Detecting SATA HDD

[ajocius]

Hi,

 

I have bought 5th SATA HDD for my P5AD2-E Premium mobo. This mobo has four regular SATA connections and four additional SATA RAID connectors. I tried to connect my 5th SATA HDD to SATA RAID connector, but can not see it once I start Windows XP. Someone suggested that SATA RAID connectors can only be used for RAID setup, but I found in the manual of mobo the following : " if you want to connect Serial ATA boot/data hard disk drives to these connectors, set the Silicon Image Controller item in the BIOS to SATA mode." I have obviously have done that. Hopefully someone here can help me.

 

Could power supply be faulty? My MIST500 had only four SATA power connectors, but I found a converter: 4 pin power supply to SATA power supply. My concern is that this converter has only four wires, when original SATA power supply cable has five.

 

Once I turn on PC it gives some strange clicking sound. Sounds like the HDD is powered up and down, up and down and so roughly 10 times. The sound dissapears. That does not sound healthy....

 

Please help me to sort it out. My knowledge about RAID is very limited. I understand it is some kind of mirroring on couple of hard disk, so I do not want to use my HDD for RAID. I just want to have one additional SATA HDD.

Endret 13. september 2005 av ajocius

[lavizh]

Have you entered your RAID Controller setup and defined an array? You have to do this even if your not using RAID.

 

And no, you don't have to use RAID, you can use your RAID Controller for single drive use.

Endret 5. september 2005 av lavizh

[ajocius]

thanks, need to find that controller setup then somewhere...

[ajocius]

thanks, need to find that controller setup then somewhere...

[lavizh]

Usually CTRL-F or something like that. Hope it helps, good luck.

Endret 5. september 2005 av lavizh

[ajocius]

And that sound at a startup, is that something usual?

[ajocius]

ok, installed something called SI3114 which is Silicon Image driver. Also installed SAM (Silicon Array Manager), still can not see HDD. Looked up under contro panel into Silicon Imige ATA Controllers and that one did not detected devices either...

 

I didn quite understand where should I press CTRL+F or where should I enter RAID Controller setup and defined an array?

 

I understand RAID controller is integradet into my mobo and I used attached mobo CD to install Silicon Image RAID driver and Utility, the only application that come up after installation was SAM. However it does not have devices detected either...

[Rhulken]

You have to find out how much power the harddrives need.

and what kind of power line they use from the psu...

 

you have the 12volt line 5 volt line and so on...

 

each of these lines have a dedicated current supply

like this 12 volts have maybe 18 or 20 Amps and 5volt may have 45-50 amps and so on.

 

so what you do is... take 12 volt and *multi with fexs. 18A ..that equals=216watts

 

If you can find out what power consumption the harddrives has and what the psu have on those power lines.. and ofcourse wich lines the harddrive use.

you may find out if your 500watts would handle the power that the harddrives need.

¨just a wild gues

good luck!

 

(sorry for my bad English)

MVh Rhulken

Endret 5. september 2005 av Rhulken

[ajocius]

Looks like after number of test I can come to conclusion that devise is defective... Connected another drive to SATA RAID connector and at least that software called SAM identified that drive. Previous drive connected to regular SATA connector and it still has clicking sound and is not identified.....

 

Well, now it will probably be long and painfull test on how 5 years guarantee will function (bought this Maxtor last week...)

[ajocius]

Hi,

 

Have finally replaced my faulty HDD. Now have connected new drive to the existing SATA (not RAID) connection. HDD was recognized and I have formated it as NTFS. Next I swithed off PC, disconected HDD from SATA connection and connected it to SATA RAID connector. Started PC. Went to BOOT selector (before XP is started) and can see extra HDD in the list of available hard drives! Loaded XP from C drive and file manager does not detect new drive. Started RAID controller application that is called SAM (Sil Array Manager). This application sees device connected to it. So I understand I need to create some kind of array now... here my knowledge ends. Tried menu item "RAID Group" - > "Create RAID Group", next came some selection screen, where I left all defaults and pressed OK. However got error message as in attached picture.

 

Could someone help please?

[ajocius]

Searched the whole evening, no idea how to use this drive.....

[Tordenflesk]

Try doing it in the S-ATA BIOS, not inside Windows. Check your mobo manual oon how to do that.

[ajocius]

Went into S-ATA Bios. I can see my HDD under Physical Drive section. I have following options there:

Create RAID Set

Delete Raid Set

Rebuild Raid1 Set

Resolve Conflict

Low level format

Logical drive info

 

I tried to "Create RAID Set" to which I got "Not enough single drives to create Raid Set". This is fair to me as I do not want to have RAID. It is only that lavizh above adviced to setup array in any case (I believe array is the same as set...).

 

It is also one selection in BIOS that needs to be set to RAID in order to get into SATA Bios. Another alternative is to set BIOS into SATA instead of RAID (adviced also in manual if one wants to use SATA RAID connectors to connect extra HDD). However if I use it, I do not get possibility to enter SATA BIOS.

 

I have formated that HDD prior to connecting it to SATA RAID connector. Could that be something triggering this nonsense?