Incompatible RAID controller?

  • Thread starter Thread starter @drian
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@drian

Recently as some may have read, I have been having trouble getting XP to
boot onto a RAID 0 array, using the onboard RAID controller on my Intel
D875PBZ motherboard (ICH5-R). I have two SATA Western Digital (WD) Raptor
36GB drives, hooked up to the Serial ATA ports of my motherboard.

I created the array from the Intel RAID BIOS then booted from the Windows XP
CD. Pressed F6 to install the Intel RAID floppy drivers, XP would see the
array (67GB; 2 x 33.5GB), prompt me for partitioning information then copy
its files, at the end of which it would reboot.

(FYI: The boot order in the BIOS is set to the RAID array as the first boot
device, followed by the CD drive I am booting from, with no other boot
devices specified after that.)

The PC would reboot then show a "A Disk Read Error Occurred, Press
Ctrl+Alt+Del to Restart" message. I could never get past it. I *could*
install XP in a non-RAID single drive situation (even with the Intel RAID
controller enabled but without an array setup), but not in RAID. Migrating
to RAID from a single drive would produce the same results.

As a last ditch effort, I bought an Adaptec 1210SA SATA RAID PCI controller.
Hooked up the HDDs to the PCI card, disabled the Intel RAID controller,
created a RAID 0 array with the Adaptec card and followed the same path to
install XP as I did before.

This time, XP booted! It actually booted using the Adaptec PCI card, then
continued its install process. Yet, using the exact same procedure for the
Intel RAID controller, XP refused to boot after the first part of the XP
installation.

My question is, has anyone ever heard of a RAID controller being
incompatible with certain make/model of HDDs? This is obviously the case,
otherwise the drives would fail under the Adaptec card. Yet, the Intel RAID
controller worked fine with a pair of Seagate 120GB SATA drives I used to
have.

@drian.
 
Sounds like you've narrowed the problem to the on-board Intel RAID
controller for whatever reason. The MB should still be under warrenty and I
would return it and get a replacement.
 
Timothy Drouillard said:
Sounds like you've narrowed the problem to the on-board Intel RAID
controller for whatever reason. The MB should still be under warrenty and I
would return it and get a replacement.
Click to expand...

I come to the same conclusion, but if it's faulty, why did it work with the
Seagate drives?

@drian.
 
You got a lot of work in this RAID project, I can tell your a man that never
sounds retreat.

XP is a pain in the ___ in many ways. It will try to insist that you use
NTFS. If you do that's great, but I don't. If you don't either, consider
finding a win98/ME start disk and a copy of FORMAT.EXE. From the FDD you
Fdisk the new array to one primary partition and format it. All before it
you even get to the XP CD. Any other drives should be disconnected.

The drivers install from F6 as usual. When XP gets around to offering to
partition the disk tell it to use what is has.

I would make very sure that the F6 driver is the correct driver. I assume
you looked on the web site for a new one.

My Raptors run circles around any PATA RAID I have installed. You will be
pleased with them.

JPS
 
jpsga said:
You got a lot of work in this RAID project, I can tell your a man that never
sounds retreat.
Click to expand...

Well, I'll give up eventually, only up to the point I can't do anything
about this problem.
XP is a pain in the ___ in many ways. It will try to insist that you use
NTFS. If you do that's great, but I don't. If you don't either, consider
finding a win98/ME start disk and a copy of FORMAT.EXE. From the FDD you
Fdisk the new array to one primary partition and format it. All before it
you even get to the XP CD. Any other drives should be disconnected.

The drivers install from F6 as usual. When XP gets around to offering to
partition the disk tell it to use what is has.

I would make very sure that the F6 driver is the correct driver. I assume
you looked on the web site for a new one.
Click to expand...

Yes, it's the correct one, the 82801ER SATA RAID floppy driver.
My Raptors run circles around any PATA RAID I have installed. You will be
pleased with them.
Click to expand...

Yes, I'm pleased with them, but I got another development on this problem.

I setup a RAID 1 array instead, something I hadn't tried. So naturally I
had a 33.5GB disk after creating the array. I went through the process of
installing XP, the first part. After booting (the point where the BIOS
would give me the Disk Read Error message), I seen this on the Intel RAID
information:

ID: 0
Name: RaptorRAID
Level: RAID1(mirror)
Strip: N/A
Size: 33.5GB
Status: Degraded
Bootable: N/A

ID: N/A
Name: WDC WD360GD-75GH
Level: 634 (partial serial number of drive)
Strip: Port 0
Size: 33.5GB
Status: Error Occurrd
Bootable: N/A

ID: N/A
Name: WDC WD360GD-75GH
Level: 560 (serial number of drive)
Strip: Port 1
Size: 33.5GB
Status: Normal
Bootable: N/A

Ah ha! All I did was run through the first part of the XP install. So,
maybe SATA Port 0 of the M/B is faulty with regard to RAID. So I downed the
PC, switched the cables going into each port. If the hard-drive is faulty,
then the "Error Occurrd" would move.

After switching cables, then installing the first part of XP, I got this:

ID: 0
Name: RaptorRAID
Level: RAID1(mirror)
Strip: N/A
Size: 33.5GB
Status: Degraded
Bootable: N/A

ID: N/A
Name: WDC WD360GD-75GH
Level: 560 (partial serial number of drive)
Strip: Port 0
Size: 33.5GB
Status: Error Occurrd
Bootable: N/A

ID: N/A
Name: WDC WD360GD-75GH
Level: 634 (serial number of drive)
Strip: Port 1
Size: 33.5GB
Status: Normal
Bootable: N/A

Note the serial number of the drive has changed, but the "Error Occurrd" has
not moved with the drive serial number, meaning the drives are OK. I assume
that RAID functionality on SATA Port 0 is defunct, no longer works
correctly. I'm not sure what the actual meaning of "Error Occurrd" is, I'd
like to see more detail.

Anyway, this gets me a step closer.

@drian.
 
@drian said:
Recently as some may have read, I have been having trouble getting XP to
boot onto a RAID 0 array, using the onboard RAID controller on my Intel
D875PBZ motherboard (ICH5-R). I have two SATA Western Digital (WD) Raptor
36GB drives, hooked up to the Serial ATA ports of my motherboard.

I created the array from the Intel RAID BIOS then booted from the Windows XP
CD. Pressed F6 to install the Intel RAID floppy drivers, XP would see the
array (67GB; 2 x 33.5GB), prompt me for partitioning information then copy
its files, at the end of which it would reboot.

(FYI: The boot order in the BIOS is set to the RAID array as the first boot
device, followed by the CD drive I am booting from, with no other boot
devices specified after that.)

The PC would reboot then show a "A Disk Read Error Occurred, Press
Ctrl+Alt+Del to Restart" message. I could never get past it. I *could*
install XP in a non-RAID single drive situation (even with the Intel RAID
controller enabled but without an array setup), but not in RAID. Migrating
to RAID from a single drive would produce the same results.

As a last ditch effort, I bought an Adaptec 1210SA SATA RAID PCI controller.
Hooked up the HDDs to the PCI card, disabled the Intel RAID controller,
created a RAID 0 array with the Adaptec card and followed the same path to
install XP as I did before.

This time, XP booted! It actually booted using the Adaptec PCI card, then
continued its install process. Yet, using the exact same procedure for the
Intel RAID controller, XP refused to boot after the first part of the XP
installation.

My question is, has anyone ever heard of a RAID controller being
incompatible with certain make/model of HDDs? This is obviously the case,
otherwise the drives would fail under the Adaptec card. Yet, the Intel RAID
controller worked fine with a pair of Seagate 120GB SATA drives I used to
have.

@drian.
Click to expand...

I setup a RAID 1 array instead, something I hadn't tried. So naturally I
had a 33.5GB disk after creating the array. I went through the process of
installing XP, the first part. After booting (the point where the BIOS
would give me the Disk Read Error message), I seen this on the Intel RAID
information:

ID: 0
Name: RaptorRAID
Level: RAID1(mirror)
Strip: N/A
Size: 33.5GB
Status: Degraded
Bootable: N/A

(the following two blocks are sub-entries from the above line block)

ID: N/A
Name: WDC WD360GD-75GH
Level: 634 (partial serial number of drive)
Strip: Port 0
Size: 33.5GB
Status: Error Occurrd
Bootable: N/A

ID: N/A
Name: WDC WD360GD-75GH
Level: 560 (serial number of drive)
Strip: Port 1
Size: 33.5GB
Status: Normal
Bootable: N/A

Ah ha! All I did was run through the first part of the XP install. So,
maybe SATA Port 0 of the M/B is faulty with regard to RAID. So I downed the
PC, switched the cables going into each port. If the hard-drive is faulty,
then the "Error Occurrd" would move.

After switching cables, then installing the first part of XP, I got this:

ID: 0
Name: RaptorRAID
Level: RAID1(mirror)
Strip: N/A
Size: 33.5GB
Status: Degraded
Bootable: N/A

(the following two blocks are sub-entries from the above line block)

ID: N/A
Name: WDC WD360GD-75GH
Level: 560 (partial serial number of drive)
Strip: Port 0
Size: 33.5GB
Status: Error Occurrd
Bootable: N/A

ID: N/A
Name: WDC WD360GD-75GH
Level: 634 (serial number of drive)
Strip: Port 1
Size: 33.5GB
Status: Normal
Bootable: N/A

Note the serial number of the drive has changed, but the "Error Occurrd" has
not moved with the drive serial number, meaning the drives are OK. I assume
that RAID functionality on SATA Port 0 is defunct, no longer works
correctly. I'm not sure what the actual meaning of "Error Occurrd" is, I'd
like to see more detail.

Anyway, this gets me a step closer.

@drian.
 
Curious about the error following the port as opposed to following the
drive. Could it be that all this activity has left some files on the drives
that the RAID setup BIOS doesn't like? A FAT32 or and MBR or something?

JPS
 
jpsga said:
Curious about the error following the port as opposed to following the
drive. Could it be that all this activity has left some files on the drives
that the RAID setup BIOS doesn't like? A FAT32 or and MBR or something?
Click to expand...

Good thought. Although I did use WD's tool to write zero's to each drive
before setting up an array, each and every time. I wanted to make sure the
drive's were completely blank before creating the array.

I'm assuming that Port 0 on the motherboard is failing, in RAID mode.
Although Windows XP right now, in single drive mode, is completely unstable.
I keep getting the message that the RPC service has terminated unexpectedly.
Could mean the port in general is failing.

@drian.
 
that be the msblast virus. happens when you connect to the net for a short
while?

enable net firewall, download a certain winXP critical update patch to stop
this RPC error.

tim
 
() |V| 3 G /-\ said:
that be the msblast virus. happens when you connect to the net for a short
while?

enable net firewall, download a certain winXP critical update patch to stop
this RPC error.
Click to expand...

Yes, I thought that too, but I have AntiVirus installed and ZoneAlarm, yet
it happened after three re-installs of Windows XP Pro. Odd.

Thanks for the advice.

@drian.
 
I have the exact problem. Same hardware and tried all the same things.
I had to create a partition and format it with Fat32, then I still got a
disk error, but XP allowed me to boot into Windows. I think it has to be an
incompatibility with this setup Raptors+Raid0+82801ER+D875PBZ but I would
think this would be a very common setup since using Raid0 with the Raptors
and the D875PBZ should be one of the fastest PC drive setups possible using
serial drives. I have looked on Intel, WD, and MS web sites and haven't
found anything about this problem. Hopefully the fix will be in BIOS P17.
 
Jeff Richardson said:
I have the exact problem. Same hardware and tried all the same things.
I had to create a partition and format it with Fat32, then I still got a
disk error, but XP allowed me to boot into Windows. I think it has to be an
incompatibility with this setup Raptors+Raid0+82801ER+D875PBZ but I would
think this would be a very common setup since using Raid0 with the Raptors
and the D875PBZ should be one of the fastest PC drive setups possible using
serial drives. I have looked on Intel, WD, and MS web sites and haven't
found anything about this problem. Hopefully the fix will be in BIOS P17.
Click to expand...

Ahhh, sorry Jeff, I never seen your e-mail.

Did you see the conclusion to this? I figure the M/B is faulty. I now
enabled RAID in the BIOS (Intel RAID Technology set to Enabled) and now the
RAID BIOS screen doesn't even appear. Thing is, the Raptors work with the
Adaptec PCI card, but not the ICH5R.

If my next M/B fails to work like this one, I've no idea but to think like
you, the drives are incompatible.

@drian.
 
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