[ServinginEcuador]

For any of you Windows gurus out there:

I have an Asus P4P800 Deluxe motherboard running a single PATA Samsung 160GB drive, plus two SATA Maxtor 120GB drives. I want to run the Samsung as my C drive, plus the (2) Maxtor drives in RAID 0 as my DV editing drive. If I go into the BIOS and tell it that the two SATA drives are NOT a RAID array I can access the drives in WinXP. Once I switch over to telling the BIOS that they ARE a RAID array I can't access the drives any more. If I go to the Control Panel, then to System, and then Device Manager, I can see the RAID array listed there, but it is not mounted, has no size, and is unaccessible in eveyr way.

How do I format the RAID array and get access to the thing? I really want to run the drives as a RAID 0 array for the speed boost.

 

[Helter Skelter]

Start->Run->compmgmt.msc

Left side there will be an option under Storage called Disk Management. Your RAID array should be visible there for initialization and formatting.

 

[GokieKS]

The P4P800 is a motherboard based on the Intel 865PE chipset, using the ICH5R northbridge for SATA. Do you have Intel Application Accelerator RAID Edition installed? Windows won't detect the drives unless you do.

~KS

 

[Born2bwire]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GokieKS The P4P800 is a motherboard based on the Intel 865PE chipset, using the ICH5R northbridge for SATA. Do you have Intel Application Accelerator RAID Edition installed? Windows won't detect the drives unless you do. ~KS

That's my take. Usually you format and initialize the RAID using the RIAD controller drivers/utility.

 

[Quad]

You board is probably similar to mine I have the asus p4c800-e. To use the Intel SATA Raid go into the BIOS - IDE Configuration - set to enhanced mode - S-ATA - Yes (S-ATA as RAID) and Enable the S-ATA Bootrom.

During the next boot you will be asked to press Ctrl-l to enter RAID set up. The Create the raid volume set stripe size and create the raid volume.

You can then use windows disk management (rt click on my computer select manage disk management or as Helter Skelter suggested) to format etc.

Similar for the Promise controller but it uses a ctrl f to go into its raid utility at boot. Plus you will need a driver.

The Intel SATA does not need a driver as it is native to the chipset. The Intel RAID Accelerator is good to use but I don't think necessary.

 

[ServinginEcuador]

Well, I have a resolution in place, but it's not even close to what I wanted. First off I bought (2) Samsung 160GB drives to run as a PATA RAID 0 array. For some strange reason the RAID setup was telling me they were running UDMA 33, which is a mere 33 MB/s transfer rate. It's supposed to run at UDMA133, but nothing I could do would make it work correctly. A quick scan of the internet showed that the Samsung SP1604N has problems getting the BIOS to recognize the right speed setting. I found some software to run on a boot floppy that would supposedly fix it. Well, it didn't. Nothing I could do would bring the drive out of UDMA2 in the BIOS, so it was time to do something very, very un-Ecuadorian - try to return something. We got to the store and talked to the guy for a while trying to come up with some solution. I have no computer, and at a minimum want desperately to run a single PATA drive w/ Windows and my software, along with a RAID 0 SATA setup for my DV editing. We looked at exchanging the Samsung for another maker: no joy. They only have Samsung. Do they have anything larger, like a single 200GB drive? No, and they won't until at least Tuesday or Wednesday.

At this point I just want my money back so I can go to another store and try and find a big HD with the cache I want, and at leat UDMA100. After nearly half an hour the guy finally breaks out the exact bills I paid with last night, and refunds me my money in full! Amazed the wife and I left in search of another hard drive. It seems that almost no one in the entire country has a hard drive, and those who do only have 40-80GB ones. Well, another $1.30 cab ride to the store I started out in yesterday but avoided due to the higher cost, and I find out the only big drive they have is, are you ready, the Samsung SP1604N. And, instead of costing $120 they are asking $160. Well, it was time for a compromise, so I looked at an Hitachi 80GB. It would have worked, but only came with 2MB of cache, which is too small for DV editing work.

After all this I was out 24 hours of time, 10 hours of work trying to get this stuff to work, 12 hours more work needed to reinstall all the software and hardware, and a little over $10 in cab fares, to end up right where I started at 5PM yesterday. All for nothing! With only two hard drives left I can't run them in RAID to gain the speed I seek, and there isn't a single hard drive in this city of over 2,000,000 people that fits my criteria!! Upgrading to a motherboard with (4) SATA ports means going to a 915 or 925 series M/B, and that would mean replacing the RAM with DDR2, the VGA card w/ PCI-e, and the CPU w/ an LGA775! And down here things are a little more expensive , so that rules out the idea of a major upgrade. Plus, the selection here is pitiful at best, and nearly non-existant the rest of the time.

 

[bootman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ServinginEcuador ...Upgrading to a motherboard with (4) SATA ports means going to a 915 or 925 series M/B, and that would mean replacing the RAM with DDR2, the VGA card w/ PCI-e, and the CPU w/ an LGA775! And down here things are a little more expensive , so that rules out the idea of a major upgrade. Plus, the selection here is pitiful at best, and nearly non-existant the rest of the time.

Maybe look for a SATA controller card?

 

[ServinginEcuador]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bootman Maybe look for a SATA controller card?

Any suggestions on a good one? It would run on my standard PCI slot, which it a 66MHz (IIRC) bus, which is well under the 150MB/s that SATA is capable of. Is this a problem? I've used SCSI PCI cards years ago, but the transfer rate wasn't even close to what SATA RAID 0 is capable of.

 

[ServinginEcuador]

Does anyone know if you can run four SATA drives in two RAID 0 arrays? I'm finding it hard to find any specific info that states whether the four drives would have to be one big drive, or whether you can just split the whole mess into two arrays of paired hard drives.

 

[Quad]

What happened to the maxtor drives? Did they vanish?

Are you running XP Pro? If so you could try a software raid. XP Home does not do software raid though.

Were you not able to find the BIOS settings? I looked at the manual for the P4P800 board and it should be the same as I described.

 

[EricP]

Not to be a dick, but here's my motto regarding RAID0:

If you don't know absolutely for sure that you need RAID0, use something else.

It's a LOT of potential trouble, and IMHO it should only be implemented in enterprise-grade applications where enormous chunks of data MUST be contiguous, and only with enterprise-grade components and enterprise-grade backup solutions (as failure otherwise is both high and catastrophic). If you must have RAID at all (99.9% of "power users" don't really need it), go with at least RAID0+1, or (preferably) RAID5. Disk space is cheap (i.e. just buy more to account for the mirroring/striping loss), but losing all your data due to a minor malfunction is not.

 

[ServinginEcuador]

Quad,

The MAxtor drives are still here. Sadly, they're the only drives still here. For the DV editing I do I have to have two hard drives. One is for the programs and WinXP, the other is the A/V drive for editing. There's no way around the requirement for having two seperate hard drives, so the two Maxtors are here to stay.

As to the RAID question, I followed all the directions in the Asus M/B manual, but it appears that the driver that came with the M/B install disc was faulty. While loading WinXP I would hit F6 to add the RAID driver, and it would load fine. A few minutes later when it asked me to continue with loading Win it simply locked my computer up. I had to hit the reset button to get it to where I could do anything. After trying different drivers off the M/B disc I gave up. I could load Win and run it fine off the piece of junk Samsung dog-slow drive, but couldn't get Windows to accept the RAID0 array. This all became moot once I found the problems with the Samsung. Left again with only two hard drives I find myself unable to do much of anything other than do another 6 hours of work to bring myself right back to where I was 30 hours ago.

EricP,

Thanks for expressing your opinion, I appreciate it, so don't feel bad for wanting to do so. For editing several gigs, like I already have more than 20GB worth, of digital video, and to do so at a full 29.97 frames per second, requires every bit of raw speed possible. By running the two SATA drives in RAID 0 I can pick-up close to 10-20% more speed in transferring, rendering, and adding effects to my videos. Every time I drop out of realtime in my playback things are much, much more difficult to see and visualize. Adobe After Effects Pro was running at a mere 3-4 frames per second, which is totally unacceptable. Hence my desire to bring the two SATA drives back into RAID 0, which is where they were in for over a year without a single problem. The difference with using RAID0 in just loading programs and Windows is significant, even to me. If I could have run a single PATA drive that was fast enough to load programs and Windows the ability to run the two SATA drives in RAID0 would have been a huge step forward for me.

 

[Quad]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ServinginEcuador Quad, The MAxtor drives are still here. Sadly, they're the only drives still here. For the DV editing I do I have to have two hard drives. One is for the programs and WinXP, the other is the A/V drive for editing. There's no way around the requirement for having two seperate hard drives, so the two Maxtors are here to stay. As to the RAID question, I followed all the directions in the Asus M/B manual, but it appears that the driver that came with the M/B install disc was faulty. While loading WinXP I would hit F6 to add the RAID driver, and it would load fine. A few minutes later when it asked me to continue with loading Win it simply locked my computer up. I had to hit the reset button to get it to where I could do anything. After trying different drivers off the M/B disc I gave up. I could load Win and run it fine off the piece of junk Samsung dog-slow drive, but couldn't get Windows to accept the RAID0 array. This all became moot once I found the problems with the Samsung. Left again with only two hard drives I find myself unable to do much of anything other than do another 6 hours of work to bring myself right back to where I was 30 hours ago. .

But you do not need to hit F6 during set up unless you are putting the OS on the RAID drives and I know EricP would not approve of that.

If you want to use the RAID set up for DV editiing why not use the Maxtors for that? Put them in after you have windows up and running. My manual is a bit strange at times as it leaves the impression (in some sections) that the promise chip is the only RAID solution on the board.

Looking at your board's manual I see the only SATA connect is to the Intel chipset. The instructions start on page 5-34 of the manual. Good luck.

 

[ServinginEcuador]

Quad,

In order to make the two Maxtor drives a RAID0 array again I would need a third hard drive. I might be able to find one that works well and fits my criteria, but living in Ecuador doesn't make finding one any easier. There are no CompUSA, BestBuy, Fry's, Circuit City, nor any other large chain like that here. There is also no mail order where I can find a store in another city. The vast majority of computer stores here are about the size of a closet, and their stock is limited to a few hard drives of the same brand. Also, by moving the Maxtor drives back into RAID means reinstalling all my software, backing up all the info I need, and then restoring it. While I don't mind doing that every few months, doing so twice in a week is not my idea of fun.

If I could find a fast IDE hard drive to run the OS and all my software I would gladly run the SATA drives in RAID again. Until that day comes, and it may never come, I will make due with the limited speed and storage capacity I now have.

One place is supposed to get some 200GB Maxtor drives in this week, so we'll see if that comes to pass. If so I may just buy one of those and reconfigure my system yet again. After that, hopefully I can get WinXP to recognize, initialize, and format the two SATA drives in a RAID0 array. I would hate to move the two drives into a RAID array and lose all the installed stuff just to find out I still can't get it to work properly.

 

[Quad]

Bummer! I thought you still had one of the Samsung PATA drives with your OS on that. I know what you mean about the stores. I lived in Trinidad for as time. Getting all the stuff to bake a cake was hard enough never mind tech stuff.

Reinstalling is not fun and cloning from SATA to PATA does not usually work out with windows. If your lucky (very lucky) the Maxtor 200 may be the PATA ones with a 16 MB cache and that may do it for the speed you need for AV editing.