SATA DVD kills my RAID 5 array (ASUS Striker Extreme MB)

[inspectorgadjet]

Hi.

I've been putting together a new computer and I'm about ready to tear my hear out because of my SATA DVD Writer. It's a Liteon LH-20A1S and is brand new out the box.
My motherboard is an ASUS Striker Extreme with 6 on board SATA ports. I have connected 3 hard drives to it in a RAID 5 array, and then also connected the DVD Writer.
First of all, trying to boot from the drive does nothing. The light goes on and it just sits there for ages before says non system disk. It does this if the hard drives are in RAID or SATA mode. I have also tried setting the SATA mode in BIOS to RAID for the drive and it does exactly the same thing.
I then tried installing Vista using an extrernal DVD drive which went smoothly and seemed to be working. Once it was installed, I opened the Liteon drive and put a CD into it. When I closed the drive my computer crashed and it destroyed the RAID 5 array somehow. I reinstalled, and tried again with a different CD and the same thing happened.
Does it sound like the DVD Writer is faulty or am I doing something wrong when connecting the drive to the motherboard? I am just about to try and get the DVD writer swapped over and thought I would check here first.

Thanks for any help/advice!

[dave87]

Does the Asus like the p5k have 2 controllers? One Intel one and a JMicron one? If so, try plugging it into the JMicron controller.

[inspectorgadjet]

I think it only has the one set of SATA ports on the Striker Extreme. The only other ports are eSATA ports on the back.

[Clunk]

Its a well known problem with 680 boards, and another reason to avoid them.

Is it new? If so, RMA it.

Sorry I cant be of more help.

[inspectorgadjet]

Thanks for that. Any recommendations for an alternative? I have about 2 days before my 28 day RMA period is up.
I'll be using it with an Intel QX6850.

[Steve B]

get a p35 based board like the 5k or the ip35

[inspectorgadjet]

What do you think of the Asus Blitz Extreme MB?

[Steve]

Does a BIOS update that this one? I can't remember.

[EtheAv8r]

I am running RAID on 4 hard drives, plus a single non RAID hard drive plus a SATA DVD = all 6 ports on the ICH8R controller in use on my abit QuadGT using Intel Matrix Storage Manager 7.5 and it works well. Same controller I think as on the Striker Extreme (and the “cough…” Commando….). It might be a BIOS issue – there were some with the abit (could not boot from SATA DVD), but the RAID worked OK. Now all sorted on the QuadGT so possibly a BIOS update for your ASUS board may help?