abit Quad Gt problems AHCI RAID and J micron

[easternfront]

Hi
I update my bios to 15 but for me the AHCI and RAID and Jmicron doesn't work as intended.
I had previous 2x250gb WD YS setup in RAID 0 which worked fine, but now i changed to a single drive(bkup reasons) which is a samsung spinpoint T166 500gb NCQ and i just want 90% from it and from my MBO.
I spent days installing and reinstalling OS XP pro genuine with different settings in BIOS and load several drivers with F6 but the best i can get is UDMA 6 for drive with SATA mode set on raid in BIOS and F6 ICH8R raid driver loaded and also i can't get more than UDMA 4 for my pioneer 111bk and udma 2 for LG dvd rom both on same IDE cable.
The best instalation OS i have on those 2 x250GB WD YS left from previous in external RAID box with E sata cables which works realy fast and i have both DVD units working on udma 6.In this case i installed OS and load on f6 jmicron drivers but i didn't setup the HDD in raid.
I tried also instaling jmicron driver for windows but is just starting up my OS slower and my DVD's are still on UDMA 4 and 2.
Everest ultimat edition and sandra profesional sad the drive is capable of udma 7 or more and I should "check the BIOS settings or CHANGE controler driver"

1.Can anybody tell me where i get wrong and which driver with which settings in BIOS also exactly i should load on F6 to get the best of my HDD samsung and my DVD units?
I realy had enough trying installing several hours OS.

2.If i want to buy SATA DVD RW i will have same problems? If not which one should i go for?Which settings also when installing OS?
3. I can't get the front panel audio working the cables for front panel from Xclio is in one piece but i'm not sure is that the problem because didn't work on my previous case either

Thanks


SPECS:
E6420@2480mhz gemini II heatsink+ 1x12cm fan Abit Quad GT bios 15
Gskill 2 x 1gb F2 6400HK Cl4 930mhz
X1950XT power color 512RAM ddr 3
Thermaltake 700W
Xclio Windtunnel case

[redlight]

You could try this

Thanks to EtheAv8r

Yes... but beware the AHCI bug is back... so if you are using AHCI, RAID and want to boot from SATA optical you can't. The ever helpful Richh has posted a 'fixed' version over on the abit USA forum - I have been using Richh BIOS's on my QuadGT and they are good.

http://forum.abit-usa.com/showthread.php?t=128156

[easternfront]

Hi
Thank you for you quick response but which settings i should use even with this beta BIOS and which driver to load on f6 for my present samsung sata II and DVD w ram pioneer 111bk + dvd rom on same IDE cable(to get the best of it and work on UDMA 6 and 7 for HDD) till i get the SATA dvd wr?

[EtheAv8r]

I an at work so this is from memory.... I can provide more detail if needed later

Download the latest Intel Matrix Storage manager 7.6 from here: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Prod...=2101&lang=eng to choose the OS etc...

The actual downloads you want are on this page: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/filt...4&submit=Go%21

"RAID/AHCI Software - Intel® Matrix Storage Manager (5604KB) 7.6.0.1011 8/2/2007" is the main package and you also should download the Floppy maker and make an F6 floppy " 32-bit Floppy Configuration Utility for Intel® Matrix Storage Manager (289KB) 7.6.0.1011 8/2/2007 Download"

In the BIOS change setting from IDE to RAID

Firstly I will describe my setup:

I have five SATA hard disks (HD) in total plus a SATA DVD writer so all six ports on my Intel ICH8R controller. I am not using the JMicron controller so I have disabled it in the BIOS.

Four of the five HDs are identical 500GB HDs, and the fifth is 320GB.

Two of the 500GB drives are paired in a RAID Array, with the first 256GB volume being RAID 0 and is the C: (System) drive with Windows OS, most applications and general stuff, and the remaining 377GB is a RAID 1 volume and is the E: (Backups) drive. So there are two physical HDs in the array, and it has two volumes, a RAID 0 volume (created first so it takes the outer and faster cylinders) for speed/performance and a RAID 1 volume for resilience. If a drive fails I still have the data on the E: drive accessible, but the system on C: is trashed. I don’t care about this as I have backups and restore a working bootable system from an image in a few minutes.

The other two 500GB drive are also paired in a second RAID array, again with the first 256GB volume being RAID 0 and is the D: (Sims&Scenery) drive with Flight Sims scenery and some programs, and the remaining 377GB is a RAID 1 volume and is the F: (Data) drive.

So I run the OS from the C: and use the F: drive for data – as they are on physically separate HDs, performance is excellent. My documents (on the C: drive) is automatically replicated to a Server, but I keep photos, music, backup images, important docs etc on the F: (Data) drive. Most, if not all the F: Drive contend is replicated to the E: (Backups) drive so I effectively have 4 copies of my important data stored on separate HDs.

The fifth G: (Recovery) drive has another install of Windows, plus a bunch of utilities, benchmarks, evaluation and testing stuff etc. and I can boot to this for recovery or testing purposes so I keep ‘rubbish and ad-hoc’ stuff off my ‘operational’ system on the C: drive.

So that is the environment and as you can see you can have two separate RAID volumes on one physical pair of HDs as a two disk array – and there are other options with more drives in the array if you want. I believe it is a very safe way to operate. And Intel Matrix Storage Manager seems to work well.

It is possible to create a RAID array integrating a currently installed HD with Windows on it, and for experimental purposes I tried it to confirm it works and it does. However for me at that time the currently installed OS was my 320GB HD and I wanted to run my RAID off the 4 new 500GB drives, so I build that from scratch, which is possibly a bit easier.

All you do for that is install the HDs, go into BIOS and set controller from IDE to RAID, boot from Windows Installer CD, Hit F6 and load RAID Drivers, during POST hit Ctrl/I and configure the RAID 0 volume and then proceed to install Windows on that volume. You then install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager and can subsequently configure the rest of the RAID setup with that or via Ctrl/I at startup.

If you need detailed instructions, I can provide them.