NVRaid cant entr bios w/F10 to set it up on A8N SLI Deluxe

[givmedew]

When NVRAID is enabled I can not enter the set up menu for NVRAID Configuration it says press F10 to enter but that does not work... I need this to work because I have 2 IDE drives that are raided together with very important info on them...


I am sure that someone knows the exact answer to the problem... if you dont know please dont post speculation

Thankyou

 

[Flakes]

ok another one that doesnt read manuals....goto(in the BIOS)

Advanced -> Onboard Devices Configuration -> NVRAID Configuration

and set Raid to Enabled, then enable the IDE devices you want to use in RAID.

that may be a bit different cause your mobo is the one down to mine but its still there.

then try the f10.......should work, its in your manual... :twisted:

 

[givmedew]

OK heres what I did before I posted...

I enabled NVRAID, I went into ide devices I enabled PRIMARY MASTER and SECONDARY MASTER. That did not work and I am positive that both drives are set to master.

Also something weird... windows reports in Device Manger ?Other Devices it lists
?Unkown device
?WDC WD1200BB-53CAA1
?WDC WD1200JB-00EVA0

so it see the drives that are plugged in...

BUT REGARDLESS OF THAT... First thing is first... I want the F10 button to work so I can enter the setup...

Then I will work on the windows portion LATER

 

[Flakes]

well one way to check is by looking at the config at the first page you come to at the bios itll tell you if both IDE are master it could of set one to Primary Master and the other to Primary Slave.

 

[pat]

OK heres what I did before I posted...

I enabled NVRAID, I went into ide devices I enabled PRIMARY MASTER and SECONDARY MASTER. That did not work and I am positive that both drives are set to master.

Also something weird... windows reports in Device Manger ?Other Devices it lists
?Unkown device
?WDC WD1200BB-53CAA1
?WDC WD1200JB-00EVA0

so it see the drives that are plugged in...

BUT REGARDLESS OF THAT... First thing is first... I want the F10 button to work so I can enter the setup...

Then I will work on the windows portion LATER

So, you REMOVED the jumper on those WD hdd to set them as master? No, I guess that you set the jumper to master with slave present..
Look at the sticker on the HDD and check the jumper setting for master.

 

[givmedew]

there is no jumper in either of them... they are master no slave... they were previously correctley set up in another machine

 

[mpjesse]

Try putting them on the same channel.

-mpjesse

 

[pat]

there is no jumper in either of them... they are master no slave... they were previously correctley set up in another machine

Ohh so you moved the array from another machine?? Same RAID controller?? If not, then the RAID meta data my confuse the controller's BIOS and have it to figure what all that means..

 

[givmedew]

OK, heres what I dont understand. Why will it not go into the setup menu? On any of my other machines even if there is no drive attatched you can still go into setup... I have used those 2 drives in 2 differant machines with no problems the 2 machines had differant raid controllers... still no problem. I understand that it very possible that the new controller will not recognize the old image HOWEVER why cant I go into the setup? This is crazy!

is there a convertor for IDE to Serial that will work so I can just use them on my serial raid controller?

Does anyone have this exact same board trying to use IDE raid and has it working?

 

[pat]

Because if it already been configured as RAID, but with another brand of controller, then the RAID BIOS is trying to make sense of what all that means.

If it was brand new drive without RAID metadata written on, then the controller won't have to look further and give the setup screen. And if it was a RAID array done by the same controller, then it immediately know what tha mean and go to the BIOS screen.

But if there is something written already, then the BIOS is stuck.

Cette phrase en francais veux rien dire vraiment.. sauf qu,elle est en francais..

You see what I wrote up there.. it is in another language. you may not know what that means. maybe I'm making fun of you.. but if you don't understand that language, and even don't know which one it is, then you,ll want to figure out... you know that there is something written, you don't know what.. but you keep searching....

just like your current controller.. If the array was done on a Sil controller, the controller know that there was an array created, but it simply don't understand what the other controller did write. And maybe the information just froze the raid BIOS too.


So I asked you:
Ohh so you moved the array from another machine?? Same RAID controller??

It would be easier for me to help you if you answer my question.. I cannot figure everything for myself. And if you don't want an answer, don't post then ...

 

[givmedew]

i believe the last controller it was on was a sil

I am going to try and rebuild that computer and put the hard drives back in and backup all the data... then format them... what had confused me was that on the other raid controllers i have used no matter what you hook up to them you can allways still enter setup... even if you dont have a hard drive plugged in... even if you just have one or a cd drive dosnt matter you could still enter setup just you wouldnt really be able to do anything.

 

[pat]

Damn .. how many time do I'll have to tell you.. You can plug anything on the RAID controller, but NOT AN EXISTING RAID ARRAY!! THE ARRAY INFORMATION ALREADY WRITTEN ON THE HDD WILL CONFUSE THE CONTROLLER... HOW DO YOU THINK THAT A CONTROLLER KNOWS WHAT KIND OF ARRAY IT IS?? A CONTROLLER IS NOT A PROPHET! NO.. IT SIMPLY LOOK AT THE DRIVE AT ONE PLACE WHERE SUCH INFO IS WRITTEN AND ADJUST ITSELF TO THE TYPE OF ARRAY THAT EXIST. RAID ARRAY CANNOT BE MOVED FROM ONE BRAND OF CONTROLLER TO ANOTHER.


Anyway, all that had to be sais has been said. I won't comment anymore.

 

[mpjesse]

Then how do you migrate the drives to a new RAID controller? There must be a way. Some sort of low level format? I'm asking because I don't know the answer myself.

-mpjesse

 

[pat]

You backup. Erase both drive. remove from old controller. Put on the new one. Redefine array. reinstall.


That's the onl way i found sinse I use RAID array.. 5 years now ..

You simply cannot take an array done on a promise and put it on a Sil or nvidia expecting it to work.

jst like you cannot flash an Asus mobo BIOS to a Gigabyte one.

 

[mpjesse]

Right... I don't expect to keep the data. But at what level do you format the drives? I'm assuming that a windows format won't remove the RAID data crap. So... where do you format? In the RAID controller? BIOS? What? Do you need to nuke all the partitions as well?

-mpjesse

 

[pat]

What I do usually is delete the array within the controller BIOS, or delete all partition within windows install on the main drive,

Often, you'll see that windows will see one drive with the size of the total array, which is not good.. You cannot have a 160 gigs HDD with 320 gigs of partitionned space. But once all the partition has ben deleted, then the drive will get its normal size back.

Sometim, with certain controlller, you can simply change channel. If the controller expect to see the data on connector 1 and you put the drive that has it on 2, then it may start.

Nvidia controller are rather fail safe. if you built an array and later switch channel from the drive, it won't fail. I did try to fool them but it seem that the controller scan each channel to find the data.

The ULI controller I now have don't seem that smart. If I switch channel for my drive, the array won't be found again..

Anyway, the safest thing to do is to delete the array BEFORE switching motherboard.. It takes 5 seconds ..