CMOS Clear-Bios settings

mmmmm...You may be giving Windows a hard time by changing IDE locations so much. My Windows "learns" very well, but I push the limits sometimes and it balks a bit.
Your Windows may be a bit surprised at waking up in a new location so often and having to reconfigure it's "view of the world ".
Those fast startups sound good, but you may have to actually install Windows in a final location to achieve a stable system. I don't think Windows was meant to be so mobile.

Matt

 

Well, So far, so good. XP running very well, no boot failures, no lock ups since yesterday morning when I moved the HDDs back to the motherboard. My fingers look like this: XXXXX, which makes it hard to type.

Thanks for sticking with me through failure and triumph. Hopefully I won't have to ever post back to this thread.

Martin

 

Well, Imagine that, wrong again!

Everything running wonderfully, only one little tinsy weeny little problem.

Now I can't boot from CD!!!

I am now vunerable to a crash catastrophe. I managed to get the Acronis program to boot from floppy. Only trouble with that is it can't see the backups on CD.

So, it is time to figure out a new scenario on where to connect which drives. Seems obvious that one of my optical drives has to be on the MOBO header. I'm going to think about it a bit before I make more changes and confuse the OS further. Any comments or Ideas will be appreciated.

Martin

 

Hi Martin


My suggestion for setup:

Windows HDD as master on mobo IDE 1.
"Data" HDD as slave on IDE 1.

DVDrom as master on mobo IDE 2.
CDRW as slave.

Other drives on controller card. (You said Windows can now access the hard drives on the card, right?)

OR

Have you considered the suggestion of changing the IDE location of the CD drive just for backup/restoration.


Matt
PS I don't mind posting here as long as you don't mind doing all the hard work

 

The suggestion of writing a manual for the controller card is beginning to make more sense. With all contributors permission, we could just publish this complete post and it would be better than any manual. Maybe we could make some money out of it too! Let's see, split would be: Martin121 50%, Mattman 10%, BillyBob 10%, Rockskster 10% WindowsBBS 20%. How's that sound?? Hope I didn't forget anyone.

I think you got the right bright idea. 2 HDDs on MOBO header 1, 2 opticals on MOBO 2, 2 HDDs on PCI 1, 1 optical on PCI 2. This was my thinking as well.

Maybe that would work with all functions AOK, Boot from CD,
all backups on slave on MOBO 1 and CD.

That way, the backup programs and Windows will think this is a normal computer with a sane operator. Fooled ya.

Tomorrow, another disassembly, reassembly. Hit the switch, cross fingers & pray.

Martin

 

Just got an email from Newegg advertising Asus motherboard model A7N8X that has onboard extra 2 IDE Raid channels. Only $124. Hmm. Problem solver??

Their marketing department been reading this post?

Martin

 

Thats exactly why I've been quiet (besides being busier than H) - not enough NO - how with PCI/RAID controller card problems, I've always gone right for the throat from the get go with RAID MoBo's. Sure, done a few IWills and an adaptec, but my thinking is still influenced by RAID MoBo experiences. Again, whatever works .......... I'd still be focused on putting all of the HDD's on the RAID card, but in this case - you've been there.

Kind of hate to see you toss in the towel after so much effort and getting oh so close, but wisdom may be with you by getting that other MB and finding a good home for this one. In the meantime, let us know what happens with mattman's suggested set-up. And, what drivers did you finally settle on? My vote still goes for the unsigned ones from the mfg. You might want to try looking for some beta drivers too - who's the card mfg? Maybe you mentiond it before, I'm just being lazy by not scanning the thread again.

Another thought - how are you jumpered? CS? maybe try MA/SL or if MA/SL, try CS. Believe it or not, IBM deskstars had to be MA/SL on the RAID headers to be properly recognized with some Northbidge chips. All other mfg's were fine with CS. Again, these comments apply specifically to the RAID headers. Most mfg FAQ's will suggest experimenting with jumpers when drive recognition is a problem and I think its been determined that this is a problem.

Now I'm really searching but when you had all HD's on the PCI card and couldn't get the optical recognized for boot, did you have DMA enabled on the opticals? Did you try it both ways?

OK, I'm outta here for a while but will be back to follow the wisdom before the night has run its course. Good luck...

 

Hi Rockster: Funny you should ask about the MFG of the card, I was dumb enough to buy a 2nd one when #1 did not work. (or somebody couldn't figure out how to configure it.)

#1 Card was mfged by CMD. It is now sitting in a box on the dining room table. (next to all the parts for my daughter's new computer. (hmm, I wonder how many drives she is going to need?)

#2 card mfged by Koutech and marketed under the name of I/O Flex. It is sitting in PCI slot 3 on Soyo MOBO.

Now comes the interesting part. Both cards use the exact same drivers, published by SiliconImage.

Both are supposed to be combo cards, at least, that's my interpretation of their literature. IDE standard, IDE Raid. There are two sets of published drivers, Sil680 and Sil680r. When I read the setup literature, I thought it was very clear that if you were not using the Raid feature, use the Sil680 drivers.

Only one problem. Windows refuses to install the Sil680 drivers.
Stick Windows new hardware wizard's or updtae driver's nose into Sil680 and it can't smell them. Get it anywhere near the Sil680r, and it gobbles them up.

Same with both cards. With Sil680r drivers installed, before recognizing the drives on boot up allows an F3 key to set up a Raid array. Ignore the F3 key, it goes merrily on to recognize the drives attached to it, the Raid setup page closes and the machine boots. (sometimes, every once in a while, one out of five)

I have tried umpteen times to get Windows to load Sil680, it will not. Install, uninstall, reinstall, update drivers, pull card from slot, stick card back in slot, clean registry, delete prefetch files, unplug drives, replug drives, stand on my head, a million times, all to no avail.

I have the unsigned drivers on the product CDs, I have tried to use them, again Sil680 (signed or unsigned) will not install. Install unsigned Sil680r from CD, Windows gives unsigned driver warning, installs drivers, says install problem, hardware may not work, get yellow exclamation in device manager. I've done so many setups, I don't remember if drives available under this setup. I guess I could go back and read these notes, but I don't think that's there.

Koutech's telephone support, as advertised on the box, is non existant. No return phone call after voice message. It is all press 1 for this and 2 for that and 3 go ***** yourself.

I'm going to shut up for now, change config tomorrow, report back outcome.

As Lil Abner used to say: "Amusin but confusin. "

I'm not:


I'm

Martin

 

Hey guys, I'm back after being down for 36 hours. As you know, I was having continuous lockup and boot problems.
I tried first to restore "C" using Acronis True Image, as I had a complete image of "C" and "D" stored on DVD disc.

Booted from Acronis's boot disc, found the image on the DVD disc, clicked on restore and got this message: "Cannot restore drive, Image is corrupt" I'm not sure how a DVD image can get corrupt by sitting in a jewel case. Anyhow, so much for Acronis and the $30. or $40 bucks I sent them.

It was clear that I needed to start from scratch.

I attempted to do a format install of XP on "C ", but Windows refused to install, even after formatting the drive several times from within the install program. The installation would do the inspecting, load files, ask where to install and reboot the machine, then do it all over again, never completing the installation. I called Msft, their tech support could not solve the problem after 2 hours on the 'phone and numerous consultations at the Msft. office. Their conclusion was that there must be a drive overlay, and they could be right, as when I first installed the drive, I had used MaxBlast. Never again.

Time after time, even after agreeing three times with the installation program to wipe the drive , no dice. It would not boot into the actual installation itself. Only the gather info, load drivers and files, etc. then reboot by CD and start all over again.

I then swapped drives and did a clean install using an almost blank drive. Went without a hitch.

I was then able to load the Sil680 IDE controller card drivers without the Raid controller built in. The old setup refused to do that.

This solved all the problems I had been having trying to get the MOBO and Controller card to get along and recognize each others drives. Now, no matter which drive is plugged in where, all see each other, are available for reading and writing, including the three optical drives. Not a problem.

I made a drive image With Powerquest's DI7 on a local drive and on DVD of the fresh installation after installing Sevice Pack 1a and all updates but before making any changes or installing any programs. Hopefully, I'll be able to get back, at least to square one after the next crash.

I spent most of today reinstalling programs and getting settings back to where they were.

In the meantime I had re-connected the old "C" drive as a slave to the new "C ", and sure enough, o[pened the drive and there was Windows XP in all it's glory, complete, as well as the "D" partition on that drive.

If anybody who reads this has a clue as to why XP would not install, and obviously not format from within the install program to do a clean install, I would surely like to hear from them.

If you remember early on in this post I mentioned an 80Gig drive that got fried. Well, along the way, I returned it to the Mfg. and Just this afternoon, a box arrived with a brand new 80Gig drive!

I just happen to have one more IDE connector available, If I hook this drive up, no, when I hook this drive up I will have 330Ggigabytes of available storage.

Thanks for all who stuck with me through this.

Martin

 

Excellent ........ Worked the last three days and nights building and installing a new Win2000 Server, reformatting and XP'ing 5 workstations (2 left to do) - 4.5 hours of sleep until last night -phew. OK, grabbed some zzzzzzzz's, get back onto the board and low & behold - you finally got your reward. Excellent!

Everybody should read your comments about drive overlays. I've always hated 'em and get sick reading comments from people recommending them. The best lessons are usually the hardest ones to learn.

So, when do you start writing copy for the Controller card manual?

 

My, you have been busy. All that building and rebuilding. Maybe one day you can change your BBS profile to read "EXPERT "

As far as a manual is concerned, I'll just print out this post, staple the pages together, print up a fancy title page and, walla, a
manual.

The final parts for daughter's machine (fans) arrived today, so tomorrow I'll have at it.

Thanks again for all your help and all the help I get on this board.

Martin

 

Er...wow...what else can I say except .

Iwas going to reply to your previous email about drivers and suggest a few things, but always came back to things I had suggested before.

I run a disk overlay (IBM-Ontrack) and when I add other drives Win98 recognises and adds the information to the Master Boot Record. Apparently that wasn't happening for you in this case (by going through the controller card).
...and yes, I have some reservations about Maxblast.

You have a nice fresh system to work on (destroy??...if you are like me). Hope it goes well.

Matt

 

Hi All: The only reason I used MaxBlast is it was the first time I had ever installed a drive, the MaxBlast floppy came with the drive, and I was under the delusion it was neccesary when installing an additional drive.

I have to say this, it has been running for four years nowand still seems good as new. All the problems I have had with it are from configurations and software. (and maybe MaxBlast)

I have had one hard drive failure, IBM Deskstar, 40 Gigs, failed after two years. It had a 3 year warranty and was replaced without compaint. Trouble was I lost a whole bunch of jpg and avi files.

This Windows XP Home machine will Plug and play a new HDD, and create partitions on it using Disk Management. No Mfg software required.

Martin