I know we have a few computer guys here and it seems that someone here always knows something about anything that comes up.

Anyway, I'm finally getting a new main desktop computer together at home. I've been using my laptop and now my new laptop as my main computer for a while now and using my Linux machine to cruise the internet since my last drive failure in May. I just built my wife a new machine (new to her) and it's running well, moved the guts of my old machne to my Linux box, gave my brother in law the guts of the linux box and dad got the board, processor, etc out of my wifes old machine...all of those run great ). I've built about 30+ computers in the last 5 or 6 years (I'm not new to this, but this time I'm having issues), but this is my first Socket AM2/XP64 processor and the first time I've used SATA drives and my second shot at a RAID setup.

The machine is an Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe board with an AMD 3800+ X64 (single core) processor, 2 x 1gig Corsair XMS memory (2 1 gig sticks, one in the primary channel of each bank of memory on the board), Asus GeForce 6300 video card (128 meg, non SLI), TDK 48x cd burner, a dual layer DVD burner, and 2 Seagate 320 gig SATA hard drives (and a floppy drive). It's powered by a 550 watt Asus power supply (overkill is my middle name).

When loading XP, I hit F6 to load a SCSI/RAID driver. I made the RAID driver disk using the Asus cd that came with the board (on my wifes computer, good thing I have more than one). During the install, Windows asks for the drivers disk, I insert it, select both drivers that need loaded. It loads them (or seems to) and does the format of the drives, then it asks for the driver disk again. This time it will tell me that the disk is corrupt?(I did try making a new one and it didn't like it either, so it's not truly corrupt, or it shouldn't be) I can't get it to load the RAID drivers the second time it asks for the disk (I've made disks for both the 32 and 64 bit drivers, it will never load the 64 bit, and it only loads the 32 bit at the beginning).

For now, I've seperated the RAID array and it shows two 320 gig drives (I want to mirror them for redundancy, I'm sick of crashing drives every 8 months like I've been dealing with lately). I was going to try to setup the RAID in Windows (it seems to indicate that the utility will do that), but I can't seem to find the utility on the disk that they sent with the board (or, maybe I'm just stupid after staring at this thing for too long).

Has anyone here set one of these up before, or, can anyone see anything glaringly wrong with my approach?

Can you get to a format on the raid setup without adding the drivers? I've never had to add the drivers with a raid array IF the drives are properly recognized within the bios.

EDIT> If you can format and manipulate the drives/array from a C: prompt, try to do an install without adding the drivers. Otherwise, I'm not sure what is catching it unless the drivers need updated.

If I don't load the drivers, windows runs for a minute and comes back with "Unable to install, there are no disks present on your system" (or something similar) and it can't see the raid array. This is an on board RAID card (on the MOBO).

The bios does not give me an option to format. I can enable it in standard bios, then go into the RAID bios and select what kind of raid it is and build the array and that's about it.

Does the bios see your RAID setup as a single drive?

*most* of the time, it has nothing to do with RAID, and more to do with the SATA drivers. I don't think that the RAID config is your issue.

To test this, create your RAID 1 setup, and on the reboot, pull drive B. See if you can get XP to load that way. Your bios should report a degraded RAID config on your next reboot.

Make sure you have the latest BIOS installed, and the latest drivers from Asus's web site.

If your tech savvy, I can help you create a new Windows XP CD with your drivers already on the CD (or google slipstream XP)

edit:

Have you tried to load the drivers from the CD, and not the floppy?

edit 2:

Do you have the RAID config set as bootable?

The problem you describe sounds like a faulty oemsetup.inf file on the floppy disk. I would first try and download updated drivers from support.asus.com OR from the SATA chipset manufacturer support site.

heh, i have a slightly older version of your hardware, and i have the same problems. apparently there's two different sata controllers for it. one for the regular and the other for raid, and they're actually different brands/driver. so if you're installing drivers, make sure you installing the one driver inteded for the port to which you're hooking up the drives.
i got pissed off and just boot off a regular ata, and then use sata as storage. i could try the new trick, but i don't feel like destroying a stable install. let me know if it works for you.

Bios can't see the drives at all. When I enter bios, it shows SATA 3-6 because 1 and 2 are in Raid. The raid bios can see the drives and shows the array as a single drive. So, it seems to need a driver in order to recognize it. Apparently the bios can't detect the raid array and it's independent.

They are set as bootable.

Windows asks me to put the driver disk in drive A: and hit enter. I don't seem to be able to load form CD and the disk seems to only want to "build" a floppy drivers disk. I need to look and see if the raw drivers are there.

I saw someone else say that they used a "slipstream" copy of windows and fixed it. I'm not familiar with it, but I'm not tech stupid either, so it shouldn't be a huge deal for me to learn to build one.




I found Nvidias site and was going to try to load their drivers next.




I am using the Nvidia drivers and not the other drivers (that works only on the rear port and one port on the board). I only have one single ATA hookup, and I have two optical drives hooked to that one so I can't use a standard boot disk (unless I just go SCSI), so that's "out".

I have a SATA RAID setup that is striped for speed.
Abit NF7 Nvidia chipset.
I've had too many beers since I set it up but reading responses here
shook some of the cobwebs.
As I recall, there needs to be 2 drivers loaded, in sequence.
I do not recall details other than to say they had to be in order.
The second piece of hardware would not recognise and load the driver without the 1st having completed successfully. (2 chips in series)
If the windows format routine doesn't see your drives as you know it should, it isn't correct.
In my case it was two 150g striped so when I finally got it right it showed up as a 300.
I've built quite a few machines but striping made THE biggest difference EVER.
From the moment I push the on button til ready at desktop is 20 seconds.

Sorry not any more help,
jb

The floppy had two drivers on it that were created by the install disk. I loaded them in the order they appeared on the disk, I didn't try flipping the order.

ok to me it sounds like a possible driver issue more that software or hardware related. i have extracted the most up-to-date drivers for your application here: http://www.firemoxy.com/Drivers/

i would start by trying them. if that doesnt work i have a few more ideas. just let me know.

Well, I got it up and running in the proper RAID format (as I intended). Of all things I was "owned" by two bad floppies. I made a disk, windows seemed to have loaded it, then it asked for it again (and said it was corrupt). I made a second one with the same results. So, I stuck one of them in the other machine to look at the file structure on it and there was none. So, even though it acted like it was writing them, it wasn't. I made a third disk and it loaded and came right up. I just couldn't imagine that I got two bad ones in a row, but it appears that I did. Just figured I better share that one with you guys....oops.

gotta love the primitive floppy disk...haha