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WD Raptors and Raid on P5WD2

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hyperasus

Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2004
Location
USA
Is anyone else have problems with Raptors and Raid on the P5WD2? I can't get mine to work. I have two 74GB Raptors I am trying to raid. No matter what raid try to use with the raptors it wont work. I can use the drives in non raid mode but if I enable raid everything goes wacky. I have 4 seagates and I can Raid 5 them and it works fine. Is my MB just screwed up?
 
Ok....If I install two raptors and try to raid them I can run the windows xp installation; but as soon as it tries to boot off the drives it freezes. I also have a Fastrack SX4 controller card(I use it to raid5 my 4 seagates). If I install the SX4 and enable the Intel raid then I cannot boot off of either raid. If I remove the SX4 then the Intel raid still does not work. If I turn off intel raid and just use one raptor then all is fine. Hope that wasn't too confusing.
 
Sounds like you might have a problem with your motherboard. Have you checked to see if you have the latest bios for your motherboard? If not, you might want to consider flashing it. If you are using the motherboard's onboard raid, and doing everything "by the book", then there's no reason that shouldn't work for you. I assume you're setting up the raid config correctly in the bios, and that you're using F6 to load the sata/raid drivers. I also assume you formatted the Raptors using the setup floppy from WD. If you're sure you're doing all that correctly, and your rig still locks up, then I'd consider RMAing the motherboard. Do you have another motherboard you can try? That would help with the process of elimination too. If not, pursue an RMA.
 
I have done all of that except formated the WD with the floppy from WD. I just let windows format them when I tried to install windows.
 
Man I just set up RAID0 on my P5WD2-Premium with 2x36gb Raptors and it was a pain in the a$$, took me like 4 days to get it figured out. I was trying to restore my original XP installations(games ect) with Norrton Ghost, and I could copy the image to the RAID0 but then it would freeze at the windows splash screen. I finally did a fresh install of XP.

What you have to do is, disable the Promise controller and the ITE controller and set *IDE configuration* to RAID. Then when you boot, the Intel Matrix storage manager should come up. I also found that if I had any other SATA devices(Plextor PW716SA and Maxtor 120gb SATA) connected to the board, it would freeze at the XP splash screen. I'm ****ed because I can't use my Plextor SATA burner or my 120gb SATA Maxtor HD. ASUS better fix this ASAP because I'm stuck using my Sony DW22A ATA133 DVD-RW.
 
That sounds real familiar to what mine was doing. I go threw CD installation OK but as soon as it tries to boot up the first time it goes wacko. I swear I tried every setting twice and finally just decided my board must be defective. I wonder if it’s the plextor drive even though mine is PATA. Maybe I gave up too soon. I think I will put my gloves back on and go another round with my MB tomorrow to see if I can get it to work.
 
Thanks Diehrd; I been eyeballing your Xeon setup for a long time now wishing I had something that nice. I had a dual AMD XP 2200+ rig about two years ago. Loved the dual processor feel but hated the AMD instability. If it hadn't been for Pentium D I probably would have ended up getting some Xeons.
 
Can you set up the other drives on the same controller and get them to work ?

And thanks for the compliment,,Bad news though,,The xeon rig is sold ..

Good news i have an X2 4400 now
 
I will be very interested to know your thoughts on Xeon vs your new X2. I was going to go X2, bought up thousands worth of parts for an AMD. It was just too unstable for me so I cut it lose and got a bigger watercooler and a Pentium. I was able to sell off the MB, Memory, and CPU with a loss of $50 so it could have been worse I guess.


My 4 Seagates are running on a FastTrack SX4 controller and the Raptor is running with the onboard controller. I actually have 2 raptors in my case but I can’t get them to work in raid mode unless I remove the FastTrack controller, some kind of conflict happening. It’s a bit of a pain in the a** actually. I’m hoping a future bios will correct the problem.
 
Seams you are sharing the IRQ between them,Can you ,ove the controler to another slot.

Ok perfromance at stock on thios X2 resembles the Dual xeon n sig..It scores better in sandra .. I am on a 1mb PCI card till my 7800GTX arives so for now I have no other tests I can run..And i am still awaiting my G-Skill 4400 LE ram..

But It is a smooth running rig..Fast as heck and I like it enough to say I am happy I went from the Xeon to this..
 
I think my recent bad experience with AMD was as much Nvidias fault as AMDs. Stupid thing ran great in SLI mode but as soon as I wanted to use it in quad screen mode it would spaz. Hate it when a computer kicks my butt like that. Oh well, not one BSOD since I sold the thing so I’m happy for now.

I didn’t think of my hard drive problem being an IRQ conflict that’s good thinking. I can’t move the controller to another slot heres why . Maybe my MB will let me rearrange a few IRQs in the bios. Crossing my fingers and heading to the bios.
 
Just broke out the user manual and the IRQ assignments chart shows PCI slot 3(the one my controller is in) and Serial ATA sharing the same IRQ.
Dam :bang head . I'm really hoping there is a way around this.
 
Can I pat my self on the back ? I amaze my self sometimes...

Ok ok ok I know big deal lmao...
 
I spent a day trying to set up some seagates in RAID 0. The problem: PLEXTOR! I finally moved my CD/DVD drive to the silicon controller, and everything seems to be working now.

Before I did that, I had my main drive, the raptor, hooked up to the silicon controller, and I could get it to boot, but windows would not see the RAID drives or the plextor. If I used the "add hardware" wizard, I could use those to drives, but after rebooting they would be gone again.
 
Xris said:
I spent a day trying to set up some seagates in RAID 0. The problem: PLEXTOR! I finally moved my CD/DVD drive to the silicon controller, and everything seems to be working now.

Before I did that, I had my main drive, the raptor, hooked up to the silicon controller, and I could get it to boot, but windows would not see the RAID drives or the plextor. If I used the "add hardware" wizard, I could use those to drives, but after rebooting they would be gone again.

So your running RAID 0 and the Plextor drive on 2 different controllers? Please elaborate if you could? I'm having the same problem, I cannot run my PX716SA.
 
Get to windows with your SATA IC7HR controller (the one with four SATA ports) set to Configure SATA as IDE. Install all the drivers for RAID/SATA, both the Silicon controller and the IC7HR.

Now, move your 716SA to the silicon controller (the one with just one SATA port). Attach your drives to be RAID'ed to the IC7HR controller as well as your main drive. Set up RAID in the bios, and you should be okay.

If this doesn't work, update the bios for your motherboard as well as the plextor drive.

I'm sorry I didn't elaborate more, I'm at work right now.
 
For the record, I setup two Raptor 36GB on my P5AD2 in RAID0 a while back successfully (a bit of a pain, but just a few hours of trial-n-error).

I am currently running a FastTrack SX4 with 4 HDDs (two 36GB raptors in Raid0, and two Maxtor 250GB in RAID1) with 256MB of cache as my Boot/data drives (no other drives connected to mobo, except a SATA DVDRW). That was a piece of cake.

I also setup two Maxtor 400GB SATA drives in RAID1 as the OS/booting drives (no other drives) on a P5WD2 just a few weeks ago. Wasn't too bad (same as before).

Yeah, something is wrong with your setup.
 
I have an SX4 which I use on my P5WD2. Problem I have is that I cannot get my MB to work with the SX4 and Intel raid. I can turn off the Intel raid and connect hard drives to my MB; but if I activate Intel raid the computer hangs before it even starts to load windows(doesn’t matter if windows is installed on the SX4 drives or the onboard Raid). I have tried everything I can think of with no luck.

educan I would love to know if you can use your SX4 along with the onboard Intel raid.
 
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