WD SATA Hard Drive Install

Did you plug in a power cord to the HDD?

I have found that many boards come with the SATA ports disabled. Follow your manual to make sure they are enabled in the BIOS.

Found problem. HD was SATA 2 MB was not backward compatable. following is link to ans. http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std...*&p_li=&p_topview=1
Answer found at ASUS Forum site. Thank you for your help  

Well thought I had it. XP will not find it or set up on it. Shows as Non RAID device detected on startup. RAID Bios states that I dont have adequate number of disc to create RAID. I dont think that was my intention. I just wanted to install larger cap/faster HD. Any other thoughts on my delem..  

I can just run one SATA HD cant I? Similar to running one IDE HD?

Go into the system BIOS, look under Advanced -> Onboard Devices -> SATA ... change from RAID to IDE.

Windows should now see the drive as a standard IDE device.

Ok Did it. IDE worked plus Boot from Cd plus F6 and install drivers. What fun.   Thank you  

Hi i was reading this thread. I have a x2 WD SATAII 250GB 16mb cache. I have the gigabyte DS3 mobo. Am i suppose to enable SATA? I plugged my 2 hard drives in SATAII 0 and SATAII 1. In advanced, in cmos, its suppose to be IDE....no SATA designate? I was reading that part in the mobo manual and I dont see it. Its very vague.

Im not suppose to designate slave/master in SATA correct?

Do you want the two WD 250GB HDs to show up as individual drives, or RAID?

If you want individual drives, plug each drive into SATA-II 0 and SATA-II 1 on the Intel ICH8 controller. In the system BIOS, go to Integrated Peripherals -> SATA Port 0-3 Native Mode -> Set to Disabled if you want to use IDE Legacy mode (I don't recommend), or Enabled to use AHCI mode (recommended). Using AHCI mode will require an F6 driver disk to be used during Windows XP installation.

If you want RAID, plug each drive into SATA-II 0 and SATA-II 1 on the Gigabyte controller. In the system BIOS, go to Integrated Peripherals -> Onboard SATA/IDE Device -> Enabled, and Onboard SATA/IDE Control Mode -> RAID. Restart, use Ctrl-G to enter RAID setup utility. Create your RAID array (RAID 0 or RAID 1). Restart, begin Windows XP setup, you will need F6 driver disk with Gigabyte RAID controller driver during Windows XP installation.

mikeny

To get SATA drives working goto 4-1-4 in your manual. After you have read that post any questions you still have.

SATA drive each have their own ports so there is no need to set master/slave. In general with IDE drive cable slect is the default and almost always works.

I've been able to build a Raid0 set using the PURPLE GSata controller and plugging 2 Sata 250gb WD drives in. I'm gonna try to install XP SP2 tonight using some floppy's that i just made and the F6 option.

Here's my question taht I can't seem to find a definitive answer for anywhere. In the specs of the motherboard there is a spec that lists Raid 0, Raid 1 or Raid 0+1 ability. Now for Raid 0+1 I realize you need a minimum of 4 drives. I'm assuming they are referring to the 4 ORANGE sata ports on my Gigabyte 965P DS3 board. I can get windows to recognize any sata drives installed in there but what utility do i use and where do i get it to install and configure those 4 ORANGE ports to set up a RAID0+1 configuration?

thanks,
Logan

I looked at the manual for the 965P-DS3 board, and I find no mention of RAID 0+1 or RAID 10. Where did you see this specified?

If you look on this link

http://www.gigabyte.us/Products/Motherboard/Products_Ov...

and scroll down to where it says "RAID Function For Storage Devices" you will see it listed there. The Manual is lacking! But what else is new  

-Logan

After some investigation, I believe that the specification you're citing is not correct.

First, the motherboard's south bridge chip is an ICH8, not an ICH8R. Therefore, there is no RAID capability on the orange SATA ports, period.

The Gigabyte SATA2 controller can do RAID, but there are only 2 SATA interfaces (purple) and the green IDE connector.

The manual only shows RAID 0, 1, and JBOD capability for the purple SATA ports. For RAID 0+1, you would have to have 4 drives, but the only way to do that on the Gigabyte SATA2 controller would be to have 2 drives on the purple SATA ports, and 2 drives on the Master/Slave of the green IDE connector. I don't think that would be a good setup, even if the controller supported it, which I don't think it does, and the manual doesn't show that it does.

So I'm thinking you're looking at RAID 0, 1, or JBOD for hardware-supported RAID, or software RAID on the orange SATA ports, or 3rd-party PCI/PCIe controller card.

Thanks for the in-depth response. I don't post much on boards cause it's usually filled with idiots asking questions and no knowledgable people answering them. I appreciate the effort.

It does appear that you are right and there is a type-o on there site about what the board can do. i already own the Adaptec 2410sa 4-port sata controller which will do Raid 5 or Raid 10 so i'll probably just do Raid 5

i have 2x 36gb Raptors coming in on Wednesday that I'll get set up. I did get windows installed on 2x 250gb plugged into my PURPLE connectors and setup as RAID0 array for 500gb of space. it's QUICK! i'm typing on it now, can you see how fast I typed this?  

again, thanks for the help.

-Logan

Just curious If windows has already been installed prior to this what other steps would need to be done or would i have to reinstall windows all over again

If you want to change the storage controller that Windows boots from without reinstalling Windows, see the sticky at the top of the forum "Switching Storage Controllers Without Reinstalling Windows".

I'm done messing with it, here's what i got

2x WD 36gb 360ADFD 10K rpm drives in RAID0 on the PURPLE GSata Controller running Win XP MCE 2005

4x WD 250gb drives in RAID 10 on my Adaptec 2410sa 4 port PCI sata controller with 470gb available

so far so good, i just printed out some overclocking instructions and am gonna push the proc to 3gHz tonight.
thanks for the help,

Logan

Reading the post it seams you really know this process. I am trying to dual boot a Vista, HP dv6900 series. I have everything I need, including a PIAD FOR version of XP. I am only stuck on how to set up the 3rd party f6 disc. I tried unpacking the drives needed off of HP site for XP but it does not see the drivers. I am sure I am just doing it wrong. do I have to write an ISO disc or something?
Any advice would be very appreciated.
gonzotr@gmail.com

Not the same problem as the rest of you but similar.

Was trying to add six drives to a RAID 5 setup on my Gigabyte mobo. There are six orange connections for the SATAII raid controller on board, and the 2 purple GSATA connections for the Gigabyte controller. My problem is that only 4 of 6 drives showed up in the BIOS RAID setup, but all six were seen in Vista.

Solution:
There is a default option in the Gigabyte BIOS to set SATA ports 4/5 to IDE rather than SATA RAID. Change that option and you are back in business.


Hope this helps somebody.


-Joe