[petrula]

Problem: Changing the Intel controller from RAID to SATA

P4P800-E Deluxe; XP Pro SP2

I raided two 250GB SATA Maxtors on the Intel controller.
They worked fine.

For various reasons, I need to run them unraided.
From the XP Pro device manager, I disabled the Intel RAID driver.

I rebooted and set the BIOS to

Onboard IDE Operate Mode= Enhanced
Enhanced Mode Support On= S-ATA
Configure S-ATA as RAID= No
IDE Detect Time Out= 35

XP still thinks it is RAID.

The ASUS tech support said that once you install
the Intel RAID driver, it will not go away -
even if you uninstall the driver.
They claimed you have to do something to the registry.
Of course, they could not tell me what to change
in the registry. This all sounded fishy.

What steps do I need to take for XP to
recognize it as SATA instead of RAID?

Your feedback is appreciated.

 

[linderman]

Welcome to TSF:

I can think of two options /

1: make sure the raid controller is disabled in the bios / its in the advanced config section

2: if the above doesnt work / and it should ???? then you could do a repair all system files from within the rapir console of win xp / when you boot with the win xp cd in the cd-rom drive / it will ask you if you want to install win xp / answer yes / then it will bring to to the repair option once windows set-up realizes you already have windows installed / at that point choose repair option / replace all system files

the only draw back to this approach is you will need to reinstall all service pack updates as well as windows updates / but it will remove all drivers from windows system / it will not alter your installed programs though

here is a link discussing just such a procedure

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

you will however have to load the driver for the sata controller once the raid controller is disabled or the repair install is complete

regards

joe

 

[petrula]

It appears that my motherboard is having a hardware problem which is creating the driver issue. I replaced the SATA drives, the power cords, and the SATA cable. The SATA connector on the motherboard may have a contact problem.

If I wiggle the motherboard connector just right, the system boots properly and the SATA driver works - i.e. the system does not come back saying it's having trouble finding the RAID driver. Hence, these hardware connection issues created the peculiar driver issues.

Thank you again for your feedback.

 

[linderman]

Petrula:

I have seen that problem many times with sata drives / you may want to check out the right angle cables at newegg.com they stay connected much better

also dont be reluctant to grab a sata or raid PCI controller card at newegg.com they work AWESOME / I prefer the ones made by PROMISE

they have their own bios which saves alot of headaches with the buggy intel controller on our mobo / the thing I dont like about the P800 series board is the intel controller CH5 trying to play both roles of sata and IDE controller / many later released boards have a seperate dedicated controller for sata/raid they work better and are no were near as flaky.
cant beat the price $35.00 to $40.00 bucks !!

regards

joe