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WinXP and RAID drivers needed........

R

Rayder

Junior Member
Everytime I try to turn on the RAID port, all of my devices end up on IRQ 11. During boot up, everything is reported normally(IRQ's spead out nicely), but in system info it says everything is on 11(all cards and USB's AND the HPT), same in device manager. What's up with that? It will show the HPT as 'working properly' in device manager, but as soon as I try to actually put a drive(WD 30gig as a storage drive, partitioned in half and full of data) on it, it will not boot to desktop, it just sits at the WinXP screen and the harddrive light will flash every few seconds, but will never go to desktop.

I don't want to run any RAID arrays, I just want extra drives available. I am using an old version of the HPT drivers(actually I just turned on the port option in BIOS, I never had to install any drivers before) because I can't find any USEFUL info on how to update the HPT stuff in WinXP without being some kind of programmer(or I just have a lack of info on the subject). In Win98se this was never a problem, but XP can't seem to figure it out. The hotrod 100 disk that I got with the Motherboard is version 1.4, but doesn't have any XP drivers on it, so I'm at a loss. And downloading a newer version will mean that I HAVE to update the RAID stuff in BIOS?

When I go into device manager to 'adjust the IRQ's, the option to uncheck 'auto handling' is grayed out, so I can't do anything with it. What magic setting has to change so I can alter it? I assume that WinXP locks at startup because of the IRQ issue, but can't figure out how to resolve it. As soon as I turn OFF the RAID port in BIOS, everything returns to normal.

Why is it being such a bastard about it? I never had these problems before.

My system specs.......
Abit KT7A RAID (64 BIOS)
AMD Athlon T-Bird 1.33gigahertz (266FSB)
768megs PC133 RAM
ATI AIW 8500dv Video card (this card ROCKS!)
SB Live! Platinum 5.1 IR
D-Link lan card (530TX)
1- DVD drive
1- CDR drive
2- WD harddrives on the primary IDE (master boot/ storage)
WinXP Home Edition (with 28 days left to activate)

All the cards and the OS are fully updated.......


PLEASE HELP!!
 
1) IrQ sharing is normal if you have turned on ACPI while installing. I think there is a faq on this site about this and how to turn it off if you want.
2)If you are using the HPT controller only for storage, i.e. not booting of it, you can disable it in bios, the drives will still show up in windows. ( At least this was the case with my Asus A7v133.)
3) There might be a possiblilty that your power supply is inadequate.
 
Well, that didn't work, without RAID being turned on, windows didn't see anything on that port. I kinda figured that would happen, but I tried it anyway. I don't think I can turn off the ACPI now that WINXP is already installed, so I haven't tried that. Seems like I tried that once a long time ago and all it did was piss-off windows.

I have an Antec 400watt supply and all voltages are fine. When I was using Win98se, I had ALOT more devices hooked up without a problem(TV, fire wire, Radeon 64DDR VIVO). The 8500dv made it where I have one card for my goodies instead of three, so there's alot less cards in the system to suck up juice(and IRQs) now. Right now, there is only 3 cards in the system, so I don't think it's a power issue. (but, I DID forget to mention the power supply in the system specs)

It seems to be a driver issue or something possibly buggy in WinXP. When I turn RAID on in BIOS, without hooking a drive to it, it messes up the IRQ's even though the hardware wizard installed the driver and said it was ready to go. Everything else was fine during WinXP's installation as far as IRQ's were concerned, until I tried to use RAID for extra storage drives. I even tried turning off 'assign IRQ to USB' in BIOS to try and free up more room, I had no luck, all 11's

During the boot up screens, all the IRQ's look correct(spread out nicely), but when windows loads up(it will only boot to desktop when there is NO drives hooked to RAID) and I go into device manager or system info, everything shows as being on IRQ 11. When it does this, I end up having 3(or more) totally unused IRQs. If I hook a drive to the RAID, Windows won't even boot, it just sits at the WinXP screen forever with the hard drive light flashing every couple of seconds.

I hook up the drive to the primary slave on the RAID port and the drive is set to slave(it's just for my patches and MP3's and stuff like that). I figure my video editing drive should be on the regular IDE's to prevent problems. ........prevent problems, isn't that a hoot.......

WinXP won't let me change any of the settings for IRQ's in device manager(the option to change stuff is grayed out, always is/was in XP). The only thing that will return the IRQ layout(within windows) to normal is turning off the RAID in BIOS, I can re-arrange cards in the slots all I want(always worked before) but it still puts everything on 11.

With RAID on, it shows as version 1.11.0204 (or .0402, can''t remember which) during boot up. IF I have to update the drivers for it, how the heck do I go about it? The file I downloaded said it couldn't find the RAID controller, it was version 2point.......something or other.......

I don't mind things like the USB and the NIC to use the same IRQ, but Video MUST be on it's own, as well as the sound card. Anything else can share IRQ's all they want, as long as they work.

In short.......

Turning on RAID does a nasty to the IRQ's
Hooking up a drive to RAID prevents WinXP from booting.
Shutting OFF the RAID returns everything to normal.
I have no idea how to upgrade it's drivers.

ARG!

Thanks zzzz for the response though. I appreciate the attempt to help me.

Any other ideas? Anyone?
 
OK, I have reformatted a couple different times using various different methods. One thing I learned is that now I don't have to set up the system one card at a time. I can just leave all the cards in it when I setup and it works BETTER than the one-at-a-time method. That's a bonus plus!

BUT, the RAID just ain't happening! When I turn it on, it SAYS it's ok, but it's not. The IRQ settings are fine by what it shows during the boot up screens, but windows 'device manager' will say that mostly everything is on 11. If I attempt to hook a drive to it, it won't boot to desktop at all. It will just sit there and the hard drive light will come on and off in about 3 second intervals.

I need the "make it work for WinXP" driver. WHERE DO I GET IT? HOW DO I INSTALL IT?

HELP ME!!!!! HELP ME!!!! SOMEBODY HELP ME!! PLEASE!!

 
bump

Where do I get drivers? How do I install them? The ones I found don't work with the RAID's current version (1.11.0402) of RAID BIOS, I need to know the proper way to upgrade the RAID BIOS to version 2.3, if that's possible.

I downloaded the RAID BIOS file that is supposed to work with the XP 'drivers', but I read somehere that the BIOS file has to be 'embedded' in the motherboard's BIOS flash to work. Is there a link to some info somewhere that would help me?
 
OK, I put the drive in cable select and WinXP boots to desktop and shows the drive now. But I still have the problem of the IRQ's all being shown as on IRQ11. It doesn't seem to be affecting anything performance wise, so I think I might be alright. Anyone know why this is happening?
 
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