Cannot install on SATA drives.

[jake.levine]

Hello,

I recently bought the NCCH-DL motherboard and have 2 brand new Maxtor 250GB SATA drives which I wish to configure as a RAID 1 (Mirror) configuration. I have entered the SATA configuration in the BIOS and set it to RAID and it lists the following:

X On Chip serial ATA Enhanced Mode
SATA Mode [RAID]
X Serial ATA Port0 mode Sata0 Master
Serial ATA Port1 mode Sata1 Master

I am not sure whether the drives are supposed to be greyed out or not. Using another computer I created a floppy disk with the drivers on as per the instructions. When prompted I pressed <CTRL+F> to configure the array using FastBuild which appeared to work fine. I then booted from a Windows 2000 Advanced Server CD and pressed F6 when prompted and loaded the Win2000 Promise FastTrak S150 TX2 Plus driver and continued the installation. When the process reached the page where you have to press enter to install an operating system on a particular drive it tells me no drives are installed.

Now on start-up I seem to get 2 errors when it looks for the controller. These read:

No int 13 drive to support
BIOS not installed!

I do not understand the ‘BIOS not installed’ error because I can still go into the BIOS and change settings. Surely I could not do this if there were no BIOS installed. Can you shed any light on what has happened and what I can do to install the W2K Advanced Server operating system on the drives as a RAID 1 configuration?

Can anyone help!

[StormPC]

Start by clearing the CMOS, then enter all of the appropriate BIOS settings. Make sure you disable the SB Adaptec RAID controller if you are not using it. You said you are using the Promise, so make sure you have the SATA HDD's in the correct connectors. Also, since the board (like many ASUS boards) has multiple controllers, make sure you use the correct driver as well. Check your manual for more on that. Read it and do exactly what it says. Also, the Main BIOS must be configured such that the IDE Config should be "Config SATA as RAID". When you are sure you have the correct driver(s) copied to the floppy and the Main BIOS configured correctly, do this:

1) While booting hit Control+F to enter the Fastbuild Utility.
2) Create the desired array.
3) Save the array (Control+Y)
4) Quick Initialize the array.
5) Save and reboot.
6) Install OS (don't forget F6)

Again, it is very important that you use the correct SATA connectors (there are 2 sets, one for the South Bridge/Adaptec and one for the Promise). Make sure you're using the correct driver(s). There may be more than one, but with the Promise I believe it's just one. And make sure your BIOS settings are correct.

Hope this helps.

[jake.levine]

Thank you. I will try this as soon as possible and let you know if it works.

[jake.levine]

I still cannot get the Windows CD to see the drives when trying to install OS. I think I have configured the RAID correctly and think it may be a problem with the drivers.

On further investigation it appears the 2 SATA ports on the side of the motherboard (NCCH-DL) use the Adaptec Raid controller which apparently uses the Intel 6300ESB chip and the 4 SATA ports on the motherboard use the Promise RAID controller and need the FastTrak driver.

By this I mean when I plug the drives into the ports on the side and start the PC up I can press <CTRL+A> and go into the Adaptec RAID controller and configure the RAID array whilst before it told me no drives detected when I tried this. I cannot however find any way to disable the Adaptec RAID controller via jumpers or within the utility itself.

I have tried using the two ports on the side and the Adaptec RAID controller and using the FastTrax driver as instructed by the manual but it didn't work. Do I need to load another driver when I press F6 during Windows installation because as I understand it the FastTrak driver is for the Promise chip not the Intel 63000ESB?

Anyway, after creating the array and exiting the Adaptec RAID controller the FastTrak screen appears and it has the message that was on the Adaptec screen before, when the SATA drives where plugged into the other SATA ports, which reads no drives detected, no BIOS installed. I presume this is because the SATA drives are plugged into the Adaptec ports which use the Intel6300ESB hence maybe the manual is wrong and I need different drivers for this chip.

There are two drivers that came with the motherboard for Win2000 installation which are as follows:

Win2000 Promise FastTrak 4000
Win2000 Promise FastTrak S150 TX2Plus

I installed the S150 TX2Plus and it did not work. Was this correct?

It may be useful to know that when I configured SATA as IDE in the BIOS It became possible to install windows on one of the drives ie. they were recognised by the Installation CD without pressing F6 and installing any drivers but I want to configure the drives as a RAID 1 and still cant get it to work.

Anyone have any ideas what I am doing wrong? Could I install W2K Advanced Server using IDE instead of RAID and then configure RAID in the operating system?

Jake

[m0cea]

I've just had major problems getting XP to install on my Asus A8N SLI deluxe.
In the end I have tracked it down to the fact I was only installing the drivers for the Nvidia SATA but needed to install the drivers for the Sil3114 controlers as well even though I wasn't using any thing on it.

[StormPC]

It should only need the "Win2000 Promise FastTrak S150 TX2Plus" driver, but you can try loading both drivers. I've had boards that needed two drivers loaded.

Before you do that though, does the array show up in your main BIOS as a bootable drive option? If so you need to make sure you have it selected as your #1 boot hard drive and #2 boot device (next to your CD ROM which is #1).

Check your cables to make sure they are not defective also. If you can't see the array then either your BIOS settings are wrong or you didn't make the array properly.

[jake.levine]

I have tried different cables and it makes no difference. I tried using both drivers before and it caused the PC to shut down.

I have a feeling that the main BIOS does not recognise the drives. The FastTrak utility does see the drives and the array is functional but the in the main BIOS when I change config to RAID the 2 SATA drives become greyed out which I think means that they are not seen. When I change config to IDE only one drive seems to be recognised. The other is still greyed out.

Can I set config in BIOS to IDE and install the OS then re-boot go into FastBuild and create a mirror and select the option to create and duplicate? Would this mirror an already installed OS onto the second drive?

[StormPC]

I've never tried it before but I don't think it would work because when you create an array you have to quick init the array which erases the content of the drives.

You may have a faulty controller (motherboard) or drive. Try using the NB Adaptec controller just to see if you can install that way. If so then your motherboard is bad (the Promise controller anyway). You could also try a PCI RAID controller like a HighPoint Rocket-RAID.

[oldnewbie]

Just general hints - don't know your specific set-up.

You could try installing the OS onto one disk and then build a raid 1 array to mirror this disk onto the other one. This should be possible. Alternatively, install a small IDE disk and build the OS onto that then use Maxtor maxblast4win (available from maxtor web site) to copy all system and data files from the IDE disk to the raid array and make it bootable. I used the second method when I couldn't install Windows XP onto a raid array because "no hard disk" was found during the install.

[jake.levine]

I have skipped the RAID configuration for the moment and installed an OS with SATA set to IDE mode to see if any other problems arise.

The PC unexpectadly shuts down. I have looked in the BIOS and watched the CPU temp which slowly goes up. I think the PC is shutting down due to overheating. The temperature is in excess of 90 degrees celsius at the moment. What is the ideal operating temperature? Im sure it should be much lower than this, more like 50 C. The system temperature is fairly stable at around 36 C. If the CPU's are overheating how do I cool them down even more?

The case I bought has 3 fans in it, 1 front, 1 rear and 1 top fan and I am using the Heatsinks that came with the CPU so why is it overheating? Could this be something to do with the BIOS?

[StormPC]

What PSU are you using? Does it have all the proper connectors for your motherboard? If you're running anything less than a high quality 480 watt PSU with all the right connectors you are begging for problems. Also, many people have had issues with Antec PSUs on this board.

Depending on exactly what chips you're running there seems to be a problem running stable with a high FSB. Check this out.

[DigiGuru]

I must have played so many times... not sure what SATA controller I have, but I ended up making a custom slipstreamed XP CD with the SATA drivers built in

Admittedly, I now have a SATA compatible version of XP to install (with SP2), but it did take about 20 coasters (after I realised that's what RW cds are for!)

[jake.levine]

I have a Tagen 420W power supply which is Xeon certified and has both 24 pin and 8 pin connectors for the motherboard. And it seems to fit the requirements of the motherboard for running 800mhz Processors.

I am running 2 Xeon 3.2 Noconas. I read the other forum about getting the processors running stable and tried to take there advice however it seems I cannot reduce the FSB to below 200 in my BIOS and the processors I have run at 1.4V Max and in my BIOS the minimum Voltage is 1.5V. Could this be why its overheating?

[StormPC]

I have a Tagen 420W power supply which is Xeon certified and has both 24 pin and 8 pin connectors for the motherboard. And it seems to fit the requirements of the motherboard for running 800mhz Processors.

I am running 2 Xeon 3.2 Noconas. I read the other forum about getting the processors running stable and tried to take there advice however it seems I cannot reduce the FSB to below 200 in my BIOS and the processors I have run at 1.4V Max and in my BIOS the minimum Voltage is 1.5V. Could this be why its overheating?

Yes it could.

Not sure what to tell you at this point. Do you have the latest BIOS? If you can't get your system stable a BIOS flash may be too risky. Too bad you didn't get yourself an A64 X2. They are awesome. Is it too late to RMA the stuff for a refund? Did you buy the CPUs and motherboard from the same place?

[jake.levine]

I have RMA'ed the motherboard for a replacement because I think the RAID controller is faulty. The CPU's I have are Nocona which are supposed to work fine with this motherboard so hopefully when the replacement comes it will work.

[StormPC]

Yeah, it sounds like a bad motherboard. Your temps were probably not being reported properly.