P5W DH w/raid 0 problem

[airwinger]

Morning,

I'm having a heck of a time configuring this board with 2 WD74 GB SATA drive as the boot drive for windows XP SP2. I've read all the comments that I can find on this forum, I read the manual numerous times, made the f6 disk from the boot section of the MB cd with the right ICHR7 files several times. Page 33 second to last note states "sata raid feature is only avail
after install of win xp sp1" do I install win xp and then do the items on 5-30?

All I want is to configure the 2 drive in a raid 0 as the boot drive for my os.

Thanks in advance.

Cliff

 

[nukemaster]

are u running on the 2 raid ports on far bottom of the board? i do not think they need a driver(they will initialize the disks...so be carfull)...just set the jumper to raid0(fast) the intel ICH thingy should see it as a single disk on port 2...

I have also head of some people getting the wrong driver with the CD....so go to asus and get the latest one to be sure...

I do not have that board...YET but look forward to hearing how you like it...

hope this helps

EDIT: are your drivers on floppy disk? they need to be. The 2 raid ports at the bottom are driverless(so to speak)... so any os SHOULD see them as one drive.... on the ICH....

 

[airwinger]

Afternoon,

I tried the "EZbackup" (light orange sata) first and had no luck with it. I've moved to the red(sata1) and black(sata3) with ICH7R. I made a f6 disk by booting from the MB cd, I copied the correct drivers. I did as bios sys as page 5-30 and I did as the raid set up page said to do 5-31.

The one thing that I cluesless about is the staement on page 2-33

"Important note on serial serial ATA

You must install windows 2000 sp 4 or windows xp sp 1 before using serial sts hard drives. the serial ata raid feature (raid 0/1/10) is only available if you are using windows 2000/xp/server 2003 or later verision."

Thanks in advance.

Cliff

 

[nukemaster]

Sorry for the late reply....just got home from work...
the drivers are made for windows XP SP1 and higher and windows 2000 SP4 and higher....you do not need to worry about this unless your windows CD does not have SP1 or 2 on it for XP or 4 for 2000..

If you do not you will need another computer to slipstream the CD(burn a new windows CD with the service packs on it)

Here is where you can get SP2(the latest for XP)
Download Page

And you can get instructions on how to slipstream it here
Slipstream instructions

But first i sugest you go here
Intel's matrix storage driver (f6 thingy) this was a pain to find as i am used to nvidia and via's easy to navigate site
I am sugesting this based on a comment on ncix

Strengths
Well appointed board, accessories...accessories, Over Clock Options, cooling

Weaknesses
Asus Sent boards manufactured after 06/01/06 with the wrong RAID drivers for the ICH7 Chipset. You need to download the latest from intel before install.

Summary
So far, so good, easy to put together, nice options, VGAs for Crossfire are far apart for cooling. Runs my Conroe X6800 Sample perfectly.

Time for bed...please exuse any spelling mistakes....good luck...

 

[airwinger]

Sorry for the late reply....just got home from work...
the drivers are made for windows XP SP1 and higher and windows 2000 SP4 and higher....you do not need to worry about this unless your windows CD does not have SP1 or 2 on it for XP or 4 for 2000..

I talked to asus tech support for 2 hours between yesterday and today. And that note is just suppose to be aheads up for people that might not have that software and are planning on running SATA drives.

If you do not you will need another computer to slipstream the CD(burn a new windows CD with the service packs on it)

I have EIN XP Pro SP-2, I'm suppose to be "good to go".

Here is where you can get SP2(the latest for XP)
Download Page

And you can get instructions on how to slipstream it here
Slipstream instructions

But first i sugest you go here
Intel's matrix storage driver (f6 thingy) this was a pain to find as i am used to nvidia and via's easy to navigate site
I am sugesting this based on a comment on ncix

I tried on three different machines (old duron 800, sammart's 300.00 special and new one that I building for 1800.00) to dl the matrix program and get the required files, all these were id'ed by the program as not capable of runningit or installing it..

Quote:
Strengths
Well appointed board, accessories...accessories, Over Clock Options, cooling

Weaknesses
Asus Sent boards manufactured after 06/01/06 with the wrong RAID drivers for the ICH7 Chipset. You need to download the latest from intel before install.

Summary
So far, so good, easy to put together, nice options, VGAs for Crossfire are far apart for cooling. Runs my Conroe X6800 Sample perfectly.


Time for bed...please exuse any spelling mistakes....good luck...

Thanks for your reply.

Cliff

 

[nukemaster]

all these were id'ed by the program as not capable of runningit or installing it..

IDed by what program? the windows xp installer? or the intel disk maker?

 

[airwinger]

Nukemaster,

Sorry for the delay in responding, The MB is on the way back to the reseller and a new one should be on the way back to me soon.

The software that wasn't working was the intell matrix firmware, which of course now figures. I have done a lot of reading on intell site for the ICH7R, both the F^ requirements and the chipset software that was supposeto be loaded after the f6 and the Os install.

Despite the above the board still wasn't working right with other stuff, so it went back, Hopefullythe next board willbe goo.

Thanks for you responses.

Cliff[/quote]