SCSI vs ATAPI RAID - Help!

[Marine]

Tried this in tech help -- no help. Maybe the experts here can help. I have an ASUS P4T533 which has Promise ATAPI RAID on the baseboard. I always build with SCSI contollers and drives and put in two IBM 10K DeskStars along with a 320 Ultra SCSI Adaptec contoller. Worked great, and very fast. But two drives only gave 72GB, so I looked around for some storage.

I got two WD 120GB ATAPI drives and enabled the on-board ATAPI RAID jumper and configured them in RAID 0, fine, no problems. But when I went into BIOS, I can either boot to my SCSI array -- in which case I can't see or access the ATAPI drives. Or I can boot into the ATAPI array, in which I can see and access my SCSI drive array, BUT I'm using the OS on the slower ATAPI drives.

How in heck can I boot from my SCSI array and also access the ATAPI drives that I have on my machine? Help!

 

[Marine]

Well....there's a jumper on the mobo that enables the RAID. If I take the jumper off the mobo, I could just plug the cables in the EIDE connectors on the mobo, but I'd lose the RAID performance.

The real problem is with the CMOS setup. When I boot up and hit Delete, I can choose to either boot to the ATAPI RAID first or not. If I choose not to, I don't see the ATAPI RAID or disks or data at all. The system boots directly from the SCSI disks. And once I'm there, there is no way to see or impact the ATAPI disks, they are invisible and untouchable.

But if I choose yes to boot first from the ATAPI RAID, I can see both RAID arrays, no problem. But I'm in the OS on the slow ATAPI RAID. Again, I want to boot to the OS on the SCSI disks as it's about twice as fast in HD Tach as the ATAPI RAID. Having a fast Ultra 320 SCSI RAID is just wasted if I access it through an EIDE interface moving data at about 40 MB/s if you see what I mean.

I know this is a thorny problem and may not have a solution. I'm going to dig out the old Maximum PC Dream Machine article from last year when they built their machine on this mobo and see if they had EIDE storage as well. Any help appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Peter]

Does the system BIOS not let you select and order the available boot services (onboard IDE, SCSI, IDE RAID) individually? That'd be a poorly implemented system BIOS, then.

 

[Marine]

Yes. I can select in CMOS setup to either boot or not from the ATAPI RAID. But the Boot order has only SCSI/EIDE as an option. Again, I don't know how more clearly to say this: IF I go into setup by pressing delete on booting, I have the option to boot first from the ATAPI RAID or not.

If I choose "Yes" I boot to the ATAPI RAID, C:, where XP is installed and I can see the SCSI array as well as F:. I can read and write to the SCSI drives from this option.

BUT, if I choose "No" to not/ not boot from the ATAPI device, I boot straight to the SCSI RAID and it's C: and that's it. I can't see the ATAPI array or the drives, can't read or write to them. I do see the Promise XP MBFastTrak133LIte in SCSI devices in Device Manager, but can't see the drive(s) in Disk Management. And all that storage space just may as well not even be in the computer. Why can't I see the ATAPI RAID when I'm in the SCSI Array OS?

Pulling my hair out here. This shouldn't be this hard. Help anyone???

 

[mechBgon]

Since I've also been helping (?) chew on this, let me add that his original WinXP installation is on the SCSI array, but he also has one on the IDE array. Wondering if this is some sort of Gordian Knot caused by Windows/NTFS permissions systems...

 

[Peter]

Nope. Marine, you are currently enabling/disabling the ATA RAID BIOS. That's why it's completely gone when you disable it.
You need to use your boot device ordering to sort the SCSI in front of the ATA.

If your board doesn't let you do that, then it's time to move to a mainboard that has a recent AMI or Phoenix BIOS. These let you sort your boot devices, even those added by 3rd party add-on BIOSes like on ATA RAID or SCSI cards, in practically any random order. (The keyword for this standard is "BBS".)

 

[BadThad]

When you boot to the SCSI OS install, does the IDE RAID drive appear in device manager? I understand you can see the controller, but the you can't see the drives in Device Manager? Is it possible to add the drives in device manager? Do you have the most recent BIOS installed on the mobo?

Let me see if I have this right, if you don't let the mobo boot to the IDE array, the BIOS never sees/sets-up the array? Fundimentally, if the BIOS never sees the array, the OS will never see it.

 

[JonnyBlaze]

so you have 2 installs of xp? one one each drive?

if thats the case, boot up from the scsi drives, right click on my computer, hit manage, goto disk mangement and assign drive letters if you see the ide drives

JBlaze

 

[Marine]

That's right. If I go to CMOS setup an choose advanced, then PCI Config, I get a choice to enable Onboard ATA Device First. If I choose yes, I boot from the ATAPI RAID and can see the SCSI array. If I choose no, I boot to the SCSI array and cannot see the ATAPI array. Help!!

 

[kamper]

sorry to bud in on your topic Marine but don't you mean "ATA RAID"? isn't ATAPI for optical and tape drive?

 

[BadThad]

Originally posted by: Marine
That's right. If I go to CMOS setup an choose advanced, then PCI Config, I get a choice to enable Onboard ATA Device First. If I choose yes, I boot from the ATAPI RAID and can see the SCSI array. If I choose no, I boot to the SCSI array and cannot see the ATAPI array. Help!!

I'm afraid you're out of luck. Prob the easiest way out of this mess is to buy a cheap ATA RAID card from the used market and use that instead of the onboard RAID.