Use Raid onboard as extra IDE ports

[Jakke]

Hello,

I owned a ABIT SA6R and used the onboard RAID as extra IDE ports so I could hook up 4 extra Hard disks. I can't remember to do something special to use it that way.
The Abit board died and I found an AOPEN AX37 Plus, also with onboard RAID but it seems that I have to setup an Array in order to use the Extra IDE Ports.
Is there a way to just use them as regular IDE ports?

Thx

Jakke

[ringo2143z]

You shouldn't have to create an array to use the connectors. I used the RAID connectors briefly on my old board (until it fried) and I use the SATA connector on my current board to run an IDE drive using some fancy connector.

Simply, you need to go into the BIOS and look under the Onboard Peripherals for a mention of the onboard RAID controller. You should be able to set what it does from there (it'll give a few options but one should be IDE). Might I add that you need to make sure the controller is enabled there also as it will search for the drives on boot. You may as well hunt for some new drivers for the controller while you are at it.

This is as far as my knowledge on onboard RAID controllers goes as I haven't tried anything more complex. If this doesn't help you will need to post back. Good luck.

[Jakke]

Thx for your reply.

I allready checked the Bios for RAID settings, but apparently these settings aren't that obvious. I can Enable/Disable the Raid function and wether it should boot from the raid or not.
Then there are some settings for IDE (channel 0 and channel 1) where I can set a mode for every device (AUTO, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 if I think) and there is a choice UDMA/Disable for every device. Has this something to do with it?
If only I could find a decent manual for this BIOS!

My old board had the Highpoint controller chip, this board has one from Promise Fasttrak100 Lite. Maybe it just isn't possible with that chip?

Every idea is welcome!!

Thx

[ringo2143z]

The settings for IDE refer to the speed the motherboard will use those drives at (ie the ones connected to the IDE controller ports). Best to leave them to auto to save problems I should imagine. If you know how to do it, a bios update might be an idea too...and while you're at it, get new drivers for the chipset at least.

You can get the manual for the board at ftp://ftp.aopen.nl/pub/manual/mb/ax3...7plus-ol-e.pdf.

In answer to whether is is possible, it states in the manual above that your raid controller can be used for either a raid setup or for connecting another 4 IDE devices. I downloaded it on 56K and the link was dying without the use of getright to download it.

There is also a manual for the RAID controller at ftp://ftp.aopen.nl/pub/manual/mb/ide_raid/raid-ol-e.pdf.

I'm sure the setting for the raid should be in Integrated Peripherals in the bios so have another look. Perhaps connecting the drives and having the raid controller enabled will encourage the computer to put you into the controller setup, allowing you to set them as IDE devices...just a thought though.

For anything beyond what you can get from the files I have mentioned and the places in the bios you will have to ask someone else I'm afraid. Have fun...

[Jakke]

OK,

I FINALLY found it, but it's been a while since I had to use that muck commen sense.

I found out that one has to create arrays with the Promise Fasttrak100 Lite (probably with every Promise controller).
Apparently it is possible to create a stripe array with one single disk, so that's what I needed. I looked all over the net, but I couldn't find any information about how this has to be done.
You have to use the Fastbuild utility and this seems to be the only tool available. But with Fastbuild, you only have one possibility to create arrays and this is to let the utility do it for you (automation, I hate this!). It allways tries to create an array with 2 disks and because I had allready hooked up three disks to the controller, it used the two disks that have (by coincidence) the same size. There is no way to manually create a single-disk array.
Only one solution. Disconnect two drives and let the utility create an array with one disk. Then connect drive number and let the utility create another single-drive array. And the same after connecting the third drive.

Is this really the only way to make this work? I can't believe this! This sucks, especially when you know how simple it can be with a Highpoint controller.
Hey, whatever, it's working now, hopefully my post can help other people out, because I can't believe that I'm the only one with this problem. Maybe AOPEN of Promise can add it to there manuals.

Peace,

Jakke

[mrwilhelm]

Yep... you hit the nail on the head. I just went through this with my Asus A7V8X when I tried to replace a WD 80GB IDE HD with a Maxtor 120 GB SATA HD as the only drive on the system. I initially hit a brick wall because as you noticed, the FastBuild utility is the only thing that recognizes the drive until you create an array. But of course there's no way to configure this utility for single disk, IDE use, it must create a single device RAID array. Since this didn't seem correct to me I went round and round for hours looking for a different solution. Finally I relented and gave the single device array a shot and low and behold, it worked. Thanks Promise!