Adding new RAID arrays on TD200
Hi,
We have a TD200 server with MR10i ServeRAID card installed and a single RAID 1 array of 2x 500Gb 3.5" drives. We need to upgrade and are trying to decide the best path.
We have two free 3.5" slots so could we create a new RAID1 array on the same backplane without needing to change the internal cabling or disturb the existing array?
Alternatively all eight 2.5" drive slots are free. We could create a RAID 5 array on there, is that backplane likely to have been connected up to the MR10i? Is the MR10i card happy enough connecting to two different backplanes? Our server would require to be physically moved and switched off to get good access to the side panel, so I'm trying to get an idea before taking that step!
Our usual supplier only seems to stock IBM hotswap drives, I read somewhere else on the forums that to fit in with our existing server warranty we'd need to get Lenovo drives, is this true? Finally, if we required cabling for connecting to the 2.5" drive backplane do you have suggestions for UK based suppliers, plus what the cable codes/details are?
Lots of questions! If you can help on any of them that would be great thanks.
Kind regards,
Stephen.
Solved!
Go to Solution.
This all depends on how many ports on the RAID card. If there is more than one, you should be able to create more than one array.
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K8N DIAMOND: New Raid array and old HD... I'm going crazy!!! Please
Hi guys
First, sorry for my poor english...
My problem is:
I bought two Raptor 36 Gb for my new raid array.
I have my old HD Hitachi 250 Gb connected on sata 1.
I connected my two raptor, on sata 3 and 4, I enabled all sata port and raid config for ports 3 and 4.
I restart PC, typed F10 and set a stripe array with two raptor. All run ok...
Restarted and boot with my copy of WinXP with SP2 and NF4 raid drivers.
Installation found my array and my Hitachi;
Hitachi with 4 partitions; C (os), D (driver), E (films), F (music)
I create one partitions on my raid array, and it takes I: letter... So I formatted and start to copy os...
Errors occurs when, restarting pc and resetting the boot to Hard disk (the order of booting is 1 - nvidia array, 2 - hitachi 250 gb), just before loading installation, It shows a black screen with an error: "there is an error in your hard disk bla bla bla.. try to control your connection or connect to windows help....bla bla..."
The Raid array works properly, infact I try to disconnect my Hitachi from sata port 1 and all installation works (I'm writing from Win xp on the raid array).
I tried to connect the hitachi on port 1 of silicon image controller.... same error..!!
I'm desperate... I have all my life on my hitachi...
I think that there's a sort of conflict in drive letter assignement... I cant find a solution ..
PLEASE HELP ME!!!Glad it worked, I had a feeling it would.
Quote
One question for you.. on G: partition, there's a directory called "Windows", do you suggest me to format this partition??
You can format it if you want to free up space, but unless you moved things around the My documents folder and everything in it is on that partition, along with anything you might of had on the old desktop during that Windows install. You might have something you want there, I usually leave mine for a few month, and figure out if I have everything I need.
Quote
What I have to do, if I need to reinstall WIn XP on first partition of raptor array??
Things should be fine now as Windows marked the Hitachi drive as G. You should be able to reinstall without issue. But if you have a lot of sensitive info on the Hitachi, I would always disconnect the Hitachi if doing a fresh install. Once windows is done installing, hook it back up. But next time you shouldn't have to reconfigure NVRAID after disconnecting and reconnecting.
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Expanding Hard Drive Space and Create new RAID arrays
I currently have a 120GB HD that came with computer. I recently installed a new 250GB hard drive to expand my hard drive space. The questions is, can I mirror my current (120GB) hard drive onto the new 250GB drive, install a second 250GB drive, and then create a software RAID with the new drive set, thus creating a 500GB software raid with my the data contained on my old (120GB) hard drive?
Hi subterranean;
Welcome to the Apple Discussion Forums.
If you mirror a 120 GB drive and a 250 GB drive, the result will be equal to the smaller hence you would end up with a 120 GB mirror RAID array.
That doesn't sound to practical to me. Exactly what do you hope to gain here. It might help you to talk about end results rather then solutions. That way we can come up with solutions that will give you the results you are after.
Allan -
Adding new raid with different capacity drives on opposite side
hi,
I have an Xserve raid G4 with two sides of 7 bays. Currently one side is filled up with 7 250 gb Apple drives making a 1.37TB raid 5 and the other side is all empty. I just purchased 7 Apple 500gb drives and was wondering if I can combine the 2 sides into one raid 5 or because of the different capacity drives, must I have 2 raid 5s? I am thinking the latter.
(I have done a search for an answer to this question and couldn't find a similar question. So, let me apologize if this is redundant info here.)
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It is, however, perfectly valid to have an array of 250GB drives on the left, with a separate array of 500GB drives on the right.
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Completely messed up Raid-Array and Partition! How to delete and create new Raid-Array?
Hello,
I am using Ideapad U310 and tried to clean install Windows 8 and use my SSD as CACHE and Hibernate-Partition.
So, I was able to get to the Intel CTRL+I-RAID Config Menu and there I was able to create and delete my RAIDS.
Unfortunately I did not setup the Partition Size correctly, thus I only have a 50 GB Partition combined with my SSD and my HDD. This is what it looks like in the Intel Storage Manager:
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And now I am NOT able to get to the Intel RAID CTRL+I-menu before Windows starts, where I could delete this array.
My Partitions are "empty", so I dont care if anything is delete. I just want to use raid with FULL CAPACITY of my harddrives. But how can I delete the RAID Arrays and reconfigure them correctly?
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Hopefully someone could help me.
Thank you in advance.Hi
Please see this thread
http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/IdeaPad-Y-U-V-Z-and-P-series/The-Guide-on-How-To-Reformat-Repartition-AN...
Hope this helps
Ishaan Ideapad Y560(i3 330m), Hp Elitebook 8460p!(i5-2520M) Hp Pavilion n208tx(i5-4200u)
If you think a post helped you, then you can give Kudos to the post by pressing the Star on the left of the post. If you think a post solved your problem, then mark it as a solution so that others having the same problem can refer to it. -
How do I migrate the data on a RAID on my old Mac Pro to a new RAID array on my new Mac Pro?
We have an older Mac Pro (no Thunderbolt) with four drives (2 of which are configured RAID 0). The new machine has a LaCie RAID on it with 2 drives RAID 1 and 2 drives RAID 0. What's the best way to migrate the data from the old system to the new system? Do I use Migration asst to get the data and settings from the old main to the new main and then xfer the data from the ancillary drives over?
Read my post in this discussion.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3445538?start=0&tstart=0 -
Kernel Panic when using a new RAID 5 array
I recently set up a new Sans Digital 5 disk 7.2TB hardware RAID 5 array that's connected to a Sonnet Tempo-X eSATA 4+4 PCI-X card which has been updated to the latest drivers. The same card supports a number of JBOD enclosures that run as mirrored RAIDs under SoftRAID 4.0. My system is a 2.7Ghz DP Tower.
Upon trying to copy to the new RAID 5 volume I encountered a kernel panic and system freeze complete with wailing fans. After a few system restarts and a call to Sans Digital I tried to connect the RAID via USB upon the recommendation of tech support. Rather than causing a crash while copying I received an error message in the copy progress window that said that some files were locked and the process could not be completed and the RAID was no longer mounted in the finder.
I called Sans Digital back and they said it was probably a defective enclosure. I have just received a new one and have put that into service. All seemed fine until, when I was 30GB into a 900GB copy, the system froze. I have also tried to copy fewer files (400GB) and still get a Panic. When the RAID is idle there does not seem to be a problem. The last time the problem occurred the copy progress bar hung but the system did not fully lock up. The LEDs on the front panel of the RAID enclosure were flickering rapidly but no data was copying from my other drive. I turned off the RAID and was able to use my mouse again and restart my machine with a normal restart.
My system is running OS 10.5.8. When the RAID is off my computer runs fine.
Not sure what to try next. Any help would be appreciated - Thank you.Hi-
I'd be interested to know if Sonnet has any comments regarding the issue.
In Utilities/Console/Logs, there should be some indication of what is occurring when the crashes occur. -
New Builder needs some info K9A Plat. RAID Array help
This is a new build AMD 64x2 6000+, K9A platinum, Lite On DVD Re Writeable SATA, 2x74Gig WD Raptors in Raid 0, Asus X1950 pro Thermaltake 700 W PSU Crossfire cert.
BIOS registered my drives, Built array PC Rebooted, Installing Win XP pro Hit F6 install drivers, Format drives, Then before Install It says that :setup cannot copy the file ahcix86.inf.
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*** Stop: 0x0000007BC ( 0xF78A2524, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)
Has anyone got this error string?
First RAID array I would very much appreciate any help given.Hi!
Looking at some info on Google and Microsoft site, I cannot find the BC error code, only the error code ending with B. It indicates an error with the boot device. It can be caused by several things.
Check that you are using the correct device drivers to install Windows
Also, check the installation CD. It could be that the disk was damaged and that you are missing a crucial file because of that
You can also try installing Windows again and choose to recover the previous installation.
If this all does not help, try installing Windows on a single HDD (no raid) to see if that will work. -
Moving RAID Array from old to new workstation
I've completed building a new rig. Win10 is working. I have a RAID 0 array of 2-750GB drives in the old rig. I've installed 2-1TB drives in the new rig. Drive manager shows both old and new HD's but not as a single RAID array (RAID-OLD,
and RAID-NEW, as I have named them during the BiOS RAID naming. Could I have some guidance about this? I also have the contents backed up on a USB-3 external drive, but would like to continue with both of the RAID arrays and not go through transferring
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For hardware, we need the driver to drive it works in Windows system. When you move your RAID to new system, ensure you have installed appropriate driver.
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Alex Zhao
TechNet Community Support -
Why is my new 10TB Mirrored RAID array only showing 1.8TB total space?
I have 5ea. 2TB Western Digital hard drives in a FirmTek 5PM enclosure connected via eSATA to my Mac Pro (April 2007 model). Running Leopard 10.5.8.
I used Apple Disk Utility to set up a Mirrored Raid using MacOS Extended (Journaled) and have a check mark by "Automatically Rebuild Raid Mirror Sets." My Raid Block size is 128K.
So, by all accounts I should have more than the 1.8TB showing as available space on this array.
Here is how it looks in my Disk Utillity app (link to smug pic of Disk Uility window): http://richardbrackin.smugmug.com/Other/blogpics/RAID/754262625_iffPY-S.jpg
I found a site here: http://blog.scottmroberts.com/archives/15 that discusses removing a GPT header but that doesn't sound like a good idea.
How do I get more capacity? I have clearly done something wrong.Oh, you have mirrored one drive with 4 others creating a single 2 TB array consisting of one main member and four mirrors. I doubt this is your intended result. If you want a 10 TB RAID, then you want a "striped" not a "mirrored" RAID.
Now, you can make a striped RAID of one pair of drives, another striped RAID with another pair, then create a mirrored RAID of the two RAIDs. This would give you a 4 TB mirrored array. But the only way to use all five drives in a single array is a 5 drive striped RAID. To learn more about RAIDs see:
RAID Basics
For basic definitions and discussion of what a RAID is and the different types of RAIDs see RAIDs. Additional discussions plus advantages and disadvantages of RAIDs and different RAID arrays see:
RAID Tutorial;
RAID Array and Server: Hardware and Service Comparison>.
Hardware or Software RAID?
RAID Hardware Vs RAID Software - What is your best option?
RAID is a method of combining multiple disk drives into a single entity in order to improve the overall performance and reliability of your system. The different options for combining the disks are referred to as RAID levels. There are several different levels of RAID available depending on the needs of your system. One of the options available to you is whether you should use a Hardware RAID solution or a Software RAID solution.
RAID Hardware is always a disk controller to which you can cable up the disk drives. RAID Software is a set of kernel modules coupled together with management utilities that implement RAID in Software and require no additional hardware.
Pros and cons
Software RAID is more flexible than Hardware RAID. Software RAID is also considerably less expensive. On the other hand, a Software RAID system requires more CPU cycles and power to run well than a comparable Hardware RAID System. Also, because Software RAID operates on a partition by partition basis where a number of individual disk partitions are grouped together as opposed to Hardware RAID systems which generally group together entire disk drives, Software RAID tends be slightly more complicated to run. This is because it has more available configurations and options. An added benefit to the slightly more expensive Hardware RAID solution is that many Hardware RAID systems incorporate features that are specialized for optimizing the performance of your system.
For more detailed information on the differences between Software RAID and Hardware RAID you may want to read: Hardware RAID vs. Software RAID: Which Implementation is Best for my Application?
Actually as I squinted at your tiny image I'm sure you never actually created a RAID. You have one 2 TB drives that are not properly arrayed with any of the other four drives.
Message was edited by: Kappy -
Adding a RAID card to help speed up export (and other drive question) in Premiere Pro CC
First of all, I have read Tweakers Page exporting section because that is where my primary concern is. First my questions, then background and my current and proposed configurations:
Question 1: Will adding a hardware RAID controller, such as an LSI MegaRAID remove enough burden from the CPU managing parity on my software RAID 5 that the CPU will jump for joy and export faster?
Question 2: If true to above, then compare thoughts on adding more smaller SSDs for either a one volume RAID 0 or smaller two volume RAID 0 to complement existing HDD RAID 5. That is, I'm thinking of buying four Samsung 850 Pro 128 GB SSDs to put in a four disk volume to handle everything (media/projects, media cache, previews, exports), or split it up into two volumes of two disks each and split the duties, or keep the four disk volume idea and put the previews & exports on my HDD RAID 5 array.
The 850's are rated at SEQ read/write: 550/470 MB/s thus I could get around 2000/1500 MB/s read write in a four disk RAID 0 or 1/2 that if I split into two volumes to minimize volumes from reading/writing at the same time, if that really matters with these SSDs?
The Tweaker's page made a few comments. One is splitting duties among different disks, rather than a large efficient RAID may actually slow things down. Since the SSDs are much faster than a single HDD, I'm thinking that is no longer accurate, thus I'm leaning toward the Four disk configuration putting OS & Programs on C drive, Media & Projects on D (HDD RAID 5), Pagefile & Media Cache on SSD (2-disk RAID 0) and Previews &Exports on 2nd SSD RAID 0 (or combine the two RAID 0's and their duties).
Just trying to get a perspective here, since I haven't purchased anything yet. Any experience/stories, I would appreciate.
My current drive configuration:
My D drive is software RAID 5 consisting of four 1 TB Western Digital RE4 (RED) 7200 RPM HDDs with a CrystalDiskMark SEQ Read/Write of 339/252 MB/s.
The C drive is SSD 500 GB (Samsung 840 (not Pro) and does 531/330 MB/s. My OS, Program Files and Page File are on C, and data/media files/project, etc all are on the RAID drive.
Problem:
Current setup allows for smooth editing, only the exporting seems slow, often taking between two and two and a half times the video length to export. Thus a 10 minute video takes 20-30 minutes to export. 15 minute video can take 30-40 minutes to export. The first 10% of the two-pass export takes under a minute (seems fast), but it gets slower where the final 10 or 20% can hang for many minutes like my system is running out of steam. So where is the waste?
I have enabled hardware acceleration (did the GPU hack since my GPU isn't listed) and it may spike at 25% usage a few times and eat up 600 MB of VRAM (I have 2 GB of VRAM), otherwise it is idle the whole export. The CPU may spike at 50% but it doesn't seem overly busy either.
Our timeline is simple with two video streams and two audio streams (a little music and mostly voice) with simple transitions (jump cuts or cross dissolves). We sometimes fast color correct, so that might use the GPU? Also, since we film in 1080 60P and export 1080 29.97 frames/sec, I think that is scaling and uses the GPU. I know without the GPU, it does take a lot longer. I have ruled out buying a faster GPU since it doesn't appear to be breaking a sweat. I just need to know if my system is bottlenecked at the hard drive level because I'm using software RAID and my disks are slow and will hardware RAID significantly reduce the CPU load so it can export faster.
Our files are not huge in nature. Most our clips are several MBs each. Total project files are between 5 GBs and 10 GBs for each video with Windows Media File export being 500 MB to 1.2 GB on average. We shoot using Panasonic camcorders so the original files are AVCHD, I believe (.MTS files?).
Considerations:
1. I'm thinking of buying (and future proofing) an LSI Logic MegaRAID 9361-8i that is 12Gb/s SAS and SATA (because some current SSDs can exceed the 6Gb/s standard).
2. I'm not replacing my current RAID 5 HDDs because not in my budget to upgrade to 6 or more large SSDs. These drives are more important to me for temporary storage because I remove the files once backed up. I don't mind a few inexpensive smaller SSDs if they can make a significant difference for editing and exporting.
I can only guess my HDD RAID is slow but the CPU is burdened with parity. I would imagine running RAID 10 would not help much.
My setup:
my setup:
CPU - i7-3930K CPU @4.5 GHz
RAM - G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3 2133 @2000
Motherboard - ASUS P9X79 WS LGA 2011
GPU - Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 OC 2GB (performed the compatibility list hack to enable hardware acceleration).
C drive - 500 GB Samsung 840 SSD (Windows 7 Pro 64 bit and programs).
D drive - four 1 TB WD RE4 Enterprise HDDs 7200 RPMs in software RAID 5
Case - Cooler Master HAF X
CPU Fan - Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO with 120 mm fan
Power Supply - Corsair Pro Series AX 850 Watt 80 Plus Gold
Optical Drive - Pioneer BDR - 208DBK
thanks in advance,
Eric........software RAID 5 off the motherboard ??????......NOT a good idea, from what I have read here on this forum from experts like Harm Millard and others. They have mentioned a LARGE overhead on the CPU doing this....causing sub-par performance. RAID 0 off the motherboard will NOT do this, however.....RAID 0 would provide optimum speed, but, with the risk of total data loss if ANY drive fails. You may wish to reconfigure your RAID to be RAID 0...BUT...you would need to DILIGENTLY back up its entire volume onto perhaps a quality 4TB drive very frequently.
A lot depends on the nature of your current and FUTURE codecs you plan to edit. You may not want to sink a lot of money into an older setup that may have trouble with more demanding future codecs. For now, in the 1080p realm, your rig should be OK....the read/write performance on your CURRENT RAID 5 setup is not great, and a definite drag on the performance. The rest of your components appear to be fine.....the Samsung SSD, though not ideal, is OK.....it's write speed is WAY lower than the Pro model,but, the drive is used mainly for reading operations. Since you have Windows 7 Pro, and NOT Windows 8.......you CAN put the entire windows page file onto the RAID 0 you might create.....this will take that frequent read/write load OFF the SSD. Read the "tweakers Page" to see how to best TUNE your machine. To use your current setup most efficiently, without investing much money, you would :a. create the RAID 0 off the motherboard, ( putting all media and project files on it ) b. install a quality 7200rpm 4TB HDD to serve as a BACKUP of the RAID array. Then, install a Crucial M550 256GB or larger SSD, ( close in performance to Samsung 850 Pro...much cheaper), to put all previews, cache , and media cache files on....AND to use as " global performance cache" for After Effects...if you use that program. Exporting can be done to ANOTHER Crucial M550 for best speed...or, just to the either the FIRST Crucial or, the 4TB drive. Your current GPU will accelerate exports on any video containing scaling and any GPU accelerated effects. Your CPU is STILL important in SERVING the data to and from the GPU AND for decoding and encoding non-GPU handled video....your high CPU clock speed helps performance there ! You may want to check out possibly overclocking your video card, using MSI Afterburner.or, similar free program. Increasing the "memory clock speed" can RAISE performance and cut export times on GPU effects loaded timelines,or, scaling operations. On my laptop, I export 25% faster doing this. With my NEW i7 4700 HQ laptop, I export in the range of your CURRENT machine....about 2 to 3 times the length of the original video. PROPERLY SET UP...your desktop machine should BLOW THIS AWAY !!
Visit the PPBM7 website and test your current setup to possibly identify current bottlenecks,or, performance issues. THEN, RE-TEST it again, after making improvements to your machine to see how it does. Be aware that new codecs are coming (H.265 and HEVC,etc.) which may demand more computer horsepower to edit, as they are even MORE compressed and engineered for "streaming" high quality at a lower bandwidth on the internet. The new Haswell E...with its quad-channel memory, 8 core option, large number of PCI gen. 3 lanes, goes farther in being prepared for 4K and more. Testing by Eric Bowen has shown the newer PPro versions provide MUCH better processing of 4K than older versions. -
RAID array became drive F: instead of C:
Hm... when installing Win XP new on my new system, the RAID array (which is bootable and has the op.system) became drive F: and my ZIP drive is now drive C: 8o
It wouldn't bother me too much, but some software insists on being de-compressed to C: during installation - good thing that not one of my CD-ROMs became drive C: , lol
Any way to change the drive assignment so that the array would become C: ?
On my earlier K7T266Pro2-RU, I had no such phenomenon ?(changing it is childs play, however you cant do it.
first ill tell you how, then ill tell you why you can't.
ok, goto control panel, then administrator options, then computer management, then select Disk Management
Down on the left hand side at the bottom you should see your disks and Cd drives etc with there current letters, right click and slect new letter, but you can use a letter already in use, so the one on C or D you want to use, change first to H or whatever, then change the one thats wrong to what it should be and then change back your drive to C or D or what you want it to be.
But, why can't you change it?
Because all the root paths for windows will be pointing to F:\ and if you change to C:\ you may well find gods unholy mess on boot up. Thats if it even boots up.
Way to do this is boot PC with only CD and hard disk on, when XP is all happy make sure letters are ok, and then start adding devices and changing letters.
When all service packs and updates installed and win XP totally happy, at that point i suggest doing the activation, not before, incase something goes wrong and you need to reinstall.
hope that helped.. -
WinXP-64 bit corrupts existing RAID array
I've got an MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum motherboard running Win XP Pro SP2 on two 36 gig SATA Raptors. Everything was working fine, but I wanted to try the 64 bit version of XP. Grabbed an old 80 gig PATA drive and threw that in the case. Unplugged the SATA drives so as not to risk messing with the existing working OS. Installed the latest 1218 x64 beta and it worked well.
The problem was that when I shut down and reconnected my old RAID array, windows wouldn't boot from it. I lost everything and had to rebuild Windows from scratch. So now I know to never unplug the SATA drives
Rebuilt WinXP on the RAID array and then tried rebooting with the PATA drive with the 64 bit OS. Came up with the "drive needs checking" screen, and proceeds to "fix" the RAID array while ignoring my frantic pounding on the Logitech USB keyboard to stop. Rebooted and yes, the new install was nuked. Okay, since it's gone anyway, reboot to the 64 bit OS and make sure it's got the 64 bit RAID drivers installed.
Reinstall WinXP on the RAID array, reboot to the 64 bit OS on the other drive and the same old scandisk comes and nukes it AGAIN!
So now the PATA drive is sitting on the shelf again, unless someone here can suggest what is causing this problem.
System Specs
Athlon64 3500
gig of PQI 3200 at 2-2-2-5 2.6
2x36 gig Raptors on ports 3-4
Plextor PX-716a DVD+_RW
Visiontek X800 Pro.The first time you re-installed Win 32 on the raid that was a bit drastic. A repair ought to have done the job.
The problem was probably that you disconnected the array but that's where the boot.ini was and that file needed to be modified to add the path to the Win64 install.
Since you took out the array the Win64 install created a new boot.ini on the PATA drive. Even when you tell BIOS to boot off the array, Windows has a bad habit of looking at the IDE channels & using the boot.ini if it finds one there - but the file it found didn't point to the array of course.
So basically if you already have Win32 on the array I would leave that array connected normally when installing Win64 on the PATA drive and all should be well.
I've installed Win64 on the same array as my Win32 install and they co-exist happily. I reckon that's the most efficient way to do it. The main thing is to make separate partitions for Win32, Win64 and data files when you install Win32 in the first place. The two OSs can share the same data files, incuding stuff like email. -
TableSorter errors when adding new data
so here is the deal:
I am using the TableSorter.java helper class with DefaultTableModel
from: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/components/table.html
It works great when the data is static and I get it for the first time. however, occationally, when adding new data I get a NullPointerException error.
in use:
DefaultTableModel.addRow()
DefaultTableModel.removeRow() and
DefaultTableModel.insertRow() methods.
Error:
java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 5
at com.shared.model.TableSorter.modelIndex(TableSorter.java:294)
at com.shared.model.TableSorter.getValueAt(TableSorter.java:340)
at javax.swing.JTable.getValueAt(Unknown Source)
at javax.swing.JTable.prepareRenderer(Unknown Source)...
code problem I:
public Object getValueAt(int row, int column)
return tableModel.getValueAt(modelIndex(row), column);
}code problem II:
public int modelIndex(int viewIndex)
return getViewToModel()[viewIndex].modelIndex;
}TableSroter class:
package com.shared.model;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.util.*;
import java.util.List;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.event.TableModelEvent;
import javax.swing.event.TableModelListener;
import javax.swing.table.*;
* TableSorter is a decorator for TableModels; adding sorting
* functionality to a supplied TableModel. TableSorter does
* not store or copy the data in its TableModel; instead it maintains
* a map from the row indexes of the view to the row indexes of the
* model. As requests are made of the sorter (like getValueAt(row, col))
* they are passed to the underlying model after the row numbers
* have been translated via the internal mapping array. This way,
* the TableSorter appears to hold another copy of the table
* with the rows in a different order.
* <p/>
* TableSorter registers itself as a listener to the underlying model,
* just as the JTable itself would. Events recieved from the model
* are examined, sometimes manipulated (typically widened), and then
* passed on to the TableSorter's listeners (typically the JTable).
* If a change to the model has invalidated the order of TableSorter's
* rows, a note of this is made and the sorter will resort the
* rows the next time a value is requested.
* <p/>
* When the tableHeader property is set, either by using the
* setTableHeader() method or the two argument constructor, the
* table header may be used as a complete UI for TableSorter.
* The default renderer of the tableHeader is decorated with a renderer
* that indicates the sorting status of each column. In addition,
* a mouse listener is installed with the following behavior:
* <ul>
* <li>
* Mouse-click: Clears the sorting status of all other columns
* and advances the sorting status of that column through three
* values: {NOT_SORTED, ASCENDING, DESCENDING} (then back to
* NOT_SORTED again).
* <li>
* SHIFT-mouse-click: Clears the sorting status of all other columns
* and cycles the sorting status of the column through the same
* three values, in the opposite order: {NOT_SORTED, DESCENDING, ASCENDING}.
* <li>
* CONTROL-mouse-click and CONTROL-SHIFT-mouse-click: as above except
* that the changes to the column do not cancel the statuses of columns
* that are already sorting - giving a way to initiate a compound
* sort.
* </ul>
* <p/>
* This is a long overdue rewrite of a class of the same name that
* first appeared in the swing table demos in 1997.
* @author Philip Milne
* @author Brendon McLean
* @author Dan van Enckevort
* @author Parwinder Sekhon
* @version 2.0 02/27/04
public class TableSorter extends AbstractTableModel
protected TableModel tableModel;
public static final int DESCENDING = -1;
public static final int NOT_SORTED = 0;
public static final int ASCENDING = 1;
private static Directive EMPTY_DIRECTIVE = new Directive(-1, NOT_SORTED);
public static final Comparator COMPARABLE_COMAPRATOR = new Comparator()
public int compare(Object o1, Object o2)
return ((Comparable) o1).compareTo(o2);
public static final Comparator LEXICAL_COMPARATOR = new Comparator()
public int compare(Object o1, Object o2)
return o1.toString().compareTo(o2.toString());
private Row[] viewToModel;
private int[] modelToView;
private JTableHeader tableHeader;
private MouseListener mouseListener;
private TableModelListener tableModelListener;
private Map columnComparators = new HashMap();
private List sortingColumns = new ArrayList();
public TableSorter()
this.mouseListener = new MouseHandler();
this.tableModelListener = new TableModelHandler();
public TableSorter(TableModel tableModel)
this();
setTableModel(tableModel);
public TableSorter(TableModel tableModel, JTableHeader tableHeader)
this();
setTableHeader(tableHeader);
setTableModel(tableModel);
private void clearSortingState()
viewToModel = null;
modelToView = null;
public TableModel getTableModel()
return tableModel;
public void setTableModel(TableModel tableModel)
if (this.tableModel != null)
this.tableModel.removeTableModelListener(tableModelListener);
this.tableModel = tableModel;
if (this.tableModel != null)
this.tableModel.addTableModelListener(tableModelListener);
clearSortingState();
fireTableStructureChanged();
public JTableHeader getTableHeader()
return tableHeader;
public void setTableHeader(JTableHeader tableHeader)
if (this.tableHeader != null)
this.tableHeader.removeMouseListener(mouseListener);
TableCellRenderer defaultRenderer = this.tableHeader.getDefaultRenderer();
if (defaultRenderer instanceof SortableHeaderRenderer)
this.tableHeader.setDefaultRenderer(((SortableHeaderRenderer) defaultRenderer).tableCellRenderer);
this.tableHeader = tableHeader;
if (this.tableHeader != null)
this.tableHeader.addMouseListener(mouseListener);
this.tableHeader.setDefaultRenderer
new SortableHeaderRenderer(this.tableHeader.getDefaultRenderer())
public boolean isSorting()
return sortingColumns.size() != 0;
private Directive getDirective(int column)
for (int i = 0; i < sortingColumns.size(); i++)
Directive directive = (Directive)sortingColumns.get(i);
if (directive.column == column)
return directive;
return EMPTY_DIRECTIVE;
public int getSortingStatus(int column)
return getDirective(column).direction;
private void sortingStatusChanged()
clearSortingState();
fireTableDataChanged();
if (tableHeader != null)
tableHeader.repaint();
public void setSortingStatus(int column, int status)
Directive directive = getDirective(column);
if (directive != EMPTY_DIRECTIVE)
sortingColumns.remove(directive);
if (status != NOT_SORTED)
sortingColumns.add(new Directive(column, status));
sortingStatusChanged();
protected Icon getHeaderRendererIcon(int column, int size)
Directive directive = getDirective(column);
if (directive == EMPTY_DIRECTIVE)
return null;
return new Arrow(directive.direction == DESCENDING, size, sortingColumns.indexOf(directive));
private void cancelSorting()
sortingColumns.clear();
sortingStatusChanged();
public void setColumnComparator(Class type, Comparator comparator)
if (comparator == null)
columnComparators.remove(type);
else
columnComparators.put(type, comparator);
protected Comparator getComparator(int column)
Class columnType = tableModel.getColumnClass(column);
Comparator comparator = (Comparator) columnComparators.get(columnType);
if (comparator != null)
return comparator;
if (Comparable.class.isAssignableFrom(columnType))
return COMPARABLE_COMAPRATOR;
return LEXICAL_COMPARATOR;
private Row[] getViewToModel()
if (viewToModel == null)
int tableModelRowCount = tableModel.getRowCount();
viewToModel = new Row[tableModelRowCount];
for (int row = 0; row < tableModelRowCount; row++)
viewToModel[row] = new Row(row);
if (isSorting())
Arrays.sort(viewToModel);
return viewToModel;
public int modelIndex(int viewIndex)
return getViewToModel()[viewIndex].modelIndex;
private int[] getModelToView()
if (modelToView == null)
int n = getViewToModel().length;
modelToView = new int[n];
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++)
modelToView[modelIndex(i)] = i;
return modelToView;
// TableModel interface methods
public int getRowCount()
return (tableModel == null) ? 0 : tableModel.getRowCount();
public int getColumnCount()
return (tableModel == null) ? 0 : tableModel.getColumnCount();
public String getColumnName(int column)
return tableModel.getColumnName(column);
public Class getColumnClass(int column)
return tableModel.getColumnClass(column);
public boolean isCellEditable(int row, int column)
return tableModel.isCellEditable(modelIndex(row), column);
public Object getValueAt(int row, int column)
return tableModel.getValueAt(modelIndex(row), column);
public void setValueAt(Object aValue, int row, int column)
tableModel.setValueAt(aValue, modelIndex(row), column);
// Helper classes
private class Row implements Comparable
private int modelIndex;
public Row(int index)
this.modelIndex = index;
public int compareTo(Object o)
int row1 = modelIndex;
int row2 = ((Row) o).modelIndex;
for (Iterator it = sortingColumns.iterator(); it.hasNext();)
Directive directive = (Directive) it.next();
int column = directive.column;
Object o1 = tableModel.getValueAt(row1, column);
Object o2 = tableModel.getValueAt(row2, column);
int comparison = 0;
// Define null less than everything, except null.
if (o1 == null && o2 == null)
comparison = 0;
} else if (o1 == null)
comparison = -1;
} else if (o2 == null)
comparison = 1;
} else {
comparison = getComparator(column).compare(o1, o2);
if (comparison != 0)
return directive.direction == DESCENDING ? -comparison : comparison;
return 0;
private class TableModelHandler implements TableModelListener
public void tableChanged(TableModelEvent e)
// If we're not sorting by anything, just pass the event along.
if (!isSorting())
clearSortingState();
fireTableChanged(e);
return;
// If the table structure has changed, cancel the sorting; the
// sorting columns may have been either moved or deleted from
// the model.
if (e.getFirstRow() == TableModelEvent.HEADER_ROW)
cancelSorting();
fireTableChanged(e);
return;
// We can map a cell event through to the view without widening
// when the following conditions apply:
// a) all the changes are on one row (e.getFirstRow() == e.getLastRow()) and,
// b) all the changes are in one column (column != TableModelEvent.ALL_COLUMNS) and,
// c) we are not sorting on that column (getSortingStatus(column) == NOT_SORTED) and,
// d) a reverse lookup will not trigger a sort (modelToView != null)
// Note: INSERT and DELETE events fail this test as they have column == ALL_COLUMNS.
// The last check, for (modelToView != null) is to see if modelToView
// is already allocated. If we don't do this check; sorting can become
// a performance bottleneck for applications where cells
// change rapidly in different parts of the table. If cells
// change alternately in the sorting column and then outside of
// it this class can end up re-sorting on alternate cell updates -
// which can be a performance problem for large tables. The last
// clause avoids this problem.
int column = e.getColumn();
if (e.getFirstRow() == e.getLastRow()
&& column != TableModelEvent.ALL_COLUMNS
&& getSortingStatus(column) == NOT_SORTED
&& modelToView != null)
int viewIndex = getModelToView()[e.getFirstRow()];
fireTableChanged(new TableModelEvent(TableSorter.this,
viewIndex, viewIndex,
column, e.getType()));
return;
// Something has happened to the data that may have invalidated the row order.
clearSortingState();
fireTableDataChanged();
return;
private class MouseHandler extends MouseAdapter
public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent e)
JTableHeader h = (JTableHeader) e.getSource();
TableColumnModel columnModel = h.getColumnModel();
int viewColumn = columnModel.getColumnIndexAtX(e.getX());
int column = columnModel.getColumn(viewColumn).getModelIndex();
if (column != -1)
int status = getSortingStatus(column);
if (!e.isControlDown())
cancelSorting();
// Cycle the sorting states through {NOT_SORTED, ASCENDING, DESCENDING} or
// {NOT_SORTED, DESCENDING, ASCENDING} depending on whether shift is pressed.
status = status + (e.isShiftDown() ? -1 : 1);
status = (status + 4) % 3 - 1; // signed mod, returning {-1, 0, 1}
setSortingStatus(column, status);
private static class Arrow implements Icon
private boolean descending;
private int size;
private int priority;
public Arrow(boolean descending, int size, int priority)
this.descending = descending;
this.size = size;
this.priority = priority;
public void paintIcon(Component c, Graphics g, int x, int y)
Color color = c == null ? Color.GRAY : c.getBackground();
// In a compound sort, make each succesive triangle 20%
// smaller than the previous one.
int dx = (int)(size/2*Math.pow(0.8, priority));
int dy = descending ? dx : -dx;
// Align icon (roughly) with font baseline.
y = y + 5*size/6 + (descending ? -dy : 0);
int shift = descending ? 1 : -1;
g.translate(x, y);
// Right diagonal.
g.setColor(color.darker());
g.drawLine(dx / 2, dy, 0, 0);
g.drawLine(dx / 2, dy + shift, 0, shift);
// Left diagonal.
g.setColor(color.brighter());
g.drawLine(dx / 2, dy, dx, 0);
g.drawLine(dx / 2, dy + shift, dx, shift);
// Horizontal line.
if (descending) {
g.setColor(color.darker().darker());
} else {
g.setColor(color.brighter().brighter());
g.drawLine(dx, 0, 0, 0);
g.setColor(color);
g.translate(-x, -y);
public int getIconWidth()
return size;
public int getIconHeight()
return size;
private class SortableHeaderRenderer implements TableCellRenderer
private TableCellRenderer tableCellRenderer;
public SortableHeaderRenderer(TableCellRenderer tableCellRenderer)
this.tableCellRenderer = tableCellRenderer;
public Component getTableCellRendererComponent(JTable table,
Object value,
boolean isSelected,
boolean hasFocus,
int row,
int column)
Component c = tableCellRenderer.getTableCellRendererComponent(table,
value, isSelected, hasFocus, row, column);
if (c instanceof JLabel) {
JLabel l = (JLabel) c;
l.setHorizontalTextPosition(JLabel.LEFT);
int modelColumn = table.convertColumnIndexToModel(column);
l.setIcon(getHeaderRendererIcon(modelColumn, l.getFont().getSize()));
return c;
private static class Directive
private int column;
private int direction;
public Directive(int column, int direction)
this.column = column;
this.direction = direction;
}any input will be appreciated.
thanks
PeterThe code you posted doesn't help us at all. Its just a duplicate of the code from the tutorial. The custom code is what you have written. For example do you update the TableModel from the Event Thread? Do you update the SortModel or the DefaultTableModel? If you actually provide your test code and somebody has already downloaded the sort classes, then maybe they will test your code against the classes. But I doubt if people will download the sort classes and create a test program just to see if they can duplicate your results (at least I know I'm not about to).
-
Raid array being seen as 2 individual drives
Hi. Here is the issue as posted in other places. Still searching for the answer to this one.
Specs:
K7n2 delta2 platinum with b50 bios
2x1gb crucial pc3200 2.5cas ram
AMD Barton 2500
2 x 160gb 7200rpm 8mb cache SATA Samsung Hdd's
Thermaltake 430w psu
Gainward fx5700 ultra graphics
OS's: original xp corp, slipstreamed xp corp sp2
raid drivers: nvraid.sys v4.27, 5.10, 5.11 (also the needed nvatabus.sys with those)
I am NOT overclocked.
fsb 166
1:1 ram/cpu
no spread spectrum or other garbage
ddr400 patch disabled
PSU gives presumably stable reading (according to what I see), with amperage ratings above the required.
checked and rechecked cables for bad ones
ran mulitple scans on drives, all come up drives OK
I HAVE installed into Raid 0 already, this is not an issue of hardware failure as far as I am concerned.
So here is the scenario
I have properly set up the array, using correct bios settings and the raid setup utility, for a raid 0 array of those 2 hdd's listed. When booting into xp, either version, I have used all 3 of the driver sets listed. I have been reinstalling to do some performance tests on different configurations.
Anyway, for the last few nights I have been trying to get the windows setup to see the raid 0 array as one 300gb drive. It does not, no matter what I try. It sees them as 2 drives, each being 160gb (or thereabouts). These drives are matched, same firmware, same lot, so that should not be an issue.
I have used numberous tools to delete the mbr on the drives, both in an array and as single drives. I have done the same as well as tried an install and formatted each drive individually, still the same effect when the raid array is recreated.
Basically, I can find no good reason why the array is seen as individuals and not as an array. It is interesting to note, that even though xp setup sees the the array as 2 drives, I can complete the text based portion of setup. However, rebooting to start the GUI portion of setup, it will not boot. Obviously becuase the bios has the controller as the nvraid controller and it is supposed to be a raid 0 array, so I expected that.
Short of rewriting the mbr, either by deleting it or by changing each drive by formatting/partitioning/installing an OS on them, I cannot think of how to fix this. I know the drives and xp cd's work because I have already installed with them.
I understand what to do in the bios portion, and in the raid setup utility portion. I know that I can boot into windows as a single drive and use the nvraid tool to set it up, but that is not the way it should be, and that is not the way I am going to learn WHY this is happening.
Roger that. First set in bios enable raid (in this bios I have to enable IDE array, then choose which controller to actually enable raid on, which happens to have been SATA 1 & 2).
Second, upon reboot, I use the F10 key to enter raid utility. Then, set to striping, set stripe size (which was one of the things I am testing), and add the drives to the array. Next step is to create it. It asks to clear disc data, and it is done.
Have deleted that array as well as just cleared it. Have deleted it and reboot and rebuild it. Have deleted it, reboot, change bios back to non-raid, reboot. Reboot. Change bios back to raid enabled. Reboot. Rebuild array in raid utility, reboot. Run setup, only see 2 hdd's, not one array.
Umm, yep, that is about it.
More to the story now.
From some other posts I tried this.
1. destroy array. reboot. disable raid in bios. reboot. verify sata's visible as singles in bios.
2. power down. pull plugs on sata's. reboot. no drives visible.
3. pull power. jumper clear cmos. wait 60 seconds. re-pin jumper. power up.
4. verify no drives. verify default bios settings. all is good
5. plug drives in. reboot. seen as singles. erase mbr on both drives. reboot
6. enable raid in bios, and choose sata 1 & 2 as "enabled". reboot.
7. use F10 key to setup raid. Here is the interesting part. Even though I deleted the array prior to all of this, and removed the drives to force an ESCD update, and cleard the cmos with the board jumper, and then before raid was enabled, cleared the mbr on the drives, when I started the raid utility, the array was already set up. That is the problem, whatever that is. I have read snippets where it is claimed that this chip or bios or whatever stores some kind of a table on this stuff, but this is a bit out of hand.
That combination, IMO, should have cleared anything out. But, the saga continues.
Thanks for you help BWM
[Edit] BTW, I have finally found a utility that will see a raid array and allow me to clear the arrays mbr. It is called SuperFdisk and is at ptdd.com. So far the only one that see's the 2 drives as 1.
Yeppers.
Started with v5.10 which came on a floppy with the mobo. Told setup to use both, nvatabus.sys and nvraid.sys. Even switched which one of the 2 I picked first, just to see.
Same thing with v4.27 and v5.11. Also tried it with just the nvraid.sys and just the nvatabus.sys (which obviously does squat for raid, lol)
Trying some new things now. Post in a little bit.
I am officially at 'Wit's End'.
Here is what I have tried now.
1.pull drive cables. pull power. jumper clear cmos. wait. power up. no drives
2.plug sata 1 in. boot. drive detected.
3.boot to command.com, run MHDD, which is a nice russian utility similar to Spinrite. Used this to clear the mbr at hardware level, and do a complete erase.
4. reboot to command.com. run superfdisk. erase mbr.
5. pull plug on sata 1, and plug in sata 2 with sata 1 cable. repeat the erasure steps listed above.
6. pull plug on sata 2, no sata plugged in. reboot
7. change bios to raid enable on sata 1 & 2. power down
8. plug in sata 1 & 2. power up.
9. inspect raid utility. no listing of any arrays. reboot
10. in raid utility, build array. did NOT clear discs. reboot
11. attempt install. single drives found again (used both drivers).reboot
12. in raid utility, optioned to CLEAR discs (funny, rebuild option is never valid).reboot
13. attempt install, both drivers, still seen as 2 individuals.
Things to note. When creating an array when presumably there are none, it assigns the raid array an ID of 2. Upon reboot, the ID is now 1. Don't know what difference that makes.
Also, tried the install listed above with APIC functionality both off and on. Also, when on, set MPS to both 1.1 and 1.4. In addition to this, each variant I tried manual HAL layers of, in this order, ACPI (the one that actually spells ACPI out), ACPI Uniprocessor, MPS Uniprocessor, and let it choose it for me.
So, here I sit in a barca-lounger at 'Wit's End', with a warm cup of java and a dinner mint.Here is the final product on the floppy disk that I used to successfully install a stable raid 0 on the MSI K7N2 Delta 2 Ultra 400 Platinum ms-6570e motherboard.
On root of floppy, from driverset 6.70. (after much testing, I used driver pack 5.10 for my nic and smbus. I used the realtek sound drivers off the cd for audio. I have used every driver pack I could find, and while some did offer better I/O or read/write latency, this set in general provided the most stable environment. The only drivers I used were these floppy drivers for SATA, the nic and smbus just mentioned, the sound just mentioned, and updating the nvide drivers to mside drivers)
<from sataraid directory>
disk1
idecoi.dll
nvatabus.sys
nvraid.cat
nvraid.inf
nvraid.sys
nvraidco.dll
<from legacy directory>
nvata.cat
nvatabus.inf
I used the txtsetup.oem from the sataraid directory, but edited this:
[Files.scsi.RAIDCLASS]
driver = d1,nvraid.sys,RAIDCLASS
inf = d1,nvraid.inf
dll = d1,nvraidco.dll
catalog = d1,nvraid.cat
[Files.scsi.BUSDRV]
driver = d1,nvatabus.sys,BUSDRV
inf = d1, nvraid.inf
dll = d1,idecoi.dll
catalog = d1, nvraid.cat
To this:
[Files.scsi.RAIDCLASS]
driver = d1,nvraid.sys,RAIDCLASS
inf = d1,nvraid.inf
dll = d1,nvraidco.dll
catalog = d1,nvata.cat
[Files.scsi.BUSDRV]
driver = d1,nvatabus.sys,BUSDRV
inf = d1, nvatabus.inf
dll = d1,idecoi.dll
catalog = d1, nvata.cat
Now, it is important to note that I installed or attempted to install at least 50 times. Bare minimum. I noticed when I use this custom driver disc that in the GUI portion of setup, XP asks me for files from the disc. I tried lot's of different things to alleviate this, and denied some of them.
One thing that really bugged me was that the bios would see my #2 optical, slave on secondary IDE channel. A dvd/rw drive. And I could even start the setup from it. But, once I got about 3/4 through copy file stage on text setup portion, I would hang. Becuase the drive was no longer accessible. Booting from the master would get me to the desktop, but the slave optical was nowhere to be found. Updating the ATA/IDE controller to the ms ide drivers would get it visible, but I kept having issues with stability after I did that.
The most stable method I found was to use my above listing of driver files for the floppy, and when in GUI mode setup asks about NVCOI.DLL, I skipped it, ignored it, and did not let setup install it. That actually got me to the desktop, with access to the slave optical as a "removable drive". It even knew what the hardware was. It just could not access it. On a reboot however, back to not seeing it. This method however did allow me to update the nvide driver with the mside driver with no stability issues. So, for me it was a raving success.
Here are some links regarding the SATA RAID driver workaround:
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:jHbX5bNfGx4J:www.msfn.org/board/lofiversion/index.php/t51140.html+nforce2+nvraid.sys+ms+ide&hl=en&client=opera
http://www.aoaforums.com/frontpage/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=292&Itemid
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:J9UhG2Kd8W4J:www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php%3Ft%3D32751+xp+2+sata+raid+0+seen+as+individual&hl=en&client=opera
Early on one problem I noticed was that in text setup mode of xp installation, there were long pauses that I have never seen before. I noticed that with both ide and sata installs. Also I noticed that when booting there was a really long pause when the xp logo is first seen in a sort of dim state till when it became bright and vivid.
Come to find out that this is a more or less typical scenario. Most instances that I read about were all pointing to the nvide driver. So, I found if I just updated the PATA controller to the standard ms ide driver, that went away and the whole system ran better.
It took awhile to figure out that if you install a driver with the nForce2 chip, you had to uninstall it or you will have issues. Herein was the main problem I encountered with the SATA RAID installs. The nvatabus.sys driver was required for an SATA RAID install. Omitting the ata driver was impossible. And for awhile I had no success updating the ms ide driver once I was to the desktop without major instability. Here are some links regarding the drivers for this chipset:
http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/latest-drivers-for-nforce-3-vt60240.html
In my browsing I came across some pretty interesting articles regarding ACPI. One thing I started playing with was the different HAL layers that xp installs on it's own, vs. me picking one manually (F5 key). I must have started the setup at least 50 times to figure out this: that this particular board does not give me the bios settings to install xp with anything but the ACPI Uniprocessor Hal. For instance, the MPS Uniprocessor HAL is much more responsive, but it lacks the IRQ's needed for setup to see the raid array. I booted to each one, some locking the system up, some booting OK. The one I found the best performance with early on was the one that spells out ACPI, not just initialized. (sorry, I don't want to look it up).
I seemed to be getting closer, but I could not find the needed bios settings to properly manage my ACPI, and since I was trying for RAID, I could not use the one that did work. Here is a link for that kind of stuff.
http://www.fceduc.umu.se/~jesruv98/info/acpi/acpi.html
Another thing that I did not like was being forced to use the dynamic overclocking feature of this board. I have a 333mhz barton core, and I have ddr400 ram. In optimized (fool proof) mode in bios, I was running asynchronous. I did not want that. So I set it down to run at 166mhz, with very slow and conservative settings on everything. Unfortunately, if I did this "manual" method, I was forced to use the dynamic overclocking. I thought I had that figured out. So I set everything to "optimized". But, as it turns out, the system had terrible stability without the dynamic overclocking set to at least Private. What this meant is that I could not rule out that my stability issues (corruptions and hangs and bsod) were from being overclocked even a tiny bit or not. And as if that were not enough, this bios has a special set of settings you must unlock to see. And one of those is paramount in achieving a stable system. It is called the DDR400 patch, and it is enabled by default. So, by pressing SHIFT+f2 AND CTRL+F3, these settings are now available. Like I said, I had to disable that DDR400 patch setting.
I also found out from the first day that my board shipped with the latest bios. I flashed the 2 prior versions with no success in more stability. After about 6 weeks of getting whipped on by this board, I found mention of some modded bios's for this board. I have used modded bios's in the past, some worked wonders, others required some serious effort to recover from. What I found out about this board is that there are 2 players who make the modded bios's. Here is the first index I found from a german website. This one actually is for the older B4 version only for the Platinum.
http://storage-raid-forum.de/viewtopic.php?t=2824
And here is an english forum for pretty much the same thing
http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/bios-mods-for-k7n-and-k8-boards-vt55014.html
These links have a bit more information, and I decided to go with these. I tried versions b61,b62 and b71. I found b71 to work the best for me. Mind you I am not into overclocking or what-have-you. Just a rig that performs as well as it was advertised to do. Try these out for the bios information:
http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=385480
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=84715.0B62
Here is a page that had a bunch of misc stuff I found interesting:
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:QkvLeKcbwjQJ:www.amdzone.com/modules.php%3Fop%3Dmodload%26name%3DPNphpBB2%26file%3Dviewtopic%26p%3D75383+nforce2+ultra+nvraid+driver+freeze&hl=en&client=opera
In the end, I have, I think, conquered this board. My findings can be summed up as follows, all in my opion only I guess.
1. There are some ACPI/APIC issues with this board or this chipset. I believe it also included drivers and some can be attributed to XP.
2. There are some major bios issues with this board.
3. There are some major driver issues concerning SATA/RAID. I am not sure who get's the boob prize, nVidia or MSI.
The only way I have found to get RAID 0 installed and stable is to modify my bios (which is a modded beta version), modify my driver disk for SATA/RAID, modify my install sequence for those drivers, modify my drivers within windows after setup, use different drivers from different driver packs for different pieces of hardware, and modify my HAL layer after everything else is done, to achieve peak performance.
If I had not spent soooo much time trying to get a stable install, I would have built up an Unattended CD, which has some possibilities for forcing non WHQL drivers. But, hey man, I am totally burn out on this board. And all it was for is a spare LAN box for when I go to a lanparty. Sheesh. Murphy's law.
Oh, and I also found out, with my own eyes, that the Soyo KT600 Dragon+ that I dumped for this wonderful board, is way faster. Faster read/writes, faster throughput on the nic, faster booting, much faster installs of xp. As a matter of fact, I could get my KT600 to get a consistent thruput on the network to my older KT266a board at 99%. That is pretty fast. 2 of these Platinum boards, on a sweet switch that is tweaked, will only go up to 91%, no matter how much I tweak them. The gigabit connects via a crossover cable at about 38% of full bore. This is tweaked stuff, but still. I listened to the hype. Dual channel memory, giglan, etc etc.
I hope this may help anyone else out there who is still fighting with these issues.
Out.
sul
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