JMicron raid controller configuration problem

[EvilCabal]

Hi,

I have an ASUS P5W DH Deluxe motherboard, with a JMicron JMB363 raid controller on which I am trying to set a IDE raid with two identical WD 160g hdd. But, when I load the JMicron configuration tool, the drives are tagged as unavailable. What could cause this?

If I'm on the wrong forum tell me, but this looked like a hardware problem to me.

Thx!

Fred

 

[DTracy]

Are both drives set to switch selectable?

Are you trying for RAID1 or RAID10?

 

[EvilCabal]

Hi,

by switch selectable do you mean cable select? I will try so because right now they are set as master/slave (which worked for my old raid with ASUS P5AD2-Premium motherboard). I am going for raid1.

Thanks.

 

[wahnula]

I have this MB. From the manual, page 5-40:

JMicronSerial RAID controller allows you to confifure RAID 1 or RAID 0 sets on the external Serial ATA Hard Drives

So, this controller is intended for SATA devices, although I did connect an ATAPI CD drive to the IDE connector and it was detected and worked.

Generic questions: Did you load the jMicron drivers at Windows setup through F6? This needs to be done, or a repair install where you supply the drivers. Then, in BIOS, you should get your prompt to enter jMicron BIOS (CTRL+J) during boot.

You really should consider making the move to SATA, it's faster,better and cheap.

Tony

 

[EvilCabal]

Hi,

the manuel is unclear about this. It depends where you look. But, from the online specs:

"Onboard IDE/IDE RAID One Standard ATA133/100/66 (2 drives) by JMicron JMB363"

Also, I read a lot and it seems it should work for IDE raid.

I didn't load the drivers at install, but my problem is OS independant since in the RAID configuration utility the drives are unavailable, before the OS has been loader. I will not spend 150$ for two sata drives when I have two perfectly working IDE drives

DTracy, I haven't tried the swich select yet because I am currently moving.

 

[wahnula]

I didn't load the drivers at install, but my problem is OS independant since in the RAID configuration utility the drives are unavailable, before the OS has been loader.

Sorry, but you will still need the F6 XP drivers installed in order for the OS to see those drives that the BIOS sees. The easiest way is to do create the array in BIOS, make sure it is bootable, and do an XP repair install (second repair option) and insert the drivers from the CD via floppy. There is a MakeDisk option on the MB CD I believe.

I have played w/ this board a LOT (especially trying to make sense of the "EZ RAID" options, what a joke) and can tell you the JMicron RAID driver needs to be loaded at OS install. I am using one of the JMicron SATA ports as a second boot drive for Vista, w/ XP residing on ICH7 array.

Paparazi has the same board and should agree.

Tony

 

[DTracy]

EvilCabal,
Yes, cable select is what I meant to write, and either way, you will have to select the boot order in bios for the correct drive to start up--whether master/slave or cable select.

Regards,
David.

 

[EvilCabal]

Hi, I should be able to try playing with the drives settings tomorrow. For the boot order, I does not matter my OS is on a separate SATA HD. The raid is only for storage purpose.

Tony, I agree that I will need to install the OS with the drivers as stated in the manual. What I meant is that the drives being tagged as unavailable is not related to a driver problem.

Thanks.