Hi! Trying to get my GA-EP45-UD3P box working again. Hard drive failed. So I bought two new SATA drives (planning a RAID 1), and connected them to the Intel SATA ports. Moved my SATA optical drive to one of the Gigabyte SATA ports. Powered up the machine and new hard drives were recognized. Went into the RAID config tool, and configured RAID 1 successfully. So far so good. Now to the problem... I booted off my partitioning tool (CD). The opening screen appeared, but the program froze. Tried again with a different partitioning tool, also on CD. Same result. I booted off a Linux disk, hoping to use Linux's partitioning tool. Linux booted, but thinks it's two separate drives. The RAID driver is of no use until I have a partition to install on. Gigabyte tech support thinks I should just try to install from Windows. But I put in the setup disk and it's not apparent to me that Windows Setup is recognizing the RAID 1 either. And I want to partition this array so I can resurrect my triple boot (DOS, WinXP, Ubuntu). Windows won't partition for the Linux core and swap space. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong? Why don't my partitioning tools boot like they always have?
First, double check the RAID has been setup correctly. If this is the case you'll need to grab the RAID drivers off the motherboard driver disk, as I know XP wont recognise a RAID array without one. Failing that, there maybe a BIOs setting you need to tweak perhaps.
I have deleted and re-created the RAID array several times using the RAID configuration tool for the Intel SATA ports. Also tried RAID 0 as well as RAID 1. And tried every BIOS setting for the SATA ports. My partitioning tools (Partition Magic, Partition Manager, Linux installer, and Windows setup disk to not recognize the arrays. I have lots of application software and have set up quite a few triple a quad boot systems over the years. (DOS, Windows, Linux, and Mac 68 K under emulation) All of these were SCSI systems. Unfortunately, my last SCSI RAID controller failed. So I bought two new SATA drives thinking I could use the built in Intel SATA RAID support. Typically the procedure is to install the hardware, configure the RAID array, partition, then install the OS's from oldest to newest. Then I can use the Microsoft Windows boot manager to access all the operating systems. There must be some gamers out there who have used RAID 0 to speed up their systems and have partitioned for multiple OS's. Isn't this possible with the built in RAID support?
I use RAID 5 on my system, and it was fairly easy. Just attached the drives, set up the BIOs boot settings then hammered which ever key it was jusr after POST to enter the RAID menu and setup the array. On XP it needed RAId drivers to recognise the array, but 7 detected it fine and installed without a hitch.
Thanks again for taking the time to reply. Ok, maybe I'm not getting my point across....My bad.. At what point did you partition the array? Before or after Windows asked you for a RAID driver? Or did you even partition your array? Put another way.... What if I was running a Linux only box, booting off a single hard drive and then decided to install a RAID 1 array for data storage? How would I partition the data array? Should I have to install a copy of Windows on the RAID 1 array (and the Windows RAID drivers) to make it recognizeable as a RAID array, and partitionable? These RAID arrays have GOT to be partitionable BEFORE the OS is installed. What motherboard are you using? JC
Have you ticked/activated the 'Make drive bootable' option in the on-board RAID confiquration utility? Just a thought.
Drive supposedly bootable The RAID config tool tells me the drive is bootable. My issue is this. What if I had a linux boot from a separate drive, and I merely wanted to setup the RAID to store my data. I wouldn't be installing Windows drivers would I? I'd just be partitioning the drive. But I can't partition what the RAID config tool creates. JC
I must admit to being a little confused as to why you feel the need to use partitioning programs other than the ones supplied buy the OS installation disks to split the drive. I guess that's your choice though. The only thing I can suggest is to start again with the RAID array(including re-writing the MBR) as it sounds as if the info file is being corrupted, probably as a result of the failed drive scan by the app you tried to use originally. I know it's not what you wanted, but I would then let each OS do the partitioning. As to the Linux question, the driver would be the same and written by the manufacturer of the RAID controller. It's just the way it interacts/communicates with the OS that needs to be re-written. It's very rare for the main body of the driver to be at fault, I find it's more likely to be corrupt file instead. When a RAID array breaks it's usually the information file that tells the OS which type, version and block size etc. That way the OS knows which drivers and setting are needed. I know how frustrating it can be as most of my RAID controllers are nVidia nForce chips. Even my old Sill RAID controllers have been better behaved. I am still surprised(and disappointed) we are still palmed off with software RAID solutions as they are still a fragile file system and fail quite often with a power cut or such.
Well, since the onboard RAID mostly is a software RAID, it makes perfect sense that Linux doesn't see it, because the drivers you have to install for it are Windows...
Thanks for taking the time to answer. We're talking about the built in RAID offered by the Intel ICH10 SATA hardware and BIOS on my Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P motherboard. Gigabyte only supplies Windows drivers to "manage" the RAID. My goal is to setup up a multiboot system running from a RAID 1 array. Something I have done many times before with SCSI based platforms. The three OS's (DOS, XP, and Ubuntu) each require different types of partitions. The only easy way I know to do this is to partition the array first, then install each OS into the appropriate partition. The Windows XP setup disk cannot partition for Linux or DOS. And for unknown reason, the Linux setup disk doesn't recognize the RAID 1 array as an array. It thinks it's two separate drives. What if all I wanted to do was install Linux and use two separate hard drives, configured in a RAID 1, for my data? What good would the Windows system level drivers supplied Gigabyte do me? No, there is something wrong with the built in Intel ICH10 RAID or the RAID configurator which runs from the BIOS. The RAID 1 array should be recognized as a array by my bootable partitioning tools, or by the Linux setup disk. Engineeringtech
I'm sure that the on-board RAID is around 50/50-software/hardware. It's because of the software intensive driver you don't get the same performance that you get from hardware solutions(and the reason they don't cost an extra £200). The hardware driver only needs to tell the OS how to talk to the expansion card instead of how to split the data as the on-board RAID driver has to do. You sound as if you know as much(if not more than me) about IT but I have to ask, have you tried to re-flash the mobos BIOS? You never know, it might help. If you have no joy, you could try a freeware boot manager like GAG as that simplifies and usually speeds the boot process on a multi-boot system.
I didn't expect this RAID to be as high a performance. I just expected it to be usable! I have reflashed the BIOS with the latest available. Didn't make any difference. Talked to Gigabyte tech support ad nauseum. (They are clueless). As for a freeware boot manager, I haven't had need for one. have had no problem using the NT boot manager as long as I can partition the array and install the OS's in order (oldest to newest). I have a simple procedure for copying the Linux boot sector and accessing it from the NT boot manager. Thanks for your time though. I'm not going to buy anymore Gigabyte hardware.
Silly questions, since you clearly know what you're talking about: - You are using the 6 yellow SATA ports right? - You're seeing the CTRL-I (not CTRL-G) option during post and are using that interface for configuring the RAID rather than doing RAID configuration in the normal BIOS? Just checking I've been pretty happy with Gigabyte ... but I did need to rtfm a couple of times to work the RAID management out.
