GA-MA78GM-SH2 RAID question

I have 3 SATA drives and I want to set up the first in IDE mode with the OS
on it and the other 2 in a RAID0 as a file storage drive for very large
files. But when I go into the setup for the RAID it looks like it's either
all RAID or all IDE... I can't seem to find a way to mix the 2 at all.

"Matthew" <> wrote in message
news:ZmW_j.13767$.. .
>I have 3 SATA drives and I want to set up the first in IDE mode with the OS
>on it and the other 2 in a RAID0 as a file storage drive for very large
>files. But when I go into the setup for the RAID it looks like it's either
>all RAID or all IDE... I can't seem to find a way to mix the 2 at all.
Sorry... how do I set it up for both? I have set it up this way on 3 other
older computers with out any problems.

Matthew wrote:
> "Matthew" <> wrote in message
> news:ZmW_j.13767$.. .
>> I have 3 SATA drives and I want to set up the first in IDE mode with the OS
>> on it and the other 2 in a RAID0 as a file storage drive for very large
>> files. But when I go into the setup for the RAID it looks like it's either
>> all RAID or all IDE... I can't seem to find a way to mix the 2 at all.
> Sorry... how do I set it up for both? I have set it up this way on 3 other
> older computers with out any problems.
>

OK, this is what I've been able to learn, by looking at manuals and documentation
for a number of 780G motherboards.

SB700 has up to six SATA ports. They're split into a group of 4 and a group of 2.
According to Linux "dmesg" output, it looks like there is one logical controller
for the whole works. The "group of two" ports, appear to be separately
configurable. Implying, that one solution to your dilemma, is to connect
the SATA drive to "SATA-5" port. The GA-MA78GM-SH2 uses "SATA-6" for the
ESATA port on the back of the computer, which is where that disappeared to.

I tried looking for evidence, that a "free drive" connected to ports 1-4,
when the board is in "RAID" mode, would be recognized as an AHCI or vanilla
drive, but no such evidence was forthcoming.

What I did discover, is there is a RAID option called "JBOD". Maybe, just maybe,
if you declared the single drive as JBOD, it would magically become
visible via the RAID driver. That implies metadata would be installed
on the drive, but with some luck, this will not affect the ability to
connect that drive to another SATA equipped computer, and be able to
see partitions normally etc. That is one thing I test for, when using
"novel" disk controller.

(Useless doc - example of official documentation from ATI/AMD)
http://dlsvr03.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/...t_User_v09.zip

And if you ask "can I connect two disks in RAID, and two separate disks,
each in JBOD, to SATA 1 thru 4", I'll take a pass on answering that one :-)
While I would hope/expect JBOD means "independent disks" and is not
some spanning mode, I don't know that for sure. And you've yet to see
how Windows will handle the JBOD disk in any case, whether it'll come
up as dynamic or normal.

Post back your test results...

Paul

"Paul" <> wrote in message news:g1hr0n$u05$...
> Matthew wrote:
>> "Matthew" <> wrote in message
>> news:ZmW_j.13767$.. .
>>> I have 3 SATA drives and I want to set up the first in IDE mode with the
>>> OS on it and the other 2 in a RAID0 as a file storage drive for very
>>> large files. But when I go into the setup for the RAID it looks like
>>> it's either all RAID or all IDE... I can't seem to find a way to mix the
>>> 2 at all.
>> Sorry... how do I set it up for both? I have set it up this way on 3
>> other older computers with out any problems.
>
> OK, this is what I've been able to learn, by looking at manuals and
> documentation
> for a number of 780G motherboards.
>
I'll give this a shot and let you know... but I do have one generic
question... why has this changed? I built a computer about 6 months ago and
was able to freely mix SATA single drives and RAID arrays with out any
difficulties at all (I've built several computers this way)... all I had to
go was go into the RAID config screen and tell it how I wanted to run the
drives... but now all of a sudden I have built 2 computers with different
motherboards & RAID controllers and they have both been all RAID or nothing
at all.

Matthew wrote:
> "Paul" <> wrote in message news:g1hr0n$u05$...
>> Matthew wrote:
>>> "Matthew" <> wrote in message
>>> news:ZmW_j.13767$.. .
>>>> I have 3 SATA drives and I want to set up the first in IDE mode with the
>>>> OS on it and the other 2 in a RAID0 as a file storage drive for very
>>>> large files. But when I go into the setup for the RAID it looks like
>>>> it's either all RAID or all IDE... I can't seem to find a way to mix the
>>>> 2 at all.
>>> Sorry... how do I set it up for both? I have set it up this way on 3
>>> other older computers with out any problems.
>> OK, this is what I've been able to learn, by looking at manuals and
>> documentation
>> for a number of 780G motherboards.
>>
> I'll give this a shot and let you know... but I do have one generic
> question... why has this changed? I built a computer about 6 months ago and
> was able to freely mix SATA single drives and RAID arrays with out any
> difficulties at all (I've built several computers this way)... all I had to
> go was go into the RAID config screen and tell it how I wanted to run the
> drives... but now all of a sudden I have built 2 computers with different
> motherboards & RAID controllers and they have both been all RAID or nothing
> at all.
>

This varies from chipset to chipset. It could be that an Intel
chipset would be mixable. And I think some of the Nvidia chipsets
and their BIOS, have a RAID setting that can be applied per port.
So the answer to this question, varies with chipset.

Paul

"Paul" <> wrote in message news:g1hv3c$duo$...
> Matthew wrote:
>> "Paul" <> wrote in message news:g1hr0n$u05$...
>>> Matthew wrote:
>>>> "Matthew" <> wrote in message
>>>> news:ZmW_j.13767$.. .
>>>>> I have 3 SATA drives and I want to set up the first in IDE mode with
>>>>> the OS on it and the other 2 in a RAID0 as a file storage drive for
>>>>> very large files. But when I go into the setup for the RAID it looks
>>>>> like it's either all RAID or all IDE... I can't seem to find a way to
>>>>> mix the 2 at all.
>>>> Sorry... how do I set it up for both? I have set it up this way on 3
>>>> other older computers with out any problems.
>>> OK, this is what I've been able to learn, by looking at manuals and
>>> documentation
>>> for a number of 780G motherboards.

Well I declared the singld drive as a JBOD and then set the other 2 as a
RAID0 and everything looks ok in the RAID controller (both the JBOD and the
RAID list as functional) but when I re-boot it goes to the windows splash
screen for about 2 seconds then the computer restarts... even in safe mode.

Matthew wrote:
> "Paul" <> wrote in message news:g1hv3c$duo$...
>> Matthew wrote:
>>> "Paul" <> wrote in message news:g1hr0n$u05$...
>>>> Matthew wrote:
>>>>> "Matthew" <> wrote in message
>>>>> news:ZmW_j.13767$.. .
>>>>>> I have 3 SATA drives and I want to set up the first in IDE mode with
>>>>>> the OS on it and the other 2 in a RAID0 as a file storage drive for
>>>>>> very large files. But when I go into the setup for the RAID it looks
>>>>>> like it's either all RAID or all IDE... I can't seem to find a way to
>>>>>> mix the 2 at all.
>>>>> Sorry... how do I set it up for both? I have set it up this way on 3
>>>>> other older computers with out any problems.
>>>> OK, this is what I've been able to learn, by looking at manuals and
>>>> documentation
>>>> for a number of 780G motherboards.
>
> Well I declared the singld drive as a JBOD and then set the other 2 as a
> RAID0 and everything looks ok in the RAID controller (both the JBOD and the
> RAID list as functional) but when I re-boot it goes to the windows splash
> screen for about 2 seconds then the computer restarts... even in safe mode.
>

The only other option I can see at the moment, is using the SATA-5 connector
and setting the BIOS so SATA-5 and SATA-6 are set up for non-RAID. You may
want to use the RAID BIOS screen, to remove the "JBOD" status, and change
the drive back to a "free drive". The command might be "delete array",
as applied to that single disk.

Does the new disk pass its manufacturer disk diagnostic ? Could it
be there is something wrong with the disk ? Perhaps Windows dies
at the 2 second mark, just as it starts investigating the JBOD
drive file structure.

You could go into the "System" control panel, and disable automatic
restarts (Advanced/Startup and Recovery). If your "restart after 2 seconds"
is because of an error, then it will either be recorded in Event Viewer,
or if you disable automatic restarts, there will be an actual blue
screen with error numbers. If, after disabling automatic restarts,
it won't stop and display a blue screen (the symptoms are still exactly
the same), that would suggest some other hardware problem, such
as insufficient power, flaky CPU/RAM setup, and so on. You'd
run memtest86+ from a boot floppy, Prime95 while in Windows
(with extra disk disconnected), to verify the core system
is stable.

http://home.earthlink.net/~lreynol92...utoRestart.gif

Paul