SATA Drives

[jrs1]

I have the -E Deluxe, but believe the question is the same for the '-E'.

Asus states that 4 SATA drives can be attached. 2 to the intel chip, 2 to the Promise.

Has anyone done this?

I have 2 attached to the intel and tried to add a 3rd to the promise.....it could not be seen. Called Asus techsupp and was told only 2 sata....either intel or promise....don't believe as too much documentation from asus and they even ship 4 sata cables and power plugs.

May be my problem as I tried only one sata on the promise and it still did not show. If I can get confirmation that one of you has 3 or 4 sata's on a similar mobo, it would help motivate me to push on Asus for some assistance.

Thanks....JOHN

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: jrs1
I have the -E Deluxe, but believe the question is the same for the '-E'.

Asus states that 4 SATA drives can be attached. 2 to the intel chip, 2 to the Promise.

Has anyone done this?

I have 2 attached to the intel and tried to add a 3rd to the promise.....it could not be seen. Called Asus techsupp and was told only 2 sata....either intel or promise....don't believe as too much documentation from asus and they even ship 4 sata cables and power plugs.

May be my problem as I tried only one sata on the promise and it still did not show. If I can get confirmation that one of you has 3 or 4 sata's on a similar mobo, it would help motivate me to push on Asus for some assistance.

Thanks....JOHN

Welcome to the Forums jrs1 Am I guessing right that you have a P4C800-E Deluxe? If so, start with pages 2-23 and 2-24 of your manual, then jump to pages 4-11 and 4-12 to confirm you're in Enhanced mode like they want. I suspect you already are.

Now the Promise controller is a RAID-capable controller. You can opt for it to operate in RAID mode or in "IDE mode." If you head down to page 4-20 of the manual, you'll see the option covered there. If you choose IDE mode then I think your drive will be recognized as you expect, although you may still need to go into Disk Management in Windows and assign it a drive letter if it isn't showing up in My Computer.

I guess that does presuppose that the Promise controller is enabled in the BIOS. If it isn't enabled in the BIOS, or if its drivers are not installed in Windows, then you're not going to see any of the drives that are connected to it.

So take a look at that stuff and see if it gets the problem ironed out. Otherwise let us know what happened Good luck!

 

[jrs1]

Thanks, mechBgon...

I am not sure if the Promise controller is "enabled in Bios" or the drivers properly loaded in XP, but the drive does not show up in Disk Mgmt. I also see nothing which looks like a "Promise controller"

I found some instructions to load the drivers as a part of XP setup. However, I already have XP setup on one of the 2 SATA drives on the Intel chip.

I fear my error was to load, from the CD, the Promise drivers when I had no device attached...against the instructions which I did not see until the button was push. Now, it seems, I need a way to recover from that.

I really do not want RAID SATA drives on the Promise controller, essentially standalone IDE type drives, so I assume I would want the 378ATA driver (right?)....though I guess I could have a single drive array RAID 0...if that were possible.

Thanks again.....JOHN

 

[jrs1]

:disgust:

I have just been informed by Asus tech support that the P4C800-E Deluxe cannot support 4 SATA drives. What I am told is you cannot have two RAID controllers working on that board at the same time, i.e. either the Intel or the Promise. That means only 2 SATA drives, both on either, but not both, of the chips....whether they are configured as RAID or regular drives....apparently, I am told, SerialATA requires RAID support.

I believe that you can still support 4-IDE drives on the Intel and 2 on the Promise, along with 2-Sata.

Tech said that the documentation is wrong and this is fact. Brings me to question why Asus ships 4 SATA cables and 4 Sata power plugs.

Can anyone confirm or refute these statements by Asus tech? I will also post this to the P4C800 string.

Thanks.....JOHN

 

[mechBgon]

Try this: set the Promise controller to RAID mode. When the system is starting, the Promise's little drive-detection screen should show for a while and it'll say to press a certain keystroke to enter its own BIOS (Ctrl + A or something). Do that, and then see if you can get it to pick up the drive (plugged into one of the Promise's plugs, of course). If so, define the drive as an array so the RAID controller will have something to show to the operating system, and then save & exit out of the Promise BIOS.

Good idea posting the question to the P4C800 thread too. I don't have one, just an owners' manual.

 

[jrs1]

Thanks again....

Worked that and other stuff with Asus TS. Also got a IDE drive and attached. Promise chip saw neither and little BIOS start up didn't. Suspect Promise chip DOA. Am RMAing with Newegg. Will let you know.

The tech support guys are quite adament that you cannot have SATAs on both intel & Promise....at least they cannot get to work.

John

 

[mechBgon]

One random thought: could there be an unneeded standoff under the motherboard, one that is positioned where the motherboard doesn't have a screw hole? If there were, it might be touching the underside of the motherboard and causing a short-circuit that's keeping the Promise controller from working properly. If in doubt, take the motherboard out and verify that the case only has standoffs where the mobo has screw holes, and maybe even try the motherboard outside the case lying on cardboard (the mobo, not you ) to see if that changes the result.

Why they would bother putting the Promise controller on when the southbridge has SATA RAID already, if they can't both be used at once-- :Q OH, I got it... :evil:Marketing!:evil:

 

[jrs1]

Problem fixed...maybe not solved, but fixed....

Something was wrong with the Promise controller/bios. It was not working. I had re-flashed with updated 1016 bios and nothing changed. After much back & forth (you can imaging) and RMA activity, on a lark, I decided to re-flash. Don't know if it was significant, but, with the WinFlash, I flashed of the internet....which gets the code straight from Taiwan (I think).

On booting, the Promise controller scanned for devices, which it had stopped doing. Iwas able to set on a SATA drive up as a single array RAID. I then switched the Promise controller from RAID to IDE (and had to change drivers for RAID controller in Device mgr) and was able to bring drive up as IDE. I suspect that adding an add'l "IDE" SATA will add easily. Not sure what would have happenned on adding an additional RAID.

The Asus tech support does not all agree on direction for SATA on these chips. As I said earlier, some say you cannot have SATA on both chips. Others say you can have up to 2 on each(=4). I am pretty sure, from my most current experience, that you can have 4 non-RAID. I suspect that the tech support guys may have tried to have two separate RAIDs...maybe this does not work....anyway, I appear, for now, to be fixed.

Thanks for help......JOHN