Asus M4a78T-E Raid woes

BOWTYE8 · Post by **BOWTYE8** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 10:21 am

Just picked up this MB and a AMD Phenon 965 with 4 gigs of ram.

I had a pair of WD Raptor 75 gigs in Raid 0 in my former PC(soltek with promise raid). Removed them and monted in this PC. Set Bios to Raid.
Upon boot up I get to the Raid display.

It displays Raid 0 148 gig functional then just sits there with blinking cursor.
I cannot cntr-F to enter the raid config.

I put drive back in other pc. Delete the raid..So now basically virgin 2 drives.

Install on Asus and now I am able to get to the Raid Config.

I pick Raid 0 and did a full erase via the bios"erase"

Reboot and now the same again The raid displays 148 gig and functional but then just hangs blinking cursor.

I cannot get to the Raid bios(setup) or Asus setup when its stuck like this.

Everything else is good as far as testing . I stuck in a 500 gig sata WD dirve by itslef and loaded Win 7. (so PC,MB,ram all seems good)

I want to get Raid 0 loaded on the raptors(oper sys) then use the 500 gig for deep storage.

WD raptors are good. Before I wiped them clean. I was still able to boot from them in other PC. They are now formatted.

Any advice?
Thanks

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BOWTYE8 · Post by **BOWTYE8** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 8:35 pm

Well I have been at this for a week and nothing will work. I exchanged the board and still the same issue.

If I use the drives as regular sata ide either drive will load win xp or win 7.

As raid it locks up in bios.

My old rig. Soltek mb has 2 built in raid controllers. One is promise and the other some generic. Both will create a raid array and start to load win xp or win 7. So the drives are good.

I updated to the latest bios on the new MB and still nothing. IF the raid array is deleted using the old MB. Teh new rig will give me the raid option Cntrl-F. I can then create the array. upon reboot it displays raid 0 functional then blinking cursor. It will not display cntrl-f or get past that area to enter the bios setup screen.

Not sure if another model number board will work like M4a78 pro or do I need to try another brand.

I also read that if you use raid on say sata 1 and sata 2 plugs that you cant use a sata DVD or CD rom in Sata 3 and 4. Is this true. I have not been able to get this far to confirm.

Any advise out there?

Faust · Post by **Faust** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 11:44 pm

well, from a conceptual point of view....

RAID 0, or any striping-type architecture (such as dual channel memory) relies highly on symmetry.

as the performance or logical attributes of storage media decays, the more difficult it gets for a controller to make them work in harmony. i know it sounds superficial, but when it comes down to milliseconds or less timing, just having dissimilar mapped bad sectors on each drive can result in failure. they may work just fine independantly in single drive mode, but thats because they arent relying on the performance of another drive to operate.

this isnt really an answer to your issue, but may shed some light as to why they wont play nice.

BOWTYE8 · Post by **BOWTYE8** » Fri Oct 09, 2009 5:44 am

I see your point. But

thye will work just fine when I install them in the other PC. It has 2 different raid contollers(on board). Both controllers will create, define, etc. and I can start to load windows.

Delete the array. Install onto new MB and nogo.....arghh!!!!

Faust · Post by **Faust** » Fri Oct 09, 2009 3:35 pm

my guess is the controllers are different. one of them appears to be a little more tolerant of whatever dissimilarity that exists between the drives.

BOWTYE8 · Post by **BOWTYE8** » Fri Oct 09, 2009 6:49 pm

Well I picked up the velocity raptor. Up and running with Win 7. Been beta testing it with MS so running the RC. Will see how it runs. Took about 20 mins after assm of the PC. to desktop. Seem to be running great.
Will not load too much since win 7 retail is in about 2 weeks.

I still have to update my sig.

PS: tech question. How do you rename the drive. my C drive displays "local drive" The other display "New volume" I want to amke them read local drive.

Faust · Post by **Faust** » Fri Oct 09, 2009 8:47 pm

right click the drive in My Computer (or just "Computer" win7) -> properties -> field at top of the general tab

BOWTYE8 · Post by **BOWTYE8** » Fri Oct 09, 2009 8:54 pm

Doh that was easy....sometimes you miss the most basic items.

Thanks

Faust · Post by **Faust** » Fri Oct 09, 2009 9:35 pm

BOWTYE8 wrote:Doh that was easy....sometimes you miss the most basic items.

Thanks

no worries, bud

the day we think we know it all is the day we stop learning

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Fri Oct 09, 2009 9:46 pm

just a shot in the dark here, but maybe mess with the boot order after setting the raid setup ?

long shot for sure LOL

BOWTYE8 · Post by **BOWTYE8** » Wed Oct 21, 2009 11:33 am

Just a update. I have been in contact with Asus support(emails)
He suggested I run WD diagnostics(Data life guard)

Weill both drives had some errors and it seemed I was able to clear them up and write zero's to the drives.
I was then successfully able to create create the raid array and started to load windows 7.
I cancelled the install. I have Win 7 running on the Velicraptor 300gig at 3g/s.
I must admit unzipping big files 1.4 gig with this drive is very fast. maybe 20 sec if that. The older raptors in Raid 0 were 45 seconds. This new drive flies!!!!!! New drive with the faster tx speed.

I did a hdd check with those drives(74 gig raptors raid 0) a few months back and posted somewhere on this board. I have to check this new setup and compare.

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Wed Oct 21, 2009 12:37 pm

If the older raptors have bad sectors then it was a good move getting the new drive.