915P-Combo drive setup question

Great forum – I’m glad that I found it (just wish I found it before putting my system together). I just constructed my first pc based on a 915P-Combo motherboard and everything has gone well. I only made one mistake – I ordered two SATA 160G drives thinking I could do a SATA RAID 0. Oops...
There are two reasons why I thought that I could – one is on the motherboard box it says “SATA and IDE RAID compatible”. Ok, that can be read two ways – I know. Well, then I actually downloaded the user manual and it describes how to set up a SATA RAID array (in Chapter 5). So I was a little surprised that it can’t do SATA RAID. So now I’ve got my two SATA drives set as two separate drives. No big deal, and for the price the motherboard is a great value anyway.
So my question is that I need to build a second machine that will basically be a clone of the first and I wanted opinions about the hard drive options. Since I will be playing games and doing some home theatre stuff (watching and recording movies) I would like at least 300G with good read/write specs. I also want the simplicity of a single drive so it looks like my options are:
1) A single large SATA drive (300G or so)
2) Two IDE (150G or so) drives in a RAID 0 array
And I just wanted to know what the opinions of the forum are. Will the performance of the IDE RAID 0 be that much better than the 150Mbps (that I understand SATA can do) to justify it?
Also to do the IDE RAID 0 my understanding is that I would hook one drive to IDE2 and one to IDE3 (with them both set to master) – is that correct? I would have my DVD-R/W on IDE1 as it is now.
I appreciate any opinions you have on this. Thanks for your help.

I recommend 2 x 160GB IDE HDDs, RAID 0 + 1 x 250GB/300GB SATA HDD + Dual Channel 512MB DDR 533MHz RAMs + Enermax 475watts / Antec 480watts PSU + P540 - 3.4GHz CPU.
The 150MBps on SATA is just the theory only, the actual transfer rates is still dependent on the system overall performance so don't rely on it too much as you'll never get to even hit 100MBps on any system in the real world enviroment. This applies to IDE as well.
IDE Setup Guide

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Mac Pro Hard Drive Setup Question

Mr. FedEx brought me my Mac Pro today and I'm getting ready to set it up. I'm migrating from a PowerBook G4 17 inch and got the Mac Pro 3.0 GHz, 8 GB RAM, and four 500 GB hard drives. I figure I should do a freash install of Aperture instead of using the Migration Wizard. The question for the night is, how should I handle the four hard drives? Out of the box I see four seperate hard drives labled Macintosh HD. For Aperture, should I use software raid across all four drives or only three leaving the OS drive by itselft for applications?
Mac Pro Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Sure you can... I got a Raid 0 on two 300Gb drives on my boot drive... They host the OS and my apps.
The trick is that its got to be a fresh install. You boot with your hardware giag disk and in the menu you have the disk utility. Create the RAID setup and then quit. You can now boot the disk with the OS install and it will recognize it as such.
Now - a few things to consider. Next version of OS X has Time Machine that that expects a volume (a disk, the whole disk) for it to work. So it would be cool if you find out about it and sort of prepare for it.
Having said that I would Raid0 two pairs and Raid1 the two. This is called Raid 1+0 or Raid 10. Its a good compromise but if drive 1 AND 3 fail then there is no backup. I would also get an external firewire disk (say 300Gb or 500Gb) and use it as a vault. But that is because I can't think of running the machine with a full backup of what I got, still not a perfect solution.
The way I got it is using Raid 0 on my OS and Apps (600Gb) with an external Firewire disk for backup. (no Raid 0 - so there is no statistical odds to beat)
Apeture has two drives. Two Firewire 800 (1Tb) drives, one the library and the other is the vault. The vault also stores the deleted images, so you will have to clean every now and then or it will grow faster than your library.
http://www.terraoptica.com

Hard drive setup question....

Hi-
I'm looking for a little advice.... I will soon be the proud owner of a new Mac Pro, and I’m trying to figure out the best way to setup all of the extraneous hard drives I have accumulated over the last year or so….
I have a 160GB drive pulled from my broken iMac G5 (can I even put that inside the Mac Pro?)
A 250GB drive coming installed in the new Mac Pro
A 350GB drive given to me by a friend (pulled from his Mac Pro)
A 750GB drive also coming installed in the new Mac Pro
And a 500GB external drive.
My thought was to setup a striped RAID set (RAID 0) with the 250GB and 350GB drives, knowing I would loose 100GB, but end up with a fast 500GB drive… I would use this drive for my home folders, apps, etc… My basic work drive.
I would use the 750GB drive for my music, video files and photos.
I would use the 500GB external drive as a Time Machine Backup
And the 160GB drive as a clean system, to boot up into if needed…..
Is this the best setup? Am I missing something? Should I be doing something else with the drives? Is there any way NOT to loose that 100GB on the raid drives?
Any advice would be appreciated!

$83 buys a fast 110MB/sec WD Caviar 640GB.
http://www.barefeats.com/harper14.html
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western%20Digital/WD6400AAKS/
I would not even think of putting two unlike drives, and they won't be any better than the above.
$79 buys a SATA drive case with FW800/400 interface for your emergency drives. Great for the small emergency boot drive.
Save and skip on buying 750GB from Apple.
But do what you must - after buying Mac Pro, you may not have the funds, and you do want to have more than stock 2GB RAM.
Apple OEM drives, other than the 750GB are consumer grade 8MB/sec and I would not use it for boot drive, keep it as backup in that external case.

915P Combo Windows XP setup problem

hello all,
hoping someone can help me with this. I'm trying to install xp at the moment on a 200gb maxtor hard drive connected to my MSI 915p combo FR by IDE. i know to hit f6 during setup and then press S to select the raid driver from the floppy but my computer didn't ship with the floppy disk, only a cd with drivers on. does anyone know where i can find the drivers i need (are they on the cd?) that i should have on a floppy or if there is another way around this? I keep getting a blue screen and the xp setup cannot continue past this point.
this short thread from another forum explains the problem i have in more detail.
http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=449498
any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated
thanks

Hi,
can you please try to explain what you are trying to do there in more detail?
Quote
I'm trying to install xp
... does the Install-CD include at least Service Pack II? If not, please use an SP2 or SP3-Install CD. If you don't have one, use NLite or XP ISO BUILDER to make one. The integration is free, legal and easy to do.
Quote
a 200gb maxtor hard drive connected to my MSI 915p combo FR by IDE
Okay. So we are looking at an IDE/PATA Drive, right? Not an S-ATA Drive, correct?
Quote
i know to hit f6 during setup and then press S to select the raid driver from the floppy but my computer didn't ship with the floppy disk, only a cd with drivers on.
Actually, you don't need to do that. You are definately not using RAID anyway if you have just one Hard Drive. Make sure the hard drive is connected to the IDE Port hosted by the Intel ICH6 Chipset (the IDE Port that stands alone).

915P Combo not seeing optical drives in WinME- HELP!

I just purchased a new computer from Cyberpower with an MSI 915P Combo motherboard and no OS installed (though I'm on my old computer now, an 866MHz P3 running WinXP on an IDE HD). I have a SATA HD installed in the new machine and a DVD-ROM and DVD-RW drive. I installled WinME only because the WinXP install disk that I have will not run from the DOS prompt I get when booting with a Win98 startup floppy. It must be run from within Windows. Upon finishing up my installation of WinME, I received the following message:
Quote
"Your multi-function device (Standard Dual PCI Controller) has some child devices using 32-bit drivers and others using compatibility-mode drivers. This configuration is not supported, so your computer has been halted to prevent corruption.
After you restart your computer, Windows will use compatibility-mode drivers for each child device attached to this multi-function device. If you want to use 32-bit drivers, you may be able to obtain an updated driver for the device that caused the problem by contacting your hardware manufactured, or you can disable the device.
Press any key to continue"
…and WinME doesn't recognize the DVD-ROM or RW drives (the IDE controllers are not functioning when I go to the device manager- the yellow ! appears). So my goal is to install WinXP. Booting from a startup floppy, I AM able to access the DVD-ROM and RW drives, but as I said, I cannot run my XP install CD from a DOS prompt. Is there a solution for me short of buying a full-install version of XP that will install from a DOS prompt?
Please, if someone can give a full explanation (I’m pretty good with computers, but I wouldn’t call myself a computer “expert”… though I DO know how to go into the BIOS to make changes, even if I don’t know everything I’m doing there), it would be very much appreciated. Thank you.

Thanks to those who wrote and helped me. I think I'm good for now :-)

Combo drive question

Hi guys just one question again regarding getting Snow Leopard onto my iMac. My model is the early 06 one with the combo drive and it doesn't seem to read DVD-DL's. Is there anyway I can use an external HD to boot into it?
The only reason I bought this Mac was to get the newest OS onto it and act as a backup drive. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Hello iMuffinMan
That iMac will upgrade to Snow Leopard no problem, if you have a retail Snow Leopard upgrade disk.
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573Z/A?mco=MTY3ODQ5OTY
Dennis

Combo drive question, I really need your help!!

Hi,
I plan to buy a 9.5mm combo drive for my macbook pro (my superdrive died and I just need a new cheap optical drive) but I have one question: will I be able to use that combo drive to install Leopard (a dual layer dvd) on my macbook? Will the combo drive read dual layer dvd's? Thanks

My son's optical drive died on his macbook. I looked into replacements, and noted that a burner was only $50 more than a combo drive. However, including installation, this was going to get expensive. I bought a portable external drive from LaCie for $110, saving $200+. The portable drive is very small and powered from the firewire port.
If this is feasible for you, it may be a superior and cost-effective option.

Cd-rom dvd combo drive question

Hi folks, I'm currently experiencing probl with my cd-rom dvd combo drive cheepo "rosewill". When I'm playing dvd movie the sound is clicking and it's really anoying.To make sure it is dvd combo drive , copied dvd (vob) file to comp, and then played; Sound was perfect.is this something wrong with my dvd drive or I just missed something ??

definately the drive, tried 2 brand new dvd's no luck. Gonna rma, thanks anyway
Rob

Combo drive not working correctly AppleCare Question

If I decide to take the system to my Genius Bar will Labor part of replacing the current drive with a superdrive be covered by my AppleCare Plan? Also is there anyway for me to know the price of a superdrive at the Stamford CT Apple Store?

if your combo drive has suffered a manufacturers defect then your combo drive would be covered if you are within your applecare coverage period. There are no upgrades.

915P Combo for SATA RAID

Okay, I just recently purchased a 915 P combo. I'm trying to setup a SATA raid and I don't have the option. The bios version is 1.2 and it's southbridge is a intel ICH6R. When I go into ATA/IDE configuration [Enhanced] I only see IDE and AHCI but no RAID. I have two 200gig WD hard drives. I don't know if this means anything either but the post screen says found primary master IDE drive and then says found secondary master ide drive. I'm not sure if it should say SATA or something else then IDE. Any help would be greatly appricated.

I purchased the 915P Combo from NewEgg.com which says:
"SATA/RAID: 4x SATA, 2x ATA(VT6410) 133 with RAID 0/1/0+1"
which led me to believe that it could do SATA RAID. My 915P box even says "SATA RAID - supports SATA and IDE interface RAID 0, 1 or 1.5". On the front of the box, like someone else mentioned, there is a big sticker that says "Intel ICH6/6R Test OK" which I can understand would not necessarily guarantee it had the 6R.
Looking closer at the sticker on the side of the mobo box it does say "P4-800, 915P, ICH6, ...." and not "ICH6R", but until reading this thread, I didn't even know what ICH6/ICH6R was, and wouldn't have helped me before purchase.
I think this is misleading and I'm pissed off- I purposely purchased two SATA 160gig drives when buying the parts for my new computer, soley to do RAID striping, and now I can't. I will be asking NewEgg for a refund and will likely not be buying another MSI product.
IF I were to purchase another MSI board, what SHOULD I get to have the SATA RAID features? (and will accept my P4-3GHz 800M LGA775 530, and DDR2)

I have a G3 700 MHZ dual usb combo drive TRYING to install 10.4 TROUBLES!

hello
this is my first apple mac and i bought a ibook g3 powerbook which is:
700mhz processor 512k level 2
128mb SDRAM + 256mb stick
20GB ultra ATA hard drive
combo drive
400mpbs firewire port
video VGA
originally i tried to do a COMPLETE new install of 10.4 which the CD install completely wipped the laptop for before new install. the 10.4 disks installed and showed as installed on the hard drive as it took up about 3GB of space... i then went to restart computer like it requests but i got an UNHAPPY face and a QUESTION mark! i tried booting up from OS X cd selecting the hard drive but kept getting the same results...
can anyone help or say why it wont load???
i then reinstalled the original 10.1 disks i got with the laptop and i then tried to...
...update it to 10.2.4 from 10.1 and it worked absolutely great :O)
(i thought i'd try going though all the upgrades to get to 10.4...
i then got a 10.3.4 disk this is when problems happened again, i loaded disk first time i did an upgrade install and i did custom install (i didnt want printer drivers and languauges on so disabled them) about 10 mins later came up with error while installing so i quit install, restarted G3 and reset cd off again to upgrade....
the second time i forgot to deselect printer drivers and while installing them 'narna' froze. so i had to put power plug out to get it to restart up.
i switched back on and got a grey language screen telling me to press power button to restart. thats all i got...
i've tried option button with disk so i can select the drive from which to start it up and my drive is there with 10.3 on it with a red cross on the box. if i selected that drive to boot G3 up from it restarts computer and then while it loads i got the grey apple screen and then it freezes again but this time i got lots of grey/white lines across the screen...
so i THEN AGAIN wiped it and i am now back to 10.2 version and wanting to try upgrading to 10.3 if anyone knows reason it wouldnt work
OR
if someone can help me get 10.4 on it. i know the RAM may seem low but it is enough to install as the cds/books say it is...

hi ronda,
i've 1GB RAM in the mini. but that's not the problem.
even on my G5 1,6GHz powermac with 3GB RAM you can't play any of those heavy flashgames like farmville, frontierville or treasure isle. takes forever until they've been loaded by the browser and when you try to move your avatar and do some game action it will at best move in slow motion or you will get the spinning beachball until finally browser or flash plugin crashes.
so that's for a G4 mini and a G5 powermac. the OP asked if farmville could be run on a G3 700MHz ibook. it's a no go. sorry.

Tiger no longer recognizes my Combo Drive

While watching a DVD, my laptop had a bad crash. I was able to restart the computer, but since then, the OS no longer recognizes my Combo Drive.
When I start the DVD Player app, it gives me the message "There was an initialization error. A valid DVD drive could not be found. [-70002]"
And in System Profiler, the DVD player no longer shows up.
Two questions:
1- how can I restore the OS's recognition of the DVD drive?
2- how can I get the DVD drive to eject the DVD that is stuck inside my laptop?
Thanks in advance.

To eject the disc, hold the Mouse button down, (left one if you have more than one), while it's booting up.
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
At step 4 or 5, does your optical show? Or did it even boot from it?

External Hard Drive Setup

Hello! I am an amateur filmmaker aged 17, and for the past couple years I have been using my school's excellent computers (iMac 2010 27"), software (FCP 7), and external hard drive setup (500GB LaCie Rugged Firewire 800).
I'm gonna be a senior this year and am looking to create my own setup. I got myself a 15" MacBook Pro Retina with 16gb memory, 2.3GHz quad core processor, 500GB internal solid state storage, and am using Premiere Pro as my software. The only real thing I'm missing (besides audio setup, which isn't as important to me right now) is external drive for faster editing. I want a lot of storage but at the same time high speeds all for the lowest price. I also want to use my external drive for other stuff like family photos and music.
MY idea was to get a 500GB 7200rpm hard drive (not sure which one) to store all the footage I want on hand and then get a 4TB desktop hard drive (cheaper) for all the rest of my stuff and to store footage I no longer need quick access to.
My questions are:
What hard drives should I get?
Is this a good solution?
Is 4TB overboard?
Should I be spending this much as a 17 year-old?
Should I just stick with internal storage for now and not pay for external drive?
btw, one of the 500gb drives I was looking at was by Touro. Trustworthy?
Amazon.com: HGST Touro Mobile Pro 500GB USB 3.0 7200 RPM Portable External Hard Drive (0S03105) [Amazon Frustration-Free…

"Yeah it was in the wrong area but hey who's keeping score. "
Actually, I am - LOL!

BIOS Problem with 915P Combo

Hi there...
I have one MB 915P Combo and i have problems in BIOS configuration.
I go to: Advanced BIOS Features / BOOT SEQUENCE
And have one option Boot from other Device, it have No.
I change to Yes, and reboot and now it is possible to use pen disks.
The problem:
If i install a program and at the end of installation (for example update IDE/Raid utility) it is necessary to reboot windows , i restart the windows and when go to windows, now is not possible to use pen disks...
To solve the problem temporaly:
It is necessary to go to the BIOS configuration and Change the Boot from other device to "No" and reboot... and Change again to "Yes" to work with Pen disk.
And sometimes appears a blue window in Windows with a Device Driver error.
How to solve the problem ?
I have the latest BIOS 1.6
Thanks.

What if you just normally reboot windows without any new installation? Does it happen the same way?

Spectrum digital DSK5416 driver setup gives an error when test wizard is run.

Please help us with the following problem we are facing:
1.   Spectrum digital DSK5416 driver setup gives an
error when test wizard is run. A snap shot of the same has been
attached.
2.   The A/D module doesn’t pickup microphone signal or
an audio sample for loopback but the implementation of the same works
fine in CCS environment. (We are using Mic In and Speaker Out lines)
3.   When a real-time application has run successfully
and if you close the VAB environment the application starts running
automatically until you reset the board.
4.   We don’t find the flash program button enabled, so
that any real-time program can be burned into flash and demonstrate the
embedded feature.
Note:
We are using Windows Xp professional edition.
Program is developed using DSK5416

Hello, I have included some information that will help address your questions: (1) I couldn't see the attached image file (contained errors). The RIDE/VAB DSK5416 Driver makes use of a JTAG communication when reading/writing memory on the DSK5416 hardware. You will need to make sure that the JTAG transfer option has been selected in the Driver Setup dialog box. The memory test process may seem to take a long time due to the amount of memory being accessed. (2) The VAB RTDSKAD block component provides a one-channel A/D input that makes use of the line-in channel on the DSK5416 hardware. (3) VAB does not remove the downloaded DSP executable program from DSK5416 memory, and it does remain resident. That being said, I wouldn't expect that the program would begin execution when VAB is closed. I would recommend that you verify that the DSP program stopped properly upon selecting the VAB Stop command. Then, close VAB as normal. (4) The RIDE/VAB driver for the DSK5416 does not support programming of flash memory on the DSK5416 hardware. Regards, Steve

915P-Combo drive setup question

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