raid setup probs on new build

[sjnelson]

setting up first pc - Gigabyte 8IEXP with a rocketraid 404 card (not using onboard promise raid).

problem is that when the highpoint374 scans for drives, it never finds the drive in channel1. i have 2 drives and only channel 2 is ever detected (i've switched drives/channels and installed new cables with no luck).

since this is a new build and has no other harddrives i wasn't sure if i'm missing something in the setup procedure since there is very little in the manual.

being this is my first build, the only things i have done so far are to disable a few settings in bios [ on-chip primary pci ide -> disabled, on-chip secondary pci ide -> disabled ( since it says if you are using a raid card to disable them ) and onboard ata/raid -> disabled (since i'm not using the onboard promise raid controller)

any ideas? i'm really new to this, so it could be something simple.

thanks for any ideas,

 

[Arcanedeath]

Just want to make sure I'm clear so far.... you have 2 hard drives and are attempting to connect them to the PCI raid card and the drives, (either of the 2 drives you had) are not detected on channel 1 but both drives are detected fine when hooked up to channel 2 using either cable. let me know if this is correct...

 

[sjnelson]

i think you have it correct.

(the system i'm building is nearly identical to the one recommended on anandtech in Aug - highend soho - 8iexp and highpoint rocketraid 404 with maxtor drives)

the card has 4 channels. manual recommends for 2 drives to connect them to channel1 and channel2, both as primary.

when i connect them this way, after scanning, channel1 is reported as having no drive. channel2 is reported correctly.

if i shutdown and switch the drives so that the one that was detected (channel2) is now on channel1 and the one that was not detected (original channel1) is now on channel2, then...
i get the same response - channel1 is reported with no drive, and channel2 is reported correctly.

i figure that means that the drives are ok. they are new and unformatted at this point. i don't have another drive in the system.

was thinking that maybe there was a conflict with the onboard raid (which is disable in bios), but i don't know enough about how to determine what needs to be changed.

has anyone built this system (aug2002 highend soho)?

thanks,

 

[sjnelson]

now i've tried connecting as ch3 & ch4 and it detected both drives during scanning. i'll give that a try i guess.

if it works this way, does that mean the raid card is bad, or that i never set the motherboard correctly?

i'd just like to know if i should be sending the card back since it is new.

 

[sjnelson]

not sure how to get this set as a bootable raid0 from the pci raid card.

the cd/rom&dvd are connected to the mobo ide1 connector while the 2 hds are connected to ch3&ch4 of the raid card (per problem above). does that sound right?

if i set bios so on-chip primary pci-ide is disabled (as suggested when using pci raid controller) then i can not see the cd-rom.

if is et bios so on-chip primary pci-ide is enabled, then i can get to the cd-rom and boot on win setup cd, but no harddrives are detected and i can't install.

seems kinda chicken or egg like?

any suggestions? i'm getting hungry.

(p.s. don't overlook the obvious mistakes i might be making)
( like - i'm not supposed to connect the cd-rom to the pci raid card, am i? haven't tried that yet, but...)

 

[sjnelson]

problem solved good enough.
never got channel 1 to work, but running on channel3&4

problem was partly with windows install not recognizing the highpoint device driver diskettes.

 

[Arcanedeath]

Glad you got the problem solved, also to boot from the Rocket raid 404 card their should be a scsi or other boot device option in the bios, thats what you should use, also if the primary channel on the card isn't detecting any drives it's prob a bad card and I'd look into getting it replaced