SATA PCI nightmare!!

[Gubsta]

I've got an Ax8 mobo, which for the past 6months has been sucessfully running 3xSATA disks from the onboard sata ports.

I am now trying to add a further RAID 1 set using a PCI plug in card.

I have got 2xMAXTOR 6H400F0 400GB disks
1x SiI 3114 4-port pci card and...
1x SiI 3512 2-port pci card.

Everything installs fine, I can see the disks in disk management in windows. I can even RAID them up using SATAraid.

The one thing windows will not let me do is format either of them. I continually get the message (as single disks or the RAID set) 'The format did not complete sucessfully'

When I try and plug one of the disks into the one remaining spare mobo SATA the pc just grinds to a halt and will not load windows (well it took 20mins for the winxp logo to show).

When I plugged one of my existing disks into the pci card - windows could see it but not access it, and it's crewed up something because now back on the mobo SATA it continually schedules disk check on booting. I'm guessing this is a SATA pci card/mobo conflict of some sort.

Any ideas - pulling my hair out!!!!!

 

[Gubsta]

Ok peeps...

As an update, I can creat a FAT or and FAT32 partition (of limited size) and then when I co to convert to ntfs I get the following output:

The first NTFS boot sector is unwritable.
All NTFS boot sectors are unwritable. Cannot continue.

Come on guys.... any ideas??????