SATA RAID 0 striped drives and a new motherboard

[foghat46]

Got a real problem here. I've been searching the forums for the answer, and no luck. Here's the scenario:
The second PC in my sig suffered a sudden and terminal motherboard failure. No more Chaintechs for me. The board had an nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset, with SATA RAID handled by a Silicon Image 3112 controller. The new board is an Abit KW7 with a VIA KT-880 chipset, with RAID being handled by the VT8237 Southbridge. Before you say anything about replacing an nForce chipset with a VIA, have you checked the availability of Socket A boards lately? I set up the BIOS, (Phoenix-Award, don't know the version at the moment), and the option of setting up the RAID comes up as part of the boot process. I hit the Tab key as instructed, and to make a long story short, the RAID setup sees the individual drives, but not as a RAID 0 array. I get the option of creating the array, but "all data will be destroied" (their spelling, not mine), and I do not want to do that, at all costs. No, I haven't backed the data up, an external drive is on my list, but things are tight when you're fighting Social Security over your disability status. Abit provided me with a floppy disk with SATA drivers, and also a CD that the book says also has SATA RAID drivers on it. I have yet to use either disk, other than noting that the floppy wasn't bootable. The voices in my head tell me that the solution to this is probably easy, but I just can't seem to figure it out. Of course, the system never makes it all the way through the boot process. The OS (XP Home) is installed on the first partiton of the array. How can I make the BIOS see the array? I don't remember for sure what value I set for the length of the stripes, I'm thinking 16K, but I'm not sure. If I change the values and happen to hit on the correct setting, will that allow the new controller to see the array? Again, the voices tell me that an array is an array, nothing more, and it shouldn't matter which brand of controller handles it. Help me out here, guys, I have data on these drives that I need for a hearing that's coming up in the near future. Stupid Chaintech.

Fog:D

[EzyStvy]

Probably the only thing you can do that "might/maybe/possibly" work is to find an identical mobo to the one that died.

[foghat46]

Considering what I went through just to find a mobo with the options I needed, I don't think that's going to be an option. I had to settle for a factory remanufactured board, as the only other practical option was to buy a used board, which I will never do again. I even thought about swapping drive cages with this PC. It should be no problem, considering that this one has an nForce2 Ultra 400, has the same SATA RAID controller, and the drives were created the same way. That doesn't do me much good, as I would still need an external drive to make the drive images, which I don't have. I still think there's a way to make the VIA chipset recognize the array. I just can't seem to figure it out.

[glc]

You can't do what you want to do. Welcome to the downside of RAID 0 without a good backup strategy. The only way you are going to get that data off without paying a data recovery company is find an identical motherboard.

This is why the only RAID I use is RAID 5, and I use a controller card.

[EzyStvy]

There's a guy on another site with the same problem of a bad mobo.

It was a abit KX7-333 Raid board (AMD socket A). The onboard RAID controller is a highpoint HPT-372.

He emailed Highpoints support department and was told this PCI Raid card should see the array...

[glc]

Okay - let's look for a PCI card that uses a Sil 3112 controller.........

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SD-SATA150R&cpc=SCH

I'd spend the money just to try it, it's gonna be under 25 bucks shipped.

[foghat46]

No kidding, it's worth it. I'll get this card on order, give it a shot, and see what happens. I also intend to swap drive cages with my Asus A7N8X-E Dlx, which also uses a Sil 3112, and see what gives. I'll get the card regardless, it may come in handy in the future. I'm working on a backup solution, I was just hoping nothing went wrong before the SSD hearing. I have the software for making disk images, obtaining large enough external drives to put the images on will take a bit of time. Thanks for the help, guys, I'll update this post with the details when I work this out. Fog:D

[foghat46]

OK, just ordered the SATA controller card. GLC, the site you gave me the link to was out of stock, so I went over to Newegg, and found the identical card, same part number and all, but branded as a Syba, with a different box, and cheaper to boot. $18.98 delivered. The link is here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815124006

I read most of the reviews, it seemed to me that the people who had trouble with it probably have trouble with everything else. One guy had used it in a scenario very much like mine:

"I have a SIL3114 onboard adapter and when I connected HDD to this SIL3112 adapter the RAID0 worked without reconstructing the raid set, so it is good to have around as a backup in case MB fails."

And this comment from another user was encouraging:

"This would probably work good for someone whose MOBO with the Si3112 chip died, and they need to access their RAID from another system."

It should be here by Friday. Thanks for the assist guys, as soon as I have it up and running (hopefully), I'll post back here with the results.

[foghat46]

OK, I've installed the card into the fourth PCI slot down from the AGP slot. I believe the BIOS has assigned it to IRQ 11, it's really hard to tell for sure, as fast as the system boots. As of now, I haven't disabled the onboard SATA RAID, although I think I may have to. I've plugged the SATA cables into the card, in the same order as they were in the original motherboard. I've tried a simple boot, the BIOS saw the drives, but still seperate. The second try, I copied the folder containing the driver files to a floppy, following the instructions that came with the card, but the system was unable to see the file it wanted. I then copied the contents of the folder to the floppy, inserted the XP Home disc back into the drive, booted the system, hit F6 at the prompt again, and waited 'till the prompt came up to insert the floppy. That done, I hit R for a repair at the prompt, but got a message saying the address was wrong, or something similar. I assumed it was because the card was still not seeing the array, just the individual disks. I'm sure that I'm missing a step, or doing something out of order, or trying it the wrong way. It is time to back up and regroup, and get another game plan. Since I seem to be brain dead this evening, I'd appreciate a nudge in the right direction. I will not give this up, as they say, "failure is not an option."

[foghat46]

Something I forgot...

I know that the card is working, because I get the message during boot telling me to hit Ctrl-S or F4 to enter the RAID utility, which is a different procedure than I got at first when the drives were plugged into the motherboard ports, and is consistent with other motherboards I've had with the Silicon Image SATA RAID controllers. The problem is, I am unable to enter the utility, by either keystroke(s). I've tried three times, within the short time frame allowed by the BIOS. Frustrating? Yes. Still, the array should be seen by the card and displayed during the boot record, and I'm only seeing individual disks. Ummm...ideas?

[glc]

If you can't get into the RAID utility, there's something wrong with the card or another hardware component.

You may need to try this:

http://www.runtime.org/raid.htm

[foghat46]

Thanks GLC, I just downloaded it. I'll hold off until I've exhausted my other ideas, but it's good to have a possible solution in hand. You're a lifesaver, and I appreciate it. One question, last night, after going into BIOS to look for an option to disable the RAID controller (which is located in the VT-8237 Southbridge), I noticed on boot that there was a RAID controller on IRQ 10 and one on IRQ 11. I don't remember seeing the original option to get into the onboard controller, as it now doesn't have any cables plugged into it, but is it possible that the close proximity of IRQ's is somehow blocking access to the SIL RAID setup? I also thought about hitting F4 immediately on startup, much like hitting delete over and over to get into the BIOS, in case my timing is off. This board really fires through the initial boot sequence, that's one reason why I'm having trouble seeing what's really going on, and I'm a pretty fast reader. I'm thinking about training my vidcam on the screen, and then playing it back using slow-mo and pause in order to be able to see everything.

Fog:D

[glc]

I doubt it's an IRQ issue, today's bioses have that sorted out quite well. You could try different PCI slots. If the bios has an APIC option, make sure it's enabled. APIC enables the advanced interrupt controller and allows IRQ's up to 23. You won't see the results of this till you are in Windows.

[foghat46]

Right. This BIOS has APIC enabled by default. I can't seem to find an option to disable the onboard RAID, the only one I see is the option to designate whether SATA mode is RAID or IDE. It's in the OnChip IDE Device setup screen. I find that rather strange, maybe I have something else enabled that removes the option to disable RAID. I just changed it to IDE, it was set as RAID. Also, in the Advanced BIOS Features screen, the first option is for Hard Disk Boot Priority. Entering that screen shows the two drives, listed as SCSI 0 and SCSI 1, and another listed as Bootable ADD-In Card, which I've arrainged in order showing the card as the first option. So the BIOS is seeing the drives, but not the array. Then in the boot order, I have it as CDROM, Floppy, and then Hard Disk, and Boot Other Device is set to Enabled. Lets see...Phoenix-Award BIOS, it says D586 on the chip (duh-processor type), but I can't seem to find an actual revision number. It's usually at the top of the initial screen, but not in this case.

[glc]

If it's not seeing the array, you may have to put a single big drive on the motherboard controller, then use the raid rebuilder software to recover your data.

Can I give you a bit of unsolicited advice? Forget about RAID from here on out - keep it simple!

[foghat46]

Yup, you have a point. If I do have to reformat these drives in the end, I will forsake the RAID 0 setup and just go normal. The biggest fault, however, is my failure to back up the important data. I used to use InCD and CDRWs to back up stuff, but too many problems with both InCD and adaptec's version, I can't remember the name right now, especially locking up the PC and writing corrupted data to the discs made me give that up, and I never got to go to my next favorite option, which is external hard drives. I will get to that point fairly soon, I hope. I'm not giving up yet, however. I had a serious reputation for tenacity when I was a tech out in the field, and at least that hasn't changed. One of my closest friends always said, "Git the hell outa da way, th' Badger is pissed".

[glc]

To put this in perspective, the only RAID I trust is RAID 5 on a true hardware Adaptec controller. If you want to look at external drives for backup, I highly recommend Apricorn housings. They come with an OEM version of Acronis True Image and some other semi-useful utilities.

[foghat46]

I'll look up those housings. There are so many housings on the market that a recommendation of a quality unit is very much appreciated. I assume you add your own drives?

BTW, the change I made to the BIOS relating to the onchip RAID apparently allowed the card's configuration utility to open, and I have it up now. It still doesn't see the array, only the two drives. Drive 0 has a * in front of it, indicating the first drive. Drive 0 is then marked PM, drive 1 is marked SM. Anyone have an idea what that means? Since even this card doesn't see the array, I wonder if something I might have done while trying to get one of these controllers to see the array might have made just enough of a change to the drives so that the array is no longer valid. If that's the case, I have no choice but to start over. But then, I'm not entirely beat yet, as I still have an idea or two.

[glc]

I replied to your PM - I think the reconstructor is your best hope here. It sure appears you no longer have a valid array.

[foghat46]

Yeah, I think you're right, and thank you for the reply. It's time to do some research, then just get my hands dirty. If I end up losing the data, it's not as if my house is gonna fall in and pin me under the wreckage, or anything. I'll survive. I find that if I go in with that sort of attitude, I have a better chance of success. I'm going to go with the aforementioned game plan, it may take a while, but I'll post back the results when all is said and done.