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Old February 13th 05, 02:12 PM
Jeff French
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Kelvin,
This is probably a dumb question but you do have more than just the two hard
drives (wd & seagate). Are you trying to create a Raid set of one hard drive
each? And finally, are you swapping the hard drives from one Raid controller
to the other without first deleting the drive from the Raid set and
formatting the partition?

Jeff
"Jeff French" wrote in message
news:knyPd.64089$EG1.1565@attbi_s53...
Kelvin,
I suggest you, reinstall the Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility
from the motherboard CD and then the Raid driver from the motherboard CD.
Follow the following procedures:

Disable the SATA Raid Function in the BIOS. Install a single hard drive to
SATA0_SB port. Install WinXP to this single drive using the F6 option and
the floppy disk having the drivers for the non-Raid drivers (from the
motherboard CD - floppy build). Once WinXP is finished loading run the
'Express Install' function on the motherboard CD. This will load all the
default drivers.

Now enable the SATA Raid Function in the BIOS. Re-install WinXP using the
F6 option and the floppy disk having the Raid drivers (from the
motherboard CD - floppy build).

This should clean-out all the suspect drivers and put your system back on
an even keel. Don't forget to format your other hard drive when you
finally get around to connecting it, the Raid partition on it is also
suspect.

This should give a PC with two Raid sets, one on the Intel SATA and the
other on the Silicon Image SATA.

Let me know how it works out.

Jeff

"Kelvin" wrote in message
...
well, i did some more test... here's the scenerio. i have two
drives...one is the western digital 200gb which i will refer to as the wd
drive from now on...the other is the seagate 400gb which i'll refer to as
seagate from now on. i installed xp w/ the wd drive connected to the
intel sata controller, everything works fine and is stable. when i try
to install xp w/ the seagate connected to the same controller, same port,
using the same cd and same sata controller drivers it crashes all the
time. now i can install the same seagate drive connected to the sil
3114r controller, which is stable and fine, but when windows start up and
i install the intel sata controller driver, it gives me an error.
according to the event viewer, aarich.sys is the cause of the problem.
i've experienced this before when trying to run partition magic and it
would tell me the aarich.sys is causing errors. i've tried different
versions of the drivers for the adaptec embedded hostraid controllers.
none will work. at times i'm able to install xp onto the seagate using
the intel controller, but once it's done installing it either hangs or
will not boot at all. now you're think, why not just put both drives on
the same controllers. well, i'm actually looking to get 4 more sata
drives... one more 200gb same as the wd, and 3 more 400gb same as the
seagate. so i need all the controllers to work. also, i want to put the
windows install on the seagate raid so i need the intel driver to work in
windows. much appreciated for all your help so far.
"Jeff French" wrote in message
news:HmmPd.64918$eT5.46476@attbi_s51...
Kelvin,
I think I ran across what probably happened to your Raid array. Intel
had upgraded the 6300ESB driver so that it is compatible with both the
ICH-5 and ICH-6. In doing so, older arrays made with the older 6300ESB
driver will not work with the newer driver. Could that driver you
installed from 'Gateway ?' have been the upgraded version? I don't know
if migrating back to the original driver would have even been an option
but I'm willing to bet you got caught in the middle. You did the right
thing by swinging your SATA drives onto the Silicon Image controller.
You can also run your ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drives from this controller if
you use a Silicon Image chip based IDE-SATA converter on the back of the
CD/DVD-ROM.
To answer your question.....
Yes, you're right, you'll need a floppy disk with SCSI support drivers
on them for your SCSI CD-ROM. Visit Bootdisk.Com and download a good
Win98 bootdisk, at the bottom of the website you'll find "Modify your
custom bootdisk to boot from a SCSI CD" follow that link to the next
page and follow the instructions to include the files within the
'scsiboot.exe' file highlighted. I've been using these modified boot
floppies for years. Perform the F6 option while installing WinXP to load
your SCSI controller drivers. Make sure you have your SCSI devices
configured properly before you start and don't forget to check twice all
the connections and terminator, this particularly true for U320 SCSI.
My last PC had only SCSI devices and that is why I chose this
motherboard to migrate some of my SCSI devices (hard drives and tape
backup). I've now got about all my devices converted to SATA (hard
drives, DVD-RW, and DVD-ROM). My next project is using a Silicon Image
3124-2 PCI-X board to attach some new faster SATA-300 hard drives. My
other PCI-X slot is already filled with a Firewire-800 card and prior to
WinXP SP2 was really working at great speeds. Thanks to WinXP SP2 the
speed is about halved.
This board invites the owner to experiment with all the IDE, SATA, SCSI,
and Raid combinations. It's a shame there isn't better support from
Gigabyte.

Have a Good Day!
Jeff

"Kelvin" wrote in message
...
thanks for ur help jeff. anyhow, here's my situation. i'm aware of
those steps. i did install windows xp successfully once. however, i
recently just bought a seagate 400gb drive, i have it hooked up to the
hance rapids controller (previously thought was the adaptec hostraid
controller) and windows install. once it's done installing it crashes
after awhile. it would continue to reboot until i shut the machine
off. i found the problem and apparently aarich.sys is the cause.
anyhow, now i'm using the sil 3114 controller and things are good
again. anyway, thanks for the info jeff. cleared up that little
mishap. one more question, is it possible to boot from a scsi cd-rom
and install windows? or do i need to get a dos bootdisk and install the
u320 dos drivers?


"Jeff French" wrote in message
news:MldPd.64403$eT5.61183@attbi_s51...
Kelvin,
I kept scratching my head over this one. As I have stated, I'm not
familiar with this Raid (Hance Rapids - 6300ESB SATA Raid) because I
don't use it. I have my SATA DVDs connected to these connections and
use the Silicon Image Sil 3114 controller for my SATA hard drives.
On the motherboard CD in the BootDrv directory are all the floppy
installed drivers. Click on Menu.exe. This will bring up a 'Command
Prompt window' with a menu of all the drivers available. Place a
formatted floppy disk in your floppy drive, at the prompt, enter 'G'
(Hance Rapids Raid), and then 'return'. The Hance Rapids Raid drivers
will be loaded onto the floppy disk. When finished the Menu will
return, simply enter '0', the 'Command Prompt window' will disappear.
Check your floppy disk and you should find the following files and
directory:

HRAIDSK1
TXTSETUP.OEM
WIN32 - DIRECTORY
AARICH.CAT
AARICH.SYS
ADHRAID.CAT
ADHRAID.INF
OEMSETUP.INF

'Enable' the 'SATA RAID Function' in the motherboard BIOS. Connect
your two SATA hard drives to the SATA0_SB and SATA1_SB connections,
then install WinXP. Use the F6 option early in the installation
process and place the floppy disk made above to load the Hance Rapids
Raid drivers. I think you know the rest of the process (about using
'Ctrl S' to bring up the Adaptec SATA HostRaid Controller utility to
configure your hard drive array).

I hope you find this information useful.

Good Luck
Jeff