p4p800 and Sata raid

[nikof]

Up to now I was using PATA disk in my p4p800 deluxe MB(about a year). Yesterday I changed my disk with a SATA samsung HDD. Until yesterday, I have not realized but the INTEL SATA bios is not working. I enabled that feature from bios of MB buy selecting "yes" in sata boot rom option but there is no message saying " press ctrl-i to enter intel raid utility" during boot up.

on the other hand sata ports are working fine.

Any idea please....


Thank you in advance.

 

[pat]

You need at least 2 HDD to do a RAID setup. So, if you just put one sata hdd, then your controller will probably just mount it as a regular hdd

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[nikof]

At least the raid utility should work on boot up? Isn't it?

Do not push me to by a secont drive

 

[pat]

Well, I just think about something..the Intel RAID is software based and not hardware, as some other. Maybe it has to be set at installation or something...I dont know a lot about Intel controllers, so I cannot help much more on that issue.

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[nikof]

OK.
The raid software in windows part is working and recognizes the raid controller. But according to the manuals, faq and other documents there have to be a bios utility...

 

[supremelawfirm]

On ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard (875 chipset)
mixing on-board SATA + PATA w/ Promise PCI controller,
in BIOS under:

IDE Configuration

Onboard IDE Operate Mode [Enhanced Mode]
Enhanced Mode Support On [P-ATA+S-ATA] <--- THIS WORKED

[S-ATA] only in that field did NOT work.

I downloaded your user manual, and the documentation
on this point is identical.

Your motherboard is different, however:
you have only 2 x SATA ports, correct?

On mine, there are 4 x SATA ports:
2 x non-RAID and 2 x RAID.

Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell
Webmaster, Supreme Law Library

 

[supremelawfirm]

Also, you have this under
IDE Configuration

Configure S-ATA as RAID [Yes] [No]

This field configures the S-ATA to function as an
IDE controller or RAID. Configuration options: [Yes] [No]


Did you experiment that that setting?

Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell
Webmaster, Supreme Law Library

 

[Crashman]

You don't need Intel SATA BIOS enabled to run an SATA drive. The SATA BIOS is for RAID configuration. Any board using the Intel SATA controller can detect an SATA drive as an ATA drive in BIOS by enabling the SATA ports. I have the same configuration using a different board right now!

In BIOS Main, go to IDE Configuration and set "Enhanced Mode on SATA" and "Configure SATA on RAID" to No.

Then change from the Main page to the Boot page and set Boot Device Priority to the detected CD-ROM first, then the detected SATA drive second.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[Crashman]

ALL FOUR of your SATA ports are RAIDable. The Intel ports can be set to RAID or NON-RAID mode by enabling or disabling Intel RAID BIOS.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[supremelawfirm]

Many thanks for this update.

I've read the RAID sections of the User Manual
at least 3 times now, and it does not say that,
in so many words. What I understood (by mistake)
was that 2 of the 4 SATA ports were non-RAID.

This is how the motherboard photograph is annotated
in that User Manual.

Do you happen to know how the ATA/133 RAID connector
works into the scheme of things?

The ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe has two RAID controllers:
Intel and Promise.

Thanks, in advance, for your help.


Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell
Webmaster, Supreme Law Library

 

[Crashman]

I think the Promise controller can RAID 2 SATA drives and separately RAID 2 ATA drives. Now, considering both ATA drives would be on the same cable, I'd expect the performance of an ATA RAID to be sub-par.

I had that board, and left the Promise controller disabled. If you're not using that many drives, all it does is make the boot process take longer.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[supremelawfirm]

Many thanks. I dug deeper and found
a few .pdf and .doc files on the CD-ROM
that came with the motherboard.

BUT ...

I usually hesitate when I encounter
chapter headings like this one:

"3. RAID Benefits [Need updated text from Carlos]

Insert marketing wording here ...

Possibly insert Flash animation in this section
as well (visual representation of RAID 0)" [sic]

That's a literal one, my friends! LOL


Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell
Webmaster, Supreme Law Library

 

[nikof]

The chipset of p4p800 is 82801ER. IN other words it is raid controler (Raid 0) Dispide of the "yes" selection in the "sata boot rom" field of the MB bios, the intel raid bios is not coming up. Is it because I have just one sata disk or what? At least I should be able to run the raid bios !

 

[supremelawfirm]

From what I can gather, my 875 motherboard has two
separate RAID controllers: Intel and Promise.

The Intel controller is part of the Southbridge:
under Windows XP, it can support 6 IDE devices:
2 for IDE0, 2 for IDE1, and 2 for the SATA ports
(labeled SATA1 and SATA2).

The Promise controller is entirely separate,
and it supports 1 x ATA/133 PATA connector,
and 2 more SATA ports on-board (labeled
SATA_RAID1 and SATA_RAID2).

Both controllers can support plain ATA-mode (non-RAID)
or different RAID modes, depending on BIOS and
other configuration settings.

Here is some documentation we found today:

82801ER (ICH5R) is the Intel on-board RAID controller:
http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/manuals/298600.htm

Google http://www.google.com
searching for:

+"Intel Application Accelerator" +"RAID Edition"

found:

http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets/iaa_raid/sb/CS-009328.htm
http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets/iaa_raid/sb/CS-009333.htm

CHECK 'EM OUT!

We had to find these finished documents, because
the .pdf on the CD-ROM that came with our motherboard
was still a DRAFT. Each .pdf is about 85 pages long,
and we've not had a chance to read everything yet.

Hopefully, you will find the answers you seek
in the documents above. Good luck!



Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell
Webmaster, Supreme Law Library

 

[supremelawfirm]

At the ASUS website, we also found:

RAID installation guide for Intel ICH6R:
http://www.supremelaw.org/temp/ICH6R.pdf
(ICH = Intel I/O Controller Hub)

Close enough?

Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell
Webmaster, Supreme Law Library