In article <1146774048.417840.265430 RemoveThis @i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
"instant100" <instant100 RemoveThis @yahoo.com> wrote:
> i guess i need to back up a little. this system has no raid with two
> sata drives. both are present in the bios. the bios is set to
> configure sata as raid. and the silicon 3132 controller is set to raid
> mode in onboard devices config. i don't know how this system was
> setup. i bought it new and it came with an image on it. (i'm trying
> to contact tech support right now to find out how they configured it).
> this system boots great and shows all drivers and controllers present.
> i just need to know how to get the fresh install of xp to recognize the
> two drives. do i really need to rejumper and recable these hdd and
> optical drives?
The builder may have intended the system to be "RAID ready".
You can enable RAID in the BIOS, but not actually configure the
drives for RAID. At a later date, you can "migrate", with some
restrictions, from your current non-RAID configuration, to
some kind of RAID.
The "RAID ready" aspect of the whole thing, has to do with
driver installation. If the user has any _future_ intention
of using RAID on the Southbridge, then the RAID driver has to
be installed when Windows is installed. The problem is,
you cannot install the RAID driver over the top of the IDE
driver. The reason for that, is the "enumeration" of the
Southbridge chip, says the chip is either RAID or it is not
RAID, and when the system boots as IDE (chip is then set to
non-RAID), the RAID driver cannot be installed unless the
chip says it is RAID. Thus, the user has a chicken versus egg
problem. Installing the RAID driver from day one, means you
can use the drives in a RAID configuration or an IDE configuration.
If you have no intention of ever using RAID (and based on the
experiences on this newsgroup, I don't see much utility in it),
then just setting the BIOS to an IDE configuration and using
the vanilla driver provided by Windows, is good enough.
This document hints at the two possible options.
ftp://download.intel.com/support/chipsets/iaa_raid/IAAR_Quick_Start.pdf
"Setting Up a ³RAID Ready² System
The following steps outline how to build an Intel ³RAID Ready² system
with Windows XP installed on a single SATA hard drive. A ³RAID Ready²
system can be seamlessly upgraded to RAID 0 at a later date using the
RAID migration feature built into Intel Application Accelerator RAID
Edition 3.0. This technology enables you to install a second SATA
hard drive and then migrate to a RAID 0 Volume without reinstalling
of the OS.
1. Assemble the system using a motherboard that supports Intel RAID
Technology and attach one SATA hard drive.
2. Enter System BIOS Setup; ensure that Intel RAID Technology is
enabled. This setting may be different for each motherboard
manufacturer. Consult your user manual if necessary. When done,
exit Setup.
3. Begin Windows XP Setup by booting from the installation CD.
4. At the beginning of Windows XP Setup, press F6 to install a
third-party SCSI or RAID driver. When prompted, insert a floppy
disk containing the Intel RAID driver. After reading the floppy
disk, the ŒIntel 82801ER SATA RAID Controller¹ will be presented
-- select this driver to install.
5. Finish the Windows XP installation and install all necessary
drivers.
6. Install the Intel. Application Accelerator RAID Edition 3.0
software via the CD-ROM included with your motherboard or after
downloading it from the Internet. This will add the Intel
Application Accelerator RAID Edition 3.0 user interface utility
that can be used to manage the RAID configuration.
Post Migration Note: After completing a migration from a ³RAID Ready²
configuration to a RAID 0 configuration (see user¹s manual for
instructions), you will notice that the RAID 0 Volume is now the
combined capacity of the two SATA hard drives, but the migrated
partition size(s) is the same. This results in empty, unformatted
space at the end of the RAID 0 Volume. To utilize this space, you
will need to use Windows XP Disk Management to create another partition
on the remaining empty space in the RAID 0 Volume or use a third-party
application to expand the migrated partition to span the entire RAID 0
Volume."
So, the above procedure, whether you use IAAR or the Intel Matrix
software (whatever is appropriate for your chipset), allows ordinary
IDE operation, until at some point you want to use RAID on the boot
drive(s).
If you visit Device Manager and examine what driver files are being
used, and the names of the listed entities in the Device Manager,
that can tell you a few things. Depending on whether a proper installer
was used for the drivers, you may also find some interesting entries
in the Add/Remove control panel, and that will give you further
clues about how the system was built.
On my systems here, every driver file installed on my computer, goes
into a Successfully_Installed folder, while the blooper drivers that
only caused grief, goes into my Avoid_At_All_Costs folder. If you
keep a folder with all your current goodies stored in it, it makes
a reinstall later a lot easier.
But I still occasionally get burned. For example, a couple days ago,
I wanted to switch video cards, pulling an Nvidia card and installing
an ATI one. I go to look in Add/Remove, and there is no entry for the
Nvidia driver package. I had used the CD that came with the video
card, and the CD installed drivers without leaving an entry in
Add/Remove. It took a bit of fiddling until I found a way to
delete them, so I could remove the video card and swap in another
one. When I put the Nvidia card back, this time I got a Forceware
driver from the Nvidia site, as those leave an entry in Add/Remove.
Having an entry in Add/Remove makes life a whole lot easier.
Paul
>> Stay informed about: p5wd2 doesn't recognize sata drives 
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