Can't Setup 2 HD in My RAID Controller

Computer Hardware
#1

Hi Guys !

I have a MSI motherboard KT4 Ultra SR (MS-6590) that only have 01 RAID controller (PROMISE) and here is my problem :

I got 02 HD’s… 80 GB MAXTOR as a master and 120 GB MAXTOR as slave (both Diammond MAX 9) the thing is that the RAID controller can’t recognize the 120 GB MAXTOR… I already try all the setup options in the PROMISE bios but none worked.

The only way that works it’s putting the 120 GB in the normal IDE controller (that i really don’t want it) because it’s sharing the flat cable with my DVD Burner.

Is there a way to solve this issue ??

My system info :

MB MSI KT4 Ultra SR (MS-6590)
AMD Athlon XP 2000+
512 MB DDR 333 MHz
80 GB HD Maxtor (Diammond MAX 9)
120 GB HD Maxtor (Diammond MAX 9)
LITE ON CD Burner 32123s
Toshiba DVD-ROM M-1612
Sony DVD Burner DRU-500 A (x)

Thanks in advance !

hgtvg.

#2

do you really want the 2 hdd as raid??
(not sure…but shouldn’t they have the same size then?? depending on the raid setting??)

there are some nice modded biosses that change the raid it to normal ide ports.

did you try to post this question on the MSi forum also???
they have lots of solution to many questions

#3

Not a raid expert, but i found this on the MSI forum;

  1. KT4 RAID usage

These type of RAID configurations are allowed:
a). 2 SATA channel HDD (RAID0 & RAID1)
~or~
b). 1 SATA + 1ATA parallel HDD but performance will be slower (RAID0 & RAID1)
~or~
c). 2 SATA + 1ATA parallel HDD but performance will be slower (RAID0 only)

2 ATA Parallel HDDs RAID is NOT possible.

  • SATA to Parallel ATA Convertor on #10
  1. KT4 Ultra IDE3 usage

KT4 Ultra’s IDE3 can only support ONE Master ATA HDD. This is due to the limitation of the Promise PDC20376 controller itself, has nothing to do with the BIOS.

#4

Hi !

I will post it now in the MSI Forum… The reason that i am worried is that i put the DVD Burner in the same IDE controller that my 120 GB HDD is. I don’t want to “loose” any of my devices.

I will also check about HDD sizes to see if can be a problem

Thanks

hgtvg.

#5

Hi

Can you post the link ???

I can use this :

"SATA to Parallel ATA Convertor on #10 "

Thanks
hgtvg.

#6

Wait, you’re trying to RAID a 80GB w/ a 120GB? If my math is correct, the two HDs don’t exactly have the same size, which is required (well, for optimal performance) for RAID. Why are you doing this again? Can’t you just leave the 2 HDs separate? If you want to do RAID, get another 80GB and RAID that w/ your current 80GB and use the 120GB as the boot drive.

#7

hgtvg, I believe you are saying that you are trying to run 2 hard drives off the RAID ATA/133 connection? You’re board is very much like my old Asus P4S8X in this aspect (probably same controller). The ATA/133 port that is part of the RAID only supports 1 hard drive, it is meant to be used along with a SATA drive (pretty useless, IMO). Just one of the reasons I migrated to Gigabyte SINXP1394, it has 2 normal IDE, 2 IDE RAID connectors, and 2 SATA connectors.

80GB w/ a 120GB? If my math is correct, the two HDs don’t exactly have the same size
lol. There are various ways to run 2 different size HDs on RAID. Most support using the drives individually obviously, many new controllers also support JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Drives) which combines different size disks into a single logical disk (so it appears to Windows he would have a single 200GB drive)

@hgtvg - You are going to need drives of equal capacity to use actual RAID, i.e. Mirroring/Striping. If you get another drive of 80 or 120GB size, you can run it in RAID by using a PATA=>SATA converter

#8

Huummm…

I Think i will need to change my board ! ? or

Can someone tell me if i really will mot have problems using the HDD in the same cable that my DVD burner is ?

Well… actually i will need to change it because i want to be able to add more HDD in future.

What can you tell me about it ?

Thanks

hgtvg.

#9

You can attach the HDD to the same cable as the DVD drive without a problem…

About the 2 PATA HDD’s connected to the onboard raid controller:
I have an MSI board as well (K7N2G-ILSR) with onboard raid. This raidcontroller only support 1 PATA HDD and 2 SATA HDD’s. Although the functionality of the controller is limited, I managed to connect two PATA disks to the controller, without any BIOS mods!
Perhaps this trick works for you as well!

How I did it?
Well, just connect both HDD’s to the PATA channel of your RAID controller. You’ll notice that the BIOS of the RAID controller only detects the master disk. No problem… just make it a stripe set (of 1 disk!) and boot to Windows. Install the Promise managment utility and login to the localhost. In the list on the left, you’ll see a bunch of channels and a bunch of disks. If everything works fine, you’ll be able to activate the slave disc from there!

Otherwhise, you might need a BIOS mod. I did such a mod on my board, and now I’m running 1x SATA (single disc stripe) and 2x PATA (two disc stripe) on the onboard controller, that has succesfully been converted to a fully featured TX2 Plus!

#10

Hey !!!

Thank you for share this info here ! I think that it’s exacly what i need to do to get things working here !!

I will make those steps here and post the results for my board.

Thank you very much !!!

hgtvg.