Pissed off, Silicon Image 3132 problem

[Crashman]

This Silicon Image 3132 controller has a software problem, it picks up my Samsung HD160JJ in RAID BIOS but the driver won't show it in Windows. I tried the RAID application, but it just goes by the driver. I tried the latest drivers and BIOS for the controller. I even tried setting the HD160JJ with the SATA 1.5gb jumper on.

It picks up every other SATA drive just fine. And every other controller I have picks up the HD160JJ just fine.

The HD160JJ is a newer version of the SP1614 Serial ATA drive, with the SATA 3gb controller change. I've been able to RAID the SP1614 with the HD160JJ on other controllers, it works perfectly to do so. But the 3132 won't pick up the HD160JJ even in single mode, from within Windows.

The SP1614 works fine in Windows, by itself, on the 3132 controller.

Now that I've pre-rebutted all the ignorant responses, I have a question for the better informed: What's the deal with Silicon Image and Samsung's SATA 3gb drives?

 

[pscowboy]

I hope this is not an ignorant response Crash, but this controller and its' drivers may be earmarked for 64 bit XP. Could this be the glitch?

 

[lordroddington]

i had a problem with a sataII drive recently. it was a brand new seagate drive, and it didn't detect on a via 8237 chipset(don't know if the sata controller was built into the southbridge, might have been another chip). it was supposed to have some kind of auto-detect thing that would determine if it was plugged into a sata port or a sataII port, and it would automatically adjust the transfer speed. but apparently it didn't work in this case. the solution was to jumper two pins on the back, but it clearly wasn't what seagate intended because they didn't even provide the drive with a jumper.

 

[Crashman]

Nah, these are 2k/XP drivers, as opposed to their XP/03 64 drivers.

And that was actually a useful comment, thanks for not commenting on something I'd already addressed

 

[Crashman]

Wusy, this isn't an OS drive, it's only purpose in Windows is to be benchmarked and later removed.

Card BIOS detects the drive and picks it up, but the damned driver management program in Windows doesn't use it.

Also I'm having another problem: I have to use another Silicon Image program to add drives to Disk Management. I'd rather have them appear automatically. They do appear automatically using the nV SATA controller and nVRAID controller (two modes for the same controller), and I really think it's sucky to be forced to resort to using yet another application to make any other drive appear in Disk Management (the HD160JJ won't even appear in the driver control, so of course it's not in Disk Managment).

I'm about ready to write a scathing review!

 

[geobrick]

I have 2 HD160JJ's on a Silicon Image 3512 controller in a RAID 0 set. They work worked fine with the 1.0.0.33 SATAr drivers but when I updated to the 1.0.0.52 driver the set disapeared in windows XP. The drive does not even show up in the disk management console.

Changing back to the 1033 driver does not help! The array shows up at boot and all seems normal. The only way I can get the drive to re-appear is by using the XP system restore to go back to a restore point before the driver upgrade.

My SAMSUNG SP1614C drives don't have this problem.

Somehow the new driver is stepping on something in the registry that prevents winXP from finding the RAID array with the 2 samsung HD160JJ hard drives. This seems to be a Silicon Image driver software issue.

This Silicon Image 3132 controller has a software problem, it picks up my Samsung HD160JJ in RAID BIOS but the driver won't show it in Windows. I tried the RAID application, but it just goes by the driver. I tried the latest drivers and BIOS for the controller. I even tried setting the HD160JJ with the SATA 1.5gb jumper on.

It picks up every other SATA drive just fine. And every other controller I have picks up the HD160JJ just fine.

The HD160JJ is a newer version of the SP1614 Serial ATA drive, with the SATA 3gb controller change. I've been able to RAID the SP1614 with the HD160JJ on other controllers, it works perfectly to do so. But the 3132 won't pick up the HD160JJ even in single mode, from within Windows.

The SP1614 works fine in Windows, by itself, on the 3132 controller.

Now that I've pre-rebutted all the ignorant responses, I have a question for the better informed: What's the deal with Silicon Image and Samsung's SATA 3gb drives?

 

[Crashman]

Yes! An answer that coincides with my observations! Unfortunately I don't need the answer any longer, but someone who does might read this.

 

[geobrick]

While my reply directly relates to your issue, it did not resolve anything (yet).

One theory is that the new driver put's something into the registry that does not get removed when you try to go back to an earlier verson.

There is a thread (Click here) in some forum where a guy actually edited a file called "txtsetup.oem". He removed all the id= "PCIVEN_..." with their associated '&subsys_' specifics and replaced them with one line that was, id= "PCIVEN_1095&DEV_3114", "Si3114r". (For my 3512 it would be would be: id= "PCIVEN_1095&DEV_3512", "Si3112r")

He said that doing this forces windows to recognize ANY device attached to the controller as a RAID set. There are downsides to that but it worked for him.

I'd really like to know what is being stepped on by the new driver.

The differences I cound find are not related to the VEN/DEV/SUBSYS list as the new driver has all the VEN/DEV/SUBSYS specifics that the older driver has and more.

What I see is that there are 2 differences under the "[Files.SCSI.Si3112r_XP]" section. They are 1) the line "dll = disk1,SilSupp.cpl" does not exits in the older drivers file and 2) There are 2 semi colens (";;") before the line "catalog = disk1, Si3112r.cat" which to me indicates it was 'commented out'. That is not the case on the newer driver's "txtsetup.oem" file.

All of this may lead to what's being stepped on but I really think I should be looking more at the 'Si3112r.inf' file for differences.

I'll report back.