swayzak

hi

I am trying to move all my data/OS partitions from 3 old PATA drives to 2 500GB WD Caviar SATA drives.

This is on an Asus P4PE board (with Promise 376 RAID/SATA controller chip).

RAID/SATA is enabled in BIOS & the Promise 376 driver has been installed on all OS partitions prior to the move.

My question is how do I set this up as just 2 replacement SATA drives (I don't want a RAID array) ?

The Promise chipset needs to be activated, because if I disable it, the drives don't appear in my partition utility (BootItNG) - if activated, they do & I can paste the partitions over.

But it seems to force me into the Promise RAID utility at bootup, so I have to create a stripe array.

I just want 2 non-RAID SATA drives !

Can anyone help ?

thanks

swayzak

dai

set them to run as ide in the bios

linderman

first off my experience with your board led me to the conclusion the promise sata / raid controller will only work for raid

#2 use the sata 0 & Sata 1 plugs on the motherboard >>>>>they are controlled by the Intel ICH5R onbard chipset controller

#3 >>>> disable the sata raid promise controller in the bios

#4 >>>>> you cant access or read or write to the sata drivers when connected to the intel controller until the sata driver is installed (thats the press F6 scene_ when you are runnign the windows install CD >>>>> but you can work around that issue by setting your onboard sata controller settings to IDE MODE instead of sata/IDE or enhanced mode ????

#5 >>>>> after you get the drives partitioned and the OS installed >>>> then you will need to load the motherboard chipset drivers found on your motherboard CD (inf driver package) after the motherboard chipset drivers are installed

#6 then you re-enter the bios .>>>>> change the IDE MODE to sata / ide mode or enhanced >>> which ever it was, sorry I am beginning to forget the detials of that board

dont forget to ask more questions


just for info's sake >>>>> the bootit NG cant access or see the drives when you connect them to the proper ports becasue without the onboard sata controller chipset driveres the drives cant be communicated with ?????

swayzak

It's official (from Asus support) - you have to set them up each as 1+0 RAID arrays (the is no separate SATA controller, it's all done by the Promise chip).

However, these are really "pseudo arrays" and just function as 2 SATA drives.

thanks

swayzak

linderman

do you have the P4P800-E deluxe ?????? that was the board I am assuming you have

if so, that board has two controllers the intel ICH5R controller and the promise controller >>>>> the operate on diff bridges >>>> one is on the south bridge the other the north

swayzak

Nah - P4PE.

Doesn't have a separate SATA controller chip - that's why they are only detected when the Promise chip is activated in Asus BIOS.

There is no other option re. SATA

linderman

ahhhhhhh OK sorry my mistake


you are 100% correct >>>> any drives connected to the promise controller must be configured in an array >>>>> before I did that; I would buy a sata controller card that fits into a PCI slot >>>> that would allow the drives to be sata controlled and each as stand alone / these are commonly obtained for about $35.00 for a high quality and cheaper for the less known brands.

raid is a serious undertaking >>>>> back-up drives are critical if you have data you dont want to lose >>>>> drives are not nearly as dependable as they used to be >>> and the raid set-up often does bonkers and needs to have the raid array "re-built"