Can't see drives on Adaptec 1210SA RAID Card

For about 9 months I've been happily running 2 x Maxtor 160Gb drives via the onboard RAID controller (configured as RAID 0, i.e. striped) on an Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard. Last week I installed an Adaptec 1210SA RAID Card and 2 x Maxtor 300Gb HDD's.

Instant disaster. The Adaptec tried to boot before the motherboard controller (Silicon Image 3112), so I ended up reinstalling XP. Anyway, I've updated the motherboard BIOS, updated the SiI3112 drivers etc. and now it boots onboard controller first, then 1210SA and I can get into XP easily.

But I can't see the new 300Gb drives in Windows XP (they're not RAIDed). I've formatted them and initialised them via the 1210SA utilities and still nothing. I don't know what to try next - all thoughts and suggestions very gratefully received!

Thanks

Paul

 

Did you create the stripe set at the hardware level?

 

No. The new drives on the 1210SA are not RAIDed (i think thet're called JBOD configured).

Paul

 

I fought a similar issue not too long ago on a friends computer and found that the connectors weren't securely attatched!! For some reason SATA connectors don't stat connected very well!!

Roger

 

Rogvalcox,

Hi - thanks for that. I'll give it a try as I've nothing to lose. I had similar probs with the SiI3112 controller last year and ended up wedging a piece of paper in the connectors to keep them tightly in place! The 1210SA connectors seem higher quality and AFAIK thedrives always get picked up by the controller during boot up....... hhmm! so the problem would seem to be the controller card not being seen/registered by XP. 'Spose I could reinstall the 1210SA drivers, but last time I did that I couldn't boot into XP and had to reinstall that. Scary times!

P

 

I'm assuming that you are hitting F6 while installing XP, so that it will allow you to integrate the SATA drivers into the XP install!!

Incase you didn't know...that is required when you install a copy of windows that is going to use a SATA and/or SCSI device...otherwise...it will not be able to see the hard drive and therofore it will not install because it does not notice any device that it can install to!!

Roger

 

Roger,

Thanks for that. Yes, I did press F6 on install. But you've triggered another thought - I use a dual boot system - could the controller register on one boot and not the other? I'll investigate when I get home tonight. As I recollect there wasn't a problem with the SIi3112 across the installs..... but you've got me thinking. Keep them coming!

Paul

 

I'm not all that firmiliar with dual boot systems, but I would think that when you F6 for a windows install...it would register it to whatever partition is the one you choose to install on!!??

Roger

 

Roger/All,

I checked both boots last night - no difference, so not that.

The next thing to try is reinstalling the 1210SA drivers as they may have been modified when the revised SiI3112 setup went through. But I'm using that PC too much on a major project to allow it to take the risk of it needing another XP reinstall from scratch! I'll do it weekend after next........ I may be back!

Paul

 

Does device manager or admn tools>computer management>disk management detect it?Is your logical disk management service on?Does bios detect it?

 

Kadavill,

Hi. Thanks for taking an interest. From a cold boot the SiI3112 controller loads first and identifies 2 Maxtor 160's. Next the 1210SA loads and identifies 2 Maxtor 300's with a statement that they're in JBOD configuration (BTW I've formatted and initialised them under Adaptec's utilities). Then the Windows XP screens kick in.

When in XP, the Disk Management snap-in shows Disk 0 split into various logical drives (which is as I would expect, given it's RAID 0) and 2 x CD-Roms. What I was expecting was Disk 1 and Disk 2, each at around 276Gb available.

One other clue - the system won't do a warm restart from XP. The SiI3112 boot works fine but the 1210SA boot hangs with the message "Waiting for controller" If the machine is switched off then on, it boots normally (except for the missing HDD's)!

Paul

 

Is your bios up to date?? Maybe there is a compatibility issue here!!??

Also...make sure the motherboard chipset drivers are also up to date!! You can usually download the latest from the motherboard website. That could also be causing a compatibility issue!!??

Roger

 

OK. Got the answer so I thought I'd post to save others going through the same problems.

It was a 'known' BIOS issue on the Adaptec controller. It didn't work well as a 2nd RAID system. A fixed BIOS was posted on 17 May by Adaptec at: http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/su...AR-1210SA&filekey=aar1210SA_bios_v1016-m1.exe

So rogvalcox was right about the BIOS - but no update was available when I started the thread!

Note: You might need to reinstall the drivers under XP/whatever after updating the BIOS.

Thanks to all who made the effort to offer help.

Paul