefer]

Mark, you cannot insult my intelligence, only my fowl typing misshaps, and perhaps some of my questionable use of words at times of innebriation, and of course my lack of wisdom when it comes to RAID configuration. But your advice on the ribbon actually caught my eye before I posted... the ribbons I am using have about double the lines as the CDrom so I'm guessing that I have 80 wire cables on the WDs, I will try disconnecting the CDroms later, as it is 4am and I am absolutely much too trashed to attempt any tinkering with this fahker anymore tonite.

CZ, how do I set the drives to single mode instead of master?

Wolf, your sig kicks mad ass brother, props

 

[Alphazero]

This is a long shot, but after checking the drives' jumpers, try disconnecting all the other drives and changing the boot order so that the onboard controller is first. Also, go over the BIOS just to make sure all setting related to the conroller are set right - there are 2-3 main ones. I don't remember exactly what they are, but you'll know them when you see them.

 

[CZroe]

Most Western Digital drives are set to single with no jumper. Some say to turn it to a sideways position or leave it off (I guess the sideways position doesn't short anything, and is useful to keep from loosing the jumper). It should be on the drive label. All my Western Digital drives have Master, Slave and Single labeled clearly. LMK if that helps...

 

[FluxCapacitor]

CZroe is right. With incorrect jumper settings your WD drives will not be detected... at all.

You must set your drives to Single and not Master (dual)

Check out this page if have questions about WD jumper settings.

 

[vicvon]

Try setting one as MASTER and the other as SLAVE and run them on the same channel. My brother had the same problem you are and once we set it to MASTER/SLAVE on the same channel they detected fine.

 

[FluxCapacitor]

My brother had the same problem you are and once we set it to MASTER/SLAVE on the same channel they detected fine.

Which is because of incorrect jumper settings that CZroe and I stated earlier.

 

[GrimReefer]

Will try right now, thank you for all your help guys! You all kick ass

 

[GrimReefer]

Ok, they are working fine, I set them up as "Performance Server" in the fastrak setup from Promise. I thought server would be better then desktop figuring how many files games access during deathmatching. Any other ideas on that?

One strange thing though, my drives are being formatted by Win XP setup atm, but they were detected as 150gb, not 80gb.... does that mean it didn't detect the raid or is it just formatting each drive before the system installs onto the 80gb RAID 0 array?

 

[billyjak]

When you do Raid it acts as 1 large drive 160 megs but windows will report it smaller 150 gig as they are formatted as one drive.

 

[GrimReefer]

Ok, I am ordering an EP-8K5A3+, Im tired of this Asus BS. The promise controller is terrible in RAID 0 performance, just about the worst out of EVERY 333 chipset. Thanks for your help guys, Im goin Highpoint

 

[Eug]

When the slave fails the master must now be set to single to operate and so it usually goes down too.

Why?

 

[CZroe]

Just a Western Digital (Primarilly) limitation. If I had to guess, I'd say that they still have some legacy IDE access method that is unable to coexist with other drives. When the ability to coexist (Master/Slave) arrived, instead of updating the way their drives use IDE, they must have just added the ability to coexist and made it optional (With jumpers). IDE really hasn't changed much over the years, so I wouldn't doubt that they may just have some legacy limitation in the way their IDE controllers work.