Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H---- Raid Bios Help Needed

urusai

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May 5, 2008
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OK folks here's what I got going!

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H
Processer: AMD A64 x2 4400+ 65watt
Memory: G-Skill 2Gx2 F2-6400CL5
CDROM: Samsung DVD Burn (SH-S203N) SATA
Case: Antec Sonota III (500w PS)
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
Seagate Barracuda 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
Western Digital Caviar SE 160GB 7200RPM 8MB SATA 3.0Gb/s

Bios: F3 Updated to most Current

Here is the problem, I am trying to load the OS (XP Pro) on the WD160GB and raid the 2 Cudas (raid 1). I have tried it many ways...
I can NOT get the WD160GB solo in the Raid bios screen...
XP Pro & Vista Home Pre can NOT see anying other than the Raid setup when Raid in BIOS is set & Raid is made...
When setting BIOS to Raid but not seting up a raid no drives are seen...
When setting in bios is set to AHCI all drives are seen, however NO RAID...
Now when bios is set to raid all 3 drives are seen in the raid bios screen, I just cant tell it to boot from the WD160... So I have ava WD160GB without it being assigned in the raid bios, while the 2 Cuda's are set to Raid 1...

Whats weird is that when I set the 2 Cuda's to raid 1, I get a message on the screen
"Found The Backup Drive.
If you want to enable its boot function.
Please enter the Fastbuild UtilityTo Enable It."

The only options for the drives are Raid 0, 1, 10, Raid Ready & JBOD...

Raid Ready does nada OS wise!

Begining to think the only way around this is to get another 160GB HDD to Raid 1 the OS drives also...

BTW only way I got the SATA CDROM to work was to (in Bios) set then SATA 4/5 to IDE mode... Anyone know if/how this will effect the Transfer speeds with the CDROM and/or the 5th SATA channel?

I have this type of HDD/Raid setup on many Machines old/new and have never had this problem.... If anyone has a sugestion, please respond...

Thank you for everyones time... I also sent this same question to AMD and Gigabyte support...
 

urusai

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May 5, 2008
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I have gone on and tried to get the SATA DVDROM or 1 of the 250gb Seagate drives to be noticed under the RAID BIOS. Still no luck..... Even Gigabyte cant figure this out!!!!