Raid Controller problems

[Leescan]

Hello all, this is my first post. I was wondering if anyone could explain a few things to me:

I recently purchased a Dell 9150, mainly for Audio recording purpose using Nuendo 3 mainly, with my MOTU Firewire Audio Interface. It's running XP Media Center, and I've been led to belive this has caused the countless little wierd things that have happened with my MOTU over the last few months. And the fact that it's got loads of rubbish on i don't need led me to try a fresh install of XP Pro Service pack2.

On trying, i got the message no hard disks found. Searching through the BIOS i found on the driver list that the 2 150Gb Sata drives were listed as not present, but there was an Array Raid driver present, i assume this is why it could not see any hard drives??

After messing arroung in the BIOS i found some settings AHTP with Raid or somthing, Raid on and Combination. In the Combination mode it finally had the boot disk and began the install, sweet I thought. But on Completion, I relised it was only seeing one of the 150Gb drives??? Went back into the BIOS and changed the Raid Controller settings back to what it was, but low and behold it wouldn't boot up.

Now I've been told i need to disable the Raid controller, and have spoke to Dell Tech Support and they say they can talk me through that process, but i'm unsure as to what is the best situation, I just was a simple fast PC that i'm in control of and understand, would i be better off with a simple 2 150Gb Hard Sata Hard drives master and slave or not???

Any light that can be shed would be greatly appriciated???

Thanks Alot

 

[Blakhart]

Hi
I would talk to Dell re this and have them step me through it just to get my data back, but if you value your data over performance and find yourself making a clean install, I would use the discs independantly. One with os and a folder for data storage/backups to take up the rest of the space on that disk, and the other disk for all apps plus a pagefile.

The applications the system will be used for should dictate our drive strategy: in my gameserver my raid array has no redundancy but that is fine by me, the os is on an independant disk and controller while the games being served (games alone are contained in an aid0 array) in an aid0 array as I have off and on-site backup. I don't care if the aid0 array fails, well, not as much as if I had no backups.

In my game playing box, I value data integrity over speed, it takes hours to get an os and game files installed and set up the way I like them, so no non-redundant array for me, I use the disks independantly. Much safer for day to day operating.

 

[Leescan]

Thanks for that, i did speak to Dell and they talked me through disabling the Raid control. I'm acutally having trouble now getting the pc to recognise the second drive, it will see it but it will not allow me to format it? It only see's proper the master drive. I think i'll have to speak to dell again.

With regards Data security and spead, both factors are important to me, so what spead ifferences can i expect running two independant drives? like i said i'll be using the system to record Audio files and was thinking have the appications running from the master drive but writing to the second one, am i right it thinking like this?

Cheers

 

[baddmr2]

SATA/RAID Driver Disk.....? maybe..??

Thanks for that, i did speak to Dell and they talked me through disabling the Raid control. I'm acutally having trouble now getting the pc to recognise the second drive, it will see it but it will not allow me to format it? It only see's proper the master drive. I think i'll have to speak to dell again.

With regards Data security and spead, both factors are important to me, so what spead ifferences can i expect running two independant drives? like i said i'll be using the system to record Audio files and was thinking have the appications running from the master drive but writing to the second one, am i right it thinking like this?

Cheers

Hello.. Just a question, are BOTH of your drives SATA drives? Hooked up to your mobo with independent sata cables? I just was unsure exactly of your setup by what u described.. I know that with my SATA drive, windows XP install cd WONT recognize it. Its a maxtor sata/raid drive. I DO have the Raid enabed in my bios. If I need to boot into the XP CD for repair options, etc.. I had to make a Bootable floppy from Maxtor's site that had the sata/raid controller drivers on it. Then when I boot from the XP cd for the recovery console, I have to press F6 to install that "sata/raid hard drive controller" Once I press F6, I have to specify which OS from the floppy i want to use the drivers for (xp selection) then it will load them and let me in.. Otherwise it WONT recognize my sata hard drive and says "no hard drives are installed on your computer"

I dont know if this is relevant, but it did help me out in the past.

Good luck!

 

[Leescan]

Well it's the same error message i was getting originally. Thanks for that, it's something else for me to consider. I think both the drives are Sata drives.

Cheers

 

[baddmr2]

Well it's the same error message i was getting originally. Thanks for that, it's something else for me to consider. I think both the drives are Sata drives.

Cheers

IF they are SATA drives, then they DO NOT connect with the big 80 pin flat ribbon cable, thats an IDE Drive! They use a small 5-6 ish pin cable instead! Thats the way to tell physically! So if you have one old IDE hard drive ( which is the one with big flat cable) and one SATA drive, the one with the small connect cable, then most likely your puter is only recognizing the IDE hard drive. I think you somehow need to get windows to recognize the Sata/Raid drive. Possibly like I mentioned before.

Check your computer and let me know what cables are used for BOTH of your drives and we can take it from there..

Good luck

 

[Leescan]

Both drives are Sata drives, Xp has sucsessfull installed on the drive on chanel 0, but when in Xp, although it will see the device on chanel 1 in device manager, when in computer manager it isn't in the right place for me to format it, ie it's not in the top list where the C drive is, but the list underneth where there are no options when right clicking, if you know what i mean.