Re: SATA recognition problem with A8N-SLI Deluxe

On Tue, 18 Oct 2005 01:17:49 GMT, Robert Hancock
<hancockr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>bobopi wrote:
>> I have a XP Pro system with motherboard A8N-SLI Deluxe and BIOS 5.1.39.
>
>5.1.39? That's not an ASUS BIOS version, that would be something like 1014.
>
>> In Bios NVRaid configuration, all SATA drives are enabled as well as
>> the IDE function setup for SATA ports 1, 2, 3 and 4. I plugged two
>> hitachi deskstar 250 GB hard-drives on the SATA extension module as
>> written in the user guide. On these hard-drives, I do not have
>> possibility to choose master or slave (is it SATA specificity ?). They
>> do not need to be boot disks.
>
>No such thing as master/slave on SATA.
>
>>
>> Neither of them are recognized by the system: Bios or Windows (NVidia
>> controller is visible in the device manager in windows but no disk name
>> appears) or Partition Magic. In device manager, Nvidia force raid class
>> controller (SCSI and RAID) is ok, but I still have an error on Raid
>> controller.
>
>If the drives are not partitioned then they won't show up as a
>formattable device, you have to do into Disk Management to do that. Is
>this what you mean?
>
>>
>> Have you got an idea and how to fix the Raid controller error ? is it
>> important ?
>
>Need more info, what is this error?
>
>Are you even using RAID? If not, just disable the RAID mode in the BIOS..

Right, these messages make it sound as though your nVidia controller
is set up as a RAID controller but you haven't actually created an
array. You didn't say, but since you're looking for them in Windows,
I presume that you have an IDE HD on which you installed Windows
successfully. If you want those Deskstars to be a 0 or 1 array, you
need to enter the RAID controller's Setup during POST and create the
array. After that they should be recognized in BIOS. They should
also be recognized and visible in XP's Disk Management console as
unformatted disks IF you've installed the nVidia RAID DRIVER in
Windows.

Like Robert says, if you want them to be individual disks, not a disk
array, you must disable the nVidia RAID function in your BIOS setup
and then NOT load any RAID drivers during or after XP installation.

Some more information on what you have installed and are trying to
accomplish would be helpful.


Ron
.