Unknown Raid 5 Array after Raid controller replaced

Hello,
I had a raid controller fail during the week, and after shutting the xraid down and installing the new controller, all the drives in the array are now amber.
In Raid Admin 1.5 the array does not show up, only all 6 member drives with an amber warning and 'Type: Unknown Array'.
I used the 'Recognize Array' utility to try and fix this, however whilst each drive shows as being recognized as being part of a Raid 5 set, it will not recreate it.
Am I completely screwed? or is there some other way to get this to repair/recognize?
Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Mark

Due to time restrictions on getting the xraid back online, had to recreate the raid and restore data from backup.
No fix found.

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Cant detect raid array after update

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RAID arrays and Windows

Not sure where to post this one. You have been very helpful before so I’ll try again.
The machine is the Media Centre in my signature.
Installed two new Maxtor SATA drives, set up as RAID 0, clean install of XP MCE. Boots on the RAID array. Not a single problem. Installed MSI drivers, XFS video card drivers and KCorp PCI network adaptor for wireless link. Download and install all Windows updates. All OK.
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fafner: I wanted a large disk to hold recorded TV progs, videos, CDs etc and 160GB is the max for this mainboard. I went for 2x160GB Maxtor drives. As I was using two drives I reasoned I might as well use RAID 0 to get a single volume and a faster machine. In particular I read somewhere that RAID 0 halved, or nearly so, the start up time. Who wants to wait a couple of minutes for the TV to fire up?
Fredrik: The XFX video card drivers are in fact nVidia drivers which are the latest.
Doctor Stu: I have subsequently installed XP on both drives individually. On one it worked well, on the other same old problem: either the drive not found in the BIOS after the heading ‘Detect IDE drives’ or the screen fades as Windows starts up. Checked both drives with Maxtor’s Powermax disk checking utility. Provided the drive was connected to the SATA1 socket and the other drive not connected both passed the Full Test. I could not get Powermax to recognise SATA2 even though both were detected correctly in the BIOS. My conclusion is that the problem was a dodgy connection which I hope has been rectified with all the swapping around.
Is there disk testing utility that puts the disc under load similar to Mem86 for memory?
Will I try RAID again? I doubt it even though it did start up in far less time.
My thanks to all.

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

Dynamic Smart Array B220i RAID Controller keeps loosing Logical Drive after power shutdown.

Hi, I own two HP Microservers Gen8. I added SSD drive on the DVD SATA port in both. I created Raid 0 over the SSD Drive that I can boot from it, but everytime I shutdown the box (power outage), the logical drive is lost. Note that the logical drive is not lost on reboot. Only when the box is is shutdown. Any ideas why is this happening? Here are repro steps: Enter Smart Storage Administrator
Select onDynamic Smart Array B220i RAID CtrollerClick on "Unassigned Drive" Screen shows me:SATA HDD:
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- 3TB Port2:Bay2 SATA SSD
- 120GB Port5:Bay5 I selected Sata SSD drive in Port5:Bay5I clicked on "Create Array"
On a next screen I select the following:
I selected RAID 0, 256 KiB Stripe Size, 32 Sectors, Maximum Size
I click on "Create Logical Drive" On a next screen:
A message: Logical Drive was successfully created.
I click on Finish
I exit the Smart Storage Manager and reboot the system. The server boots from the Raid0 Array (Sata SSD Drive in Port5:Bay5) -> No problem If I just reboot the server, it boots from the Raid0 Array. - No problemIf I shut down the server (or during Power outage), the Smart Array tells me that there is no logical array during the boot. The boot fails. -> Qualifies for a problem.
Please can you explain why is the logical drive lost after power loss? Why the controller does not remember the setting? Other details:- Dynamic Smart Array B220i RAID Controller (v3.54.0)- When I boot to Smart Storage Administrator after power failure, I can recreate the Raid 0 over the SSD drive and boot again - this a work around the issue. Thank you for your advise.Jiri

Hi QUANT,
Your Proliant server is a commercial product and to get your issue more exposure I would suggest posting in the commercial forums. Here is a link to the Commercial Notebook forum.
Thank you,
Please click “Accept as Solution ” if you feel my post solved your issue.
Click the “Kudos Thumbs Up" on the right to say “Thanks” for helping!
Thank you,
BHK6
I work on behalf of HP

How to confirm a successful LUN rebuild , after raid 5 Array rebuild. Disk Fail

I've been running a ESXI 5.5 host with various linux , BSD, and Windows VM's, recently had a Host kernel Panic as a result of SAS drive failure. HP proliant ML 350 G6 with a P410i raid controller, replaced HDA re-ran SMART smart to configure array. Rebuild was successful, C wont boot MBR or start up issues cant find mboot32 within systlinux . So re-installed ESXI 5.5 to flash drive booted ESXI from but cannot mount or scan datastores / or storage ISCSI controller to retrieve or extract VMDKs .
HELP please!!
This topic first appeared in the Spiceworks Community

Thanks for your reply. Do you have any idea how to re-initialize the drive? It now seems to be marked as spare(?) and any operations on it are rejected:
> sudo raidutil modify drive --removelocalspare -d 3 -r RS1
Modifying drives...   FAILED.
The drive is in use and is unable to be set unconfigured.
> sudo raidutil modify drive --removeglobalspare -d 3
Modifying drives...   FAILED.
The drive is in use and is unable to be set unconfigured.
> raidutil list status
Apple raidutil version: 1.3.0
General Status: Issues Found
        The volume [R4V1:RS1 [ID: 4]] is degraded.
        The volume [Vol-RS1:RS1 [ID: 4]] is degraded.
        Raidset (RS1) is degraded.
Battery Status: Charged
Controller #1: Hardware Version 2.00/Firmware E-1.3.2.0
                Write Cache enabled
Volume            Status            Type       Drives       Size Comments
R4V1              Is Viable         RAID 5     1,2,4      3.23TB Is Degraded
Vol-RS1           Is Viable         RAID 5     1,2,4      2.00TB Is Degraded
> raidutil list driveinfo
Drives Raidset       Size      Flags
Bay #1 RS1             2.00TB   IsMemberOfRAIDSet:RS1 IsReliable
Bay #2 RS1             2.00TB   IsMemberOfRAIDSet:RS1 IsReliable
Bay #3 <none>          2.00TB   IsReliable IsNotAssigned
Bay #4 RS1             2.00TB   IsMemberOfRAIDSet:RS1 IsReliable

Array RAID 0 after bios updating

I'm going to create an RAID 0 array with the Intel ICH5R but one question rises: if I upgrade my bios after creting the RAID 0 array, will I lose all my data?
Is it sufficient to recreate the array after bios flashing to have back all my data?
I hope to be clear.
Thanks

no, upgrading BIOS won't kill your data. It will only at most, lost the array information. All you need to do is to re-set the array info once more and your data is still "as is".

MacPro RAID card not initiating recovery after defective drive replaced

One of my artists is using an Early 2009 Mac Pro on 10.9.5 (13F1077). On Saturday morning, while he was not in the office, Drive 1 warned that SMART was reporting early signs of failure. The RAID card degraded the RAID set. I replaced Drive 1 and marked it as a global spare; but recovery is not initiating. I have, subsequent to installing the drive and marking it as a global spare, rebooted the Mac Pro; but the RAID Utility is not showing any Tasks running, and especially nothing about rebuilding the RAID set. As of now, the RAID set and RAID volume are not available. It appears that I can either try to preserve the data on the drives, or I can attempt to manually rebuild the RAID set; but not both. Unfortunately, the artist had all of his projects on the RAID and had not backed them up to servers at the time of the failure.

If a Disk Fails If a RAID set or volume becomes degraded because a disk has failed, you can use RAID Utility to identify the disk that needs to be replaced.
Note: If your RAID setup includes a spare drive, it is automatically incorporated into the RAID set, and the set switches from degraded to good as soon as the recovery process finishes. If there is no spare, the set will remain degraded until you replace the failed drive, and if a second drive fails before you replace the first, you could lose data.
To replace a failed disk:
1 Open RAID Utility, select the RAID set or volume that is displaying a problem status indicator, and look for a drive bay with a red status indicator. The bay numbers in RAID Utility correspond to the numbered drive bays in your Mac Pro or Xserve.
2 Replace the bad drive module.
3 Use the Make Spare command to set up the new drive as a global spare. If no spare was available when the original drive failed, the RAID card uses the new spare immediately to rebuild the affected RAID set and volumes. If a spare was available at the time of the failure, it is already incorporated into the affected RAID set, and the new spare remains available until it is needed.
https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/0/MA318/en_US/RAID_Utility_User_Guide.pdf

[VIA] K7T266 PRO- RU motherboard: Windows XP on a RAID ARRAY (fasttrak100 LITE)

Hi All!
I have a
MSI K7T266 PRO- RU motherboard, BIOS is the latest, official from MSI website,
Problem short description: Windows XP (sp1 or sp2 english, I tried both)
will not install when I set 2 x 40 Gig = ~80 Gig Stripe Array.
detailed description:
motherboard K7T266 PRO- RU BIOS 1.9 AMI BIOS.
AMD ATHLON XP 1700 + "Palomino" microprocessor, at default speeds.
one piece of 512 PC 3200 RAM, can tell details later.
Power supply: 400 W CODEGEN model : 300X.
HDD-s : one IBM deskstar, fully functional, and a SEAGATE barracuda. seagate SEATOOLS, IBM DFT 32 no errors both.
I set in the FASTTRAK 100 LITE "PDC20276R" (written on the chip) bios a STRIPE array. Powerquest drive magic , or the Windows XP CD handles it fine , as a 80 gig disk.
I downloaded ALL available versions of the FASTTAK 100 LITE driver from the MSI website.
(only tried: MSI driver FASTTRAK 100 lite, the only available driver on the MSI website, and various drivers from www.promise.com) ( http://www.promise.com/support/download/download2_eng.asp?productId=15&category=driver&os=0&go=GO ) (but I guess they WONT support my raid controller on the motherboard)
Windows XP CD , booting, Press F6 for additional RAID /SCSI drivers, I put in the floppy, choose WinXP fasttrak lite driver, windows continues, even formatting the 80 GIG disk, copy files- access the FASTTRAK.SYS driver, EITHER it says: no fixed disk present, press F3 to exit windows setup, or windows setup continues, copies files, reboots, and then STOP ERROR
http://www.martin555.dyndns.org/stop.jpg
please, help me with the following:
how to install XP on a raid array.
is it worth, will it be little bit faster disk load times etc?
is it secure if I trust the HDD-s?
any clue, how to overclock the AMD 1700+ athlon XP palomino to its maximum, but still stability?
AND : I read a lot about some MOD-ded BIOS called " KUNIBERT" , which makes the LITE raid to a FULL RAID and some other extras? where to get it and what to do?
email me if you can martin5 "at" freemail.hu
THANKS !

pardon me, dump? my english is not very perfect.. you mean to trow away, replace to something better, more stable power supply, more powerful?
you must see... first I would like to resolve the "installing XP on a raid array" problem,( how is it possible, is it worth, will it speed up hard disk access and load times... etc... ) and after that maybe I will OC the machine...
it is now , with a 8 cm ventillator and a large aluminium cooler 39 Celsius IDLE and goes to 45 Celsius during EVEREST benchmarking test. (temperatures on 1700+ default setting and OC-'d to 1900+. just experiencing with it. ) (I saw the toms hardware guide movie , smoking processors..)
cheers, Marton.

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

RAID Arrays and WinXP Home

OK... I tried upgrading to Win XP 64-bit, but found there were games and applications that were screwy there and some items without 64-bit drivers, etc. So, I rolled back to a clean install of XP Home (32-bit).
After much effort, I was told today at a local techie-store that XP Home "doesn't allow for RAID arrays."
True?
I have 2 Hitachi 160GB drives I got last week at the afore-mentioned store for $112 US total! So, I am trying to make it all work, but am having no luck.
Any thoughts?
Scott in Los Angeles

There is a way to make some versions of windows do a software RAID, but the MSI board has a VIA and a Promise hardware array. Don't worry about what the 'techie' said.
Enable Promise controller in BIOS and set it for RAID.
Press Ctrl & F when prompted to set up your RAID array.
Boot to Windows CD
Press F6 when prompted and insert your Promise RAID disk.
Enjoy!

KT4 Ultra: problem config. raid array IDE3

I owe the MSI 6590 KT4 Ultra BSR mainboard and I have difficulties configurring the RAID array in striping mode, on the IDE3 controller.
The manual describes on page 2-18 it's possible to connect up to 2 hard drives, cdrom, 120mb fd and other devices to the IDE3 controller.
Unfortunately only one of my two MAXTOR D740X-6L (6L080J4) 80gig drives is recognized by the array.
One Maxtor hard drive is jumpered as MASTER and the other is set up as SLAVE.
When I hook up the cable to an ordinary IDE port (eg IDE1) the two drives are properly recognized.
Both drives can be formatted using the regular IDE ports, this means without any cluster errors or other errors so the drives are physically OK.
Before I wrote this post I checked the support section again to make sure I am using the latest BIOS which is 1.1. I also downgraded to 1.0, but that didn't solve my problem either.
Since I work in a computer shop now and then I had the opportunity to check two Maxtor Fireball3 30gig drives on a different MS-6590 RAID board (BIOS 1.1.) and exactly the same problem occurs: the 2nd drive won't be recognized in the ARRAY on IDE3.
Please tell me what to do to make the striping option fully work on my two IDENTICAL Maxtor hard drives since MSI support came up with a standard email, which didn't cheer me up at all. Hopefully this time they will investigate this matter since no doubt more people will experience this.

Thanks for the quick response, though it's not satisfactory for me (of course).
Actually before installing the new KT4 Ultra I owed the KT266 Pro RAID motherboard. It's true this board has two controllers for the RAID option. Nevertheless because after reading the manual of this new board I was convinced I could connect two hard drives on the IDE3-channel. This is the reason I decided to go ahead and to upgrade to this new mainboard.
I guess I have to go back to my employer and fall back again to my KT266 (MS6380).

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.

Newbie lesson - xServe RAID boxes need 2 Controller modules to work well!

So I thought I'd share my experience with my xServe RAID box, because I built it from parts (via eBay) I thought I could run it with a single controller with up to 7 drives until I needed to expand it later, I had all sorts of strange problems:
- Could't build new RAID arrays
- Couldn't update firmware
- Restarting box often led to the array disappearing
- Existing array sometimes didn't show up in Disk Util.
I tried replacing cables and Fibre cards but no change until I added a second RAID controller and then suddenly everything worked great!
Thanks to everyone here for trying to help me out with my problems, the box now runs great
So the lesson here is that an xServe RAID box needs 2 controllers to function properly, with only 1 it runs in some kind of undocumented failsafe mode.

See my response to your crosspost in the Xserve RAID group.

Replace the Hot Spare that Shared between Raid 1 and raid 5

I have ProLiant ML370 G6 with Smart Array P410i Controller on System Board
I have two Logical Drive (Logical Drive 1 - Mirroring (RAID 1) And (Logical Drive 2 - Distributed Data Guarding (RAID 5)
The logical Drive 1- Mirroring (RAID 1) Have two Physical Drives
The Logical Drive 2 Distributed Data Guarding (RAID 5 Have three Physical Drives
And There Are One Spare Drive Shared btween RAID 1 and Raid 5
Controller Configuration Summary
2 Data Array(s)
2 Data Logical Drive(s)
5 Data Drive(s)
1 Spare Drive(s)
The problem :
there are that the spare Drive FAil and have warining To replace it
I replace this drive with new one but the repulid for the Drive not start and Give Inactive
How Repulid the Hot Spare drive ?

Hello Amostafa,
Welcome to the HP Forums, I hope you enjoy your experience! To help you get the most out of the HP Forums I would like to direct your attention to the HP Forums Guide First Time Here? Learn How to Post and More.
I understand that you are looking to rebuild the hot spare drive on your ProLiant system, and I would be happy to guide you towards a resolution!
I am sorry, but to get your issue more exposure, I would suggest posting it in the commercial forums, since this is a commercial product. You can do this at:
http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/ProLiant-Servers-ML-DL-SL/bd-p/itrc-264
I hope this helps!
Regards
MechPilot
I work on behalf of HP
Please click “Accept as Solution ” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.
Click the “Kudos, Thumbs Up" on the right to say “Thanks” for helping!

Unknown Raid 5 Array after Raid controller replaced

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