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HD IDE Conroller Card.

Discussion in 'PC Hardware' started by roy66, 2003/10/03.

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  1. 2003/10/03
    roy66

    roy66 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    HD IDE Conroller Card.

    I am operating a dual boot on XP Home.
    I installed a third HD and backed up my main HD onto it...OK.

    I now have installed an IDE controller card so that I don’t have to keep swapping back and forth
    with the cable...BUT...all is not going OK.

    On boot up it says press F3 to enter Raid utility...then I get
    F1-delete Raid set....pressed F1 then get Enter the set number of Raid set to be deleted
    F2-Create Raid set...pressed F2 then get nothing
    F3- Create Spare Device..pressed F3 get no mirrored set
    F4-To resolve conflicts...pressed F4 then get nothing.
    F5-Config 1st. HD

    If I try to boot through with the HD connected to the controller card I finish up with a totally
    blank screen.

    Too much for me.

    roy66
     
    Last edited: 2003/10/03
    roy66,
    #1
  2. 2003/10/03
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    Roy66

    You've been around long enough not to double post - deleting the other (near identical) thread.

    I'll leave this in the XP forum for the time being, but it may get more response in the Hardware forum.

    Will you post the make and model no of the IDE controller card here. Sounds to me like you have a RAID card, which is not what you want I fear.
     
    PeteC,
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  4. 2003/10/03
    roy66

    roy66 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Honest Pete,

    That was a boo-boo from an edit operation that misbehaved badly and I didn't even realise/know where the duplicate went......sorry.

    roy66

    Thanks for the Raid tip...BUT can you explain why that is not appropriate and what I should go for.

    This is what is on the front cover of the User Manual
    Ultra ATA/133 IDE Raid controller card
    SIL680-Raid
    SIL680-IDE
     
    Last edited: 2003/10/03
    roy66,
    #3
  5. 2003/10/03
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    roy66 - no problem!
    Briefly.......... from my ASUS mobo manual

    RAID - Redundant Array of Independent Disks

    RAID 0 is also known as 'data striping'. Striping optimizes two identical hard disk drives to read and write data in parallel, interleaved stacks. Two hard disks perform the same work as a single drive, and at a sustained data transfer rate double that of a single disk alone. .......... With FAT 32 andNTFS partitioning the array will be addressed as one large volume.

    RAID 1 is also known as 'data mirroring'. Mirroring optimises two identical disks to copy all data from one disk to the other and vice versa. As new data is written, it is duplicated onto both disks using a parallel write process. ........ Should one disk suffer mechanical trouble all system data will be preserved on the other drive.

    Mainly used in servers for data security - not quite the application you have in mind?

    However, my mobo has onboard RAID and some time ago I dabbled with it and managed to connect up 3 x HD's + CD-ROM + CD-RW - total 5 IDE devices quite successfully.

    How I did it I am not sure, but somehow I managed to create a RAID of 1 disk.

    What I think you need is a straightforward ATA controller such as this

    HTH

    A further thought having reread your initial post - what happens if you don't hit F3 - it may then act as a simple IDE controller?
     
    PeteC,
    #4
  6. 2003/10/04
    roy66

    roy66 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    No hangups in Device Manager....it suggests it is working OK..but I know the opposite
     
    roy66,
    #5
  7. 2003/10/04
    Rockster2U

    Rockster2U Geek Member

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    Roy -

    Not to dis Pete, but he needs another Guiness. Your RAID card will work just fine whether you set up a RAID configuration or not - it will function as a normal pair of IDE Headers but is for HDD's only. To set up A RAID configuration - (0,1, or 0+1), you need a minimum of two matched drives (4 for 0+1) and at least three bottles of Guiness.

    ;)
     
    Rockster2U,
    #6
  8. 2003/10/05
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    Over to you then Rockster :)

    Detest Guiness - maybe that's the problem :D
     
    PeteC,
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  9. 2003/10/10
    martinr121 Lifetime Subscription

    martinr121 Inactive

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    Roy66: I have a similar problem. My PCI card uses the silconimage universal drivers. You can find information about these drivers at: www.siliconimage.com

    SilconImage dosen't manufacture the cards. The Sil680 and Sil680R are universal drivers for the SiliconImage chipset used by other mfgs.

    When I installed the PCI card that I had bought, it came with the Silicon image drivers. What happened on my machine was the card recognized the drives attached to it on post, but Windows would not recognize the drives in My Computer. I wasn't trying to set up a raid array, just use as IDE drives.

    I got Windows to recognize the drives by getting rid of the Sil680R drivers and installing Sil680 drivers. I had tons of trouble getting Windows to install the drivers without the "R ". They are separate drivers. I think. There is a long post on this that I started, don't remember the title, but look through the hardware posts I'm sure you'll see something on Sil680 in the last 60 days. Like "Drives not recognized "

    I was also having all kinds of problems with the machine trying to boot from the PCI card when the "C" drive was on the motherboard controller. Set the MOBO to boot from SCSI and put "C" on 0-0 on PCI card, no problems. all four drives available in Windows. No problems that is until boot from CD to try to do any kind of restore and the PCI connected drives are nowhere to be found!

    Due to a recent and currently unresolved crash I lost that setup. When I tried to reinstall the Sil680 drivers, Windows refused again to install them, wants the "R" version.

    If I ever get my machine running again (working from daughter's) and get the PCI card up and running again, I'll post back.

    I wish I could be of more help, but if you find the solution, I'd sure like to hear about it.

    Just edited to correct link.

    Martin
     
    Last edited: 2003/10/10
    martinr121,
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  10. 2003/10/10
    martinr121 Lifetime Subscription

    martinr121 Inactive

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    Roy66: after correcting the Silicon Image link, I went to their site and find that the Sil680/sil680r drivers have been updated with WHQL drivers as of 10/6 with Sil680/680A drivers.

    I downloaded the Zip file but have not tried to use them as the machine is still down. If you want to try them I'll be glad to email them to you, they are buried on the site. When I get my machine back up, I'll surely unzip to a floppy and try them, maybe solve the problem. They have also posted updated BIOS, but I won't mess with that unless you go first.

    Martin.
     
    martinr121,
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  11. 2003/10/12
    roy66

    roy66 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    martinr121,

    Thanks very much for your compehensive outline of the problems you encountered with a similiar situation as mine.

    Quite frankly I get a little more than frustrated when what should surely be a simple procedure becomes such a complex issue.

    At the moment I am considering returning the card that I have and HOPEFULLY there is an alternative "PCI Card " that will fit the bill. Failing that I might just physically slave my third drive when wanting to use it or look for an alternative bit of hardware such as TRIO.

    I'll pop back in here when notified of additional postings.

    THANKS for all your trouble......yeh you'll get yours up again..just a matter of time.

    Havagreatweek
    roy66
     
    roy66,
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  12. 2003/10/12
    Rockster2U

    Rockster2U Geek Member

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    Last edited: 2003/10/12
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