SATA Raptor 36GB on ASUS A7N8X - E DELUXE

[NickTheBubble]

Hi everybody,

I did manage to attach a 36GB SATA Raptor to my newly purchased
ASUS A7N8X - E DELUXE and also clean installed WinXP but i have a
couple of questions since i've been using IDE drives up to last week.

1) POST does NOT display the SATA drive yet it gives the one beep
all clear; is this normal? shouldn't it display it right under

Memory Frequency is at 200MHz, Dual Channel mode

2) The next screen gives me the following reading and it won't go
away unless i hit Enter; is this to be expected?

SIl 3112A SATARaid BIOS Version 4.2.27
Copyright (c) 1997-2003 Silicon Image, Inc.

Press <Ctrl+S> or F4 to enter RAID utitlity
0 WDC WD360GD-00FNA0 35304 MB

3) Once in windows Device Manager gives me the yellow question mark
on the left of RAID Controller although my machine boots from the
SATA drive and i am able to use Windows perfectly.

I attempted installing the drivers i used during the WIndows
installation (F6 and then S) that i downloaded from the Silicon
Image website and also the drivers on the ASUS motherboard CD but on
both occasions at restart the system freezes on the Windows logo
screen.

How can i get rid of the yellow question mark effectively?

********************************************************************

ASUS A7N8X - E DELUXE board rev. 1.01 BIOS ver 1009
Thermaltake 360W PSU
Corsair 2 X CMX512 PC3200LX
AMD AthlonXP 3000+ FSB 400 512kb
ASUS Radeon 9600XT
LiteON Combo 52x32x52x16 IDE

********************************************************************

Many thanks,
Nick Paicopoulos.

 

[imported_Bunter]

I can only answer your first two questions, Yes it is normal and No.

The answer to your first question is that the display you show in your second question is the only indication you get of the SATA drive. In essence, the SATA controller is not checked in the first part of the POST, so nothing attached to it is seen. The IDE controller is checked during the first part of the POST, so IDE drives appear then. It is the equivalent of the SATA controller being on a PCI card and its BIOS being polled after the motherboard's POST is done.

The results of the screen are correct. However, it should not force you to hit enter to move on. It should roll right past that. I don't believe the RAID setup will allow you to do much of anything with one drive attached. I have seen controllers that force you to setup a single drive as RAID 0, but this one will not allow that.

What is the boot device order in the BIOS?

You might try turning on the "bitchin' Betty" (Speech POST Reporter in the BIOS) to see if it is complaining about anything. It should be saying "Computer now booting from Operating System" when it is ready load Windows. I'm wondering whether it thinks it is getting to that point before you hit enter, or whether it is hanging there until you hit enter.

Finally, if the drivers are installed correctly, the yellow question mark should go away. That said, are you running Service Pack 1 (or better) on Windows XP?

I'm basing this on an A7N8X-E Deluxe with the same BIOS version and two 36.7 GB Raptors installed in a RAID 1. I'm using Windows 2000 and the OS installation was painless. I've done a SATA installation on an A7N8X Deluxe with Windows XP, and it was painless, too. So, this should be an easy process.

 

[NickTheBubble]

Many thanks for your reply Mark,

I think you're spot on in everything you said although i haven't resolved my issue yet!
I have posted the exact same message to ASUS and Western Digital alike and the replyies i got are:

ASUS
Enter RAID utility and delete array or change it to RAID0 ---> I couldn't do either.

Western Digital
It could be that the drive is set up there to function as a RAID. You need to check the settings with ASUS; but basically the SATA controller pauses because it may be looking for a RAID (2 drives) so you need probably to go into the SATA bios and set it to look for 1 drive ('base' or 'performace' sometimes) rather than RAID 0 or 1 (stripe or mirror.) However it may be that under integrated peripherals (or something similar) in the actual mainboard bios you need to turn off the RAID option for the Silicon controller, please check with ASUS.

My doot sequence is FLOPPY, SCSI, CD-ROM and i do have SP1 installed.

 

[imported_Bunter]

Sorry we haven't shed any new light on this problem, Nick. I just looked at my wife's BIOS boot order, and I have it set as:
First: CD ROM
Second: Floppy
Third: HDD-0
Other Boot Device: Enabled.

I don't know that makes any difference, since yours seems like it is hanging up prior to the actual boot. But I was surprised that I did not have SCSI listed for the SATA drive. I think I just tried it like this and it worked, so go figure. Might be worth pulling SCSI out of your boot priority settings to see what happens.

Unless I'm missing something, there is not anything under Integrated Peripherals or elsewhere in the actual motherboard BIOS that touches the SATA, except for maybe the boot priority. Even then it is not mentioned, unless it is the "other boot device" implied in that option. The SI RAID BIOS is extremely straight forward and won't let you try what it can not due with a single drive.

Wish you had another SATA drive to attach with the Raptor just to see how that would affect this problem.

 

[NickTheBubble]

Thanks for your time again Mark,

I tried your suggested boot order but to no avail. As Western Digital correctly say

...the SATA controller pauses because it is looking for a RAID but only a single drive exists

however i can' change that neither in the Pheonix nor in the SIlicon Image BIOS.

Moving on i am seriously considering purchasing an additional 36GB Raptor and create a RAID0 so i need your experience since this will be my first attempt.

1) Do i format (fdisk) the drives first and then create the RAID or is it vise versa?

2) Can i partition the logical RAID0 in it's two physical drives so that i can setup a dual boot system with WinXP and Fedora Core 2? I had this configuration in my EIDE WD Caviar 7200rpm 8MB so i know how to go about the infamous "disk geometry issue".

In one phrase i am looking at a dual boot sytem on a RAID0, can it be done? Could you please just outline the steps?

Kind regards,

 

[imported_Bunter]

Nick,

I haven't used RAID 0, but it is popular on this forum. I suspect that the system is pretty oblivious to the fact that there are really two drives, at least at the OS level. Since the RAID is managed by the hardware, I would guess whatever capability you have with one drive you will have with RAID 0.

Somebody else can correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that you would:

1) Physically install both drives
2) Go into the RAID configuration setup and establish the RAID 0
3) Then begin installing your OS(es), including creating partitions, formatting and such.

As I understand it, after step 2 the system treats the two drives as if they were one.

I use RAID 1, and Windows 2000 and Partition Magic are unaware of the presence of two drives, at least at any level that a user can see.

 

[JBT]

Nick you have a pretty old SATA BIOS on that thing I would reccomend you update that first. Also your boot string should be similar to this depending on if you want to be able to boot from a CD or floppy as well.

1st device: CDROM
2nd device: floppy
3rd device SCSI
boot from other devices: NO

In the A7N8X's BIOS SATA = SCSI so for it to try to boot off of that with out hesitation which it seems to be with yours you need to set it to SCSI.


As for the SATA BIOS go to NForcersHQ and download the latest Bios and flash it with the newest Uber BIOS which is 1008 for your board. The UBER bios's have the latest SATA BIOS with them as well which is 42.2.47. You should also be able to find the latest SATA drivers for your mobo which is 4.2.50 on their drivers section too. GL and lmk how it works out.