RAID Newbie Question

I built my current computer two years ago around an Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
motherboard. Normally I build a new computer every two years, but this
one is performing so well I've decided to wait til next Christmas to do
a full upgrade. But the itch to improve got to me, and last week I
installed a pair of 500 gigabyte Maxtor hard drives as a RAID array. I
want to use the drive for video editing and storing movies High
Definition programs I capture via IEEE 1394 (Firewire) from my cable
box. So I don't need mirroring -- I'm looking only for performance. I
plan not to put anything on the RAID drive(s) that I can't do without.

I'll also use the added space for additional backups of the rest of my
system. I make permanent backups on DVD, but it'll be nice to have a
quick backup/restore capability on a big hard drive.

The RAID drives are working OK, I guess. But as I'm completely new to
RAID and don't really know what to expect from RAID drive behavior, what
I'm seeing at bootup makes me think I may not have all this set right yet.

When the system boots, and well before any operating system starts to
load, I see Fastrak 378 (BIOS v. 1.00.0.37) scanning for IDE drives.
This may take only a couple of seconds, or it may take a half minute or
more as little dots keep appearing in lines on the screen. Sometimes I
may see two full rows of dots before the boot continues. This is very
annoying. Why is this happening?

When the dots have done their thing, I see the Fastbuild Utility which
identifies the two RAID hard drives as follows:

ID: 1
Mode: 2+0 Stripe
Size: 1000215M
Track/Mapping: 65535/255/63
Status: Functional

And after that appears the operating system loads normally.

I have four physical hard disk drives in the system now:

* One 80 gigabyte SATA hard drive with four NTFS partitions, each
loaded with an operating system. I use this drive to boot into Win2K,
Vista, or two different installations of WinXP. It's plugged into the
SATA 1 socket and it

* One 120 gigabyte ribbon cable EIDE hard drive plugged into the
primary IDE socket. Used for data storage

* Two 500 gigabyte SATA hard drives in RAID configuration plugged into
SATA RAID 1&2.

I let Fastbuild choose how to set up the two drives -- I just took its
default advice.

I used the disk that came with the motherboard for installing Windows
drivers for the RAID drives. It turned out that installing the drivers
was easiest in Win2K. But I think I don't have a problem with the
Windows drivers -- the problem I'm seeing takes place before Windows
starts to load.

I wondered if I should have set the two RAID drives as master/slave or
something, but they're SATA and supposedly don't need jumpers to be set.

So is what I'm seeing at bootup normal? Should I just expect the system
to display rows of dots occasionally as it scans for IDE drives -- about
half the boots, actually? And if this isn't normal, how do I fix the
problem? Help, please.

--
Bill Anderson

I am the Mighty Favog

What you are seeing is the raid bios/utility detecting your array and
checking its state.
Once it passes the checks sys boots normally.
Its default behaviour for an array.
(Though you should check your mobo manual for any specific bios settings, eg
raid on ide drives)
Sata drives have no master/slave relationship

"Bill Anderson" <> wrote in message
news:i9GdnSpP-...
> I built my current computer two years ago around an Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
> motherboard. Normally I build a new computer every two years, but this
> one is performing so well I've decided to wait til next Christmas to do
> a full upgrade. But the itch to improve got to me, and last week I
> installed a pair of 500 gigabyte Maxtor hard drives as a RAID array. I
> want to use the drive for video editing and storing movies High
> Definition programs I capture via IEEE 1394 (Firewire) from my cable
> box. So I don't need mirroring -- I'm looking only for performance. I
> plan not to put anything on the RAID drive(s) that I can't do without.
>
> I'll also use the added space for additional backups of the rest of my
> system. I make permanent backups on DVD, but it'll be nice to have a
> quick backup/restore capability on a big hard drive.
>
> The RAID drives are working OK, I guess. But as I'm completely new to
> RAID and don't really know what to expect from RAID drive behavior, what
> I'm seeing at bootup makes me think I may not have all this set right yet.
>
> When the system boots, and well before any operating system starts to
> load, I see Fastrak 378 (BIOS v. 1.00.0.37) scanning for IDE drives.
> This may take only a couple of seconds, or it may take a half minute or
> more as little dots keep appearing in lines on the screen. Sometimes I
> may see two full rows of dots before the boot continues. This is very
> annoying. Why is this happening?
>
> When the dots have done their thing, I see the Fastbuild Utility which
> identifies the two RAID hard drives as follows:
>
> ID: 1
> Mode: 2+0 Stripe
> Size: 1000215M
> Track/Mapping: 65535/255/63
> Status: Functional
>
> And after that appears the operating system loads normally.
>
> I have four physical hard disk drives in the system now:
>
> * One 80 gigabyte SATA hard drive with four NTFS partitions, each
> loaded with an operating system. I use this drive to boot into Win2K,
> Vista, or two different installations of WinXP. It's plugged into the
> SATA 1 socket and it
>
> * One 120 gigabyte ribbon cable EIDE hard drive plugged into the
> primary IDE socket. Used for data storage
>
> * Two 500 gigabyte SATA hard drives in RAID configuration plugged into
> SATA RAID 1&2.
>
> I let Fastbuild choose how to set up the two drives -- I just took its
> default advice.
>
> I used the disk that came with the motherboard for installing Windows
> drivers for the RAID drives. It turned out that installing the drivers
> was easiest in Win2K. But I think I don't have a problem with the
> Windows drivers -- the problem I'm seeing takes place before Windows
> starts to load.
>
> I wondered if I should have set the two RAID drives as master/slave or
> something, but they're SATA and supposedly don't need jumpers to be set.
>
> So is what I'm seeing at bootup normal? Should I just expect the system
> to display rows of dots occasionally as it scans for IDE drives -- about
> half the boots, actually? And if this isn't normal, how do I fix the
> problem? Help, please.
>
> --
> Bill Anderson
>
> I am the Mighty Favog

old man wrote:
> What you are seeing is the raid bios/utility detecting your array and
> checking its state.
> Once it passes the checks sys boots normally.
> Its default behaviour for an array.
> (Though you should check your mobo manual for any specific bios settings, eg
> raid on ide drives)
> Sata drives have no master/slave relationship
>

OK, you say it's normal. I have zero experience with RAID, so I'll take
your word for it. It just seems odd to me that sometimes the boot
process takes a half minute or more longer than at other times. The
unpredictability of the boot process makes me wonder whether I have
something set wrong.

I did check the manual for info on RAID on ide drives. Here's how I
have the IDE set. Remember, I boot off an SATA drive (non-RAID)
connected to the SATA1 socket. Nothing is plugged into SATA2.

Onboard IDE Operate Mode [Enhanced Mode]
Enhanced Mode Support On [S-ATA]
Configure S-ATA as RAID [No]

So I don't worry about configuring anything and just learn to be patient
occasionally when booting?

--
Bill Anderson

I am the Mighty Favog

I would have to download/read the mobo manual to comment on the specific
bios settings

"Bill Anderson" <> wrote in message
news:...
> old man wrote:
> > What you are seeing is the raid bios/utility detecting your array and
> > checking its state.
> > Once it passes the checks sys boots normally.
> > Its default behaviour for an array.
> > (Though you should check your mobo manual for any specific bios
settings, eg
> > raid on ide drives)
> > Sata drives have no master/slave relationship
> >
>
> OK, you say it's normal. I have zero experience with RAID, so I'll take
> your word for it. It just seems odd to me that sometimes the boot
> process takes a half minute or more longer than at other times. The
> unpredictability of the boot process makes me wonder whether I have
> something set wrong.
>
> I did check the manual for info on RAID on ide drives. Here's how I
> have the IDE set. Remember, I boot off an SATA drive (non-RAID)
> connected to the SATA1 socket. Nothing is plugged into SATA2.
>
> Onboard IDE Operate Mode [Enhanced Mode]
> Enhanced Mode Support On [S-ATA]
> Configure S-ATA as RAID [No]
>
> So I don't worry about configuring anything and just learn to be patient
> occasionally when booting?
>
> --
> Bill Anderson
>
> I am the Mighty Favog

"Bill Anderson" <> wrote in message news:...
> old man wrote:
>> What you are seeing is the raid bios/utility detecting your array and
>> checking its state.
>> Once it passes the checks sys boots normally.
>> Its default behaviour for an array.
>> (Though you should check your mobo manual for any specific bios settings, eg
>> raid on ide drives)
>> Sata drives have no master/slave relationship
>>
>
> OK, you say it's normal. I have zero experience with RAID, so I'll take
> your word for it. It just seems odd to me that sometimes the boot
> process takes a half minute or more longer than at other times. The
> unpredictability of the boot process makes me wonder whether I have
> something set wrong.
>
> I did check the manual for info on RAID on ide drives. Here's how I
> have the IDE set. Remember, I boot off an SATA drive (non-RAID)
> connected to the SATA1 socket. Nothing is plugged into SATA2.
>
> Onboard IDE Operate Mode [Enhanced Mode]
> Enhanced Mode Support On [S-ATA]
> Configure S-ATA as RAID [No]
>
> So I don't worry about configuring anything and just learn to be patient
> occasionally when booting?
>
> --
> Bill Anderson
>
> I am the Mighty Favog

Why don't you have "Configure S-ATA as RAID [Yes]".

no_one wrote:
>
> "Bill Anderson" <
> <private.php?do=newpm&u=>> wrote in message
> news:...
> > old man wrote:
> >> What you are seeing is the raid bios/utility detecting your array and
> >> checking its state.
> >> Once it passes the checks sys boots normally.
> >> Its default behaviour for an array.
> >> (Though you should check your mobo manual for any specific bios
> settings, eg
> >> raid on ide drives)
> >> Sata drives have no master/slave relationship
> >>
> >
> > OK, you say it's normal. I have zero experience with RAID, so I'll take
> > your word for it. It just seems odd to me that sometimes the boot
> > process takes a half minute or more longer than at other times. The
> > unpredictability of the boot process makes me wonder whether I have
> > something set wrong.
> >
> > I did check the manual for info on RAID on ide drives. Here's how I
> > have the IDE set. Remember, I boot off an SATA drive (non-RAID)
> > connected to the SATA1 socket. Nothing is plugged into SATA2.
> >
> > Onboard IDE Operate Mode [Enhanced Mode]
> > Enhanced Mode Support On [S-ATA]
> > Configure S-ATA as RAID [No]
> >
> > So I don't worry about configuring anything and just learn to be patient
> > occasionally when booting?
> >
> > --
> > Bill Anderson
> >
> > I am the Mighty Favog
>
> Why don't you have "Configure S-ATA as RAID [Yes]".

I tried that once and BIOS completely lost track of my 80 gigabyte SATA
hard drive which is connected to SATA1 on the motherboard. It just
wasn't there. That made it hard to boot, as my boot partition is on
that drive.

On this motherboard (and remember I'm the newbie here, so I likely don't
know what I'm talking about) it appears that two drives connected to the
motherboard's SATA_RAID sockets can be configured as RAID using Fastrak.
The manual also indicates that if desired, the other two SATA sockets
can be used for RAID too -- utilizing the Intel RAID for Serial ATA
feature. I have chosen not to use those sockets for RAID. In fact, I
have only one drive connected to one of them -- the 80 gigabyte boot
drive. That's why I have set BIOS for Onboard IDE Operate Mode
[Enhanced Mode] and Enhanced Mode Support On [SATA], but I don't
configure that drive as RAID. Don't need to. Works fine as non-RAID.

Or is this the source of my problem?

--
Bill Anderson

I am the Mighty Favog

Fastrack is for the Promise controller, it will not work for the SATA
RAID 1_2 connectors. Only Intel ICH5R drivers will work on these
sockets (as a RAID array that is), this is part of the ICH5R hub
controller.
For its day it was an extremely fast setup if loaded with WD
raptor drives. Asus just missed out with this one as the ICH6
controller came with RAID 1+0 capability.
P4C800E, very nice board. In my opinion the best of the 478
platforms.
If you have not resolved this issue then post again and I will
check the setup on my old machine.

wrote:
> Fastrack is for the Promise controller, it will not work for the SATA
> RAID 1_2 connectors. Only Intel ICH5R drivers will work on these
> sockets (as a RAID array that is), this is part of the ICH5R hub
> controller.
> For its day it was an extremely fast setup if loaded with WD
> raptor drives. Asus just missed out with this one as the ICH6
> controller came with RAID 1+0 capability.
> P4C800E, very nice board. In my opinion the best of the 478
> platforms.
> If you have not resolved this issue then post again and I will
> check the setup on my old machine.
>

Well how great that you responded to my old message on a day when I want
to re-visit it! I've been running a RAID array for several weeks now,
but recently I noticed that WinXP says in Disk Management that my drive
is Healthy (At Risk). Is that normal? What does "at risk" mean? Thanks.

--
Bill Anderson