Asus A8N-SLI replacement (Raid 0) problem

[Rivalyn]

Alright, friend has an alienware that the mobo blew because the fan stuck. I replaced the motherboard but he sadly had a Raid O array. We replaced the board with the exact same mobo which he ordered from Alienware. When I access the raid from startup, it shows no physical drives or logical drives. Attempting to test the functions (ie low level format) says there's no single hdd available. Looking in BIOS, it recognizes the two SATA drives and has them in it's bootup order. When I attempt to let the system boot past startup, it states there's a disk read error and use ctrl-alt-del to restart. I'm assuming there's a problem with the raid controller recognizing the specific raid setup. What are my choices from here as he's hoping not to have to format the drives.

Thanks!
-E

[dangel]

Was it an nVidia raid set or a SiL one? I think that board had both as I remember?

Does the RAID bios itself see the set? Are you running the latest bios?

[Rivalyn]

I have to assume the Nvidia because he doesn't have SLI enabled, he just has one graphic card. I'm working on creating a disk to update the bios, but would the bios have an effect on the raid? Or are you asking if I've updated the raid drivers? I have not done either yet, I just want to make sure this isn't a futile effort and if anyone's done it before, the exact steps.

-Thanks

[dangel]

No, not "SLI" - "SiL" - silicon image RAID. I used to have that board and it has two controllers - an nVidia SATA (RAID) controller and a SiL SATA (RAID) controllers. When you update the BIOS it may ALSO update the RAID bios for the two controllers (it did when I had it) so yes, potentially a later bios might not work with a set created with an earlier one (although I doubt it).

So, I think the things to check are:

1. Latest BIOS on board

2. Enabled the two RAID controllers in the main BIOS (SiL and nVRAID)

3. Try the RAID set (the drives) plugged into both the SiL headers on the motherboard AND then the nVidia one (all SiL or all nVidia NEVER one of each). If you created a set with SiL and plugged it into nVidia (NVRAID) then it won't work - period (and vice versa is true).

Drivers are irrelevant at this stage - until you can see the set in the BIOS windows won't even get a look-in.

[dangel]

Note that the RED connectors are for one controller and the BLACK ones for the other.

[Rivalyn]

Yeah, plugged them in the same ones they were previously in. The black ones. The BIOS itself does recognize the two SATA drives. It's just the raid controllers that don't (accessed by f4) but yeah I'll try to update the bios first.

[dangel]

Yeah, plugged them in the same ones they were previously in. The black ones. The BIOS itself does recognize the two SATA drives. It's just the raid controllers that don't (accessed by f4) but yeah I'll try to update the bios first.

I could be wrong but.. you *MIGHT* have to recreate the RAID set in the F4 BIOS (i.e. reselect the drives as a set). It's risky tho - it might well wipe the existing set or work and reuse it. I'm honestly not 100% sure on that one but I *THINK* that's what I did when got my replacement mb (A8N32) - just plugged my old set in from the A8N (nVRAID) and reconfigured the set in the RAID bios and I was off.

As I say, not 100% sure but the problem may be that the BIOS just doesn't have the RAID set association stored and 'recreating' the set resolves it. I seem to remember bricking it when I did it (although I did have a backup) but I was extremely well lubricated when I did it..

[Captain Fizz]

It's a suck it and see I'm afraid.

You WILL need to re-setup the array.
No actual data is changed doing this so basically you can't go wrong...

I hope you marked the drives so you know which is the first in the array?
(So HDD 1 was plugged into SATA Port 1, HDD 2 plugged into SATA port 2?)

If you have not marked the drives, then you'll need to try setting up the array one way - See if you can see your partitions & data...
Then set it up with the drives plugged in the other way round... See if you can see the data.

Use the same stripe size that was used before etc (leave at default if he didn't change it the first time)

EDIT - Also, have a read of the BIOS Updates available as per dangel's post...
If any of them update the RAID firmwares, then you'll need to have the same version as you did before.
If you can't remember that... You'll have to try 4 times. 0_o
Both ways round and with both BIOS's.

TIp for future - Always mark your drives.

[dangel]

If they're striped then order shouldn't matter - it certainly hasn't for me

[Captain Fizz]

If they're striped then order shouldn't matter - it certainly hasn't for me

Ahh - Decent.
Seems a bit off that it wouldn't make a difference tho...

So if it doesn't work the first time, see if there are BIOS updates/downgrades.
The array does not automatically get detected tho - It will need set back up...

[Rivalyn]

Alright, I enabled Nvidia raid in the advanced settings in the bios and it's booting to Windows. Now Windows is showing "Found new hardware" raid array. So, the next question is, where to now? Update the bios? When I access F4 raid, it's still not showing physical or logical drives.

[Rivalyn]

Ahh - Decent.
The array does not automatically get detected tho - It will need set back up...

So how do I set that back up if the F4 access isn't showing any physical/logical drives?

[dangel]

Are you booting off another drive then (not a memember of the RAID set)?

Did you recreate the RAID set in the BIOS as advised? Are no drives listed at all in the create raid set bit? If not i'm pretty confused


Disable the SiL controller to make life easier too if I were you.

[dangel]

...and another thing - isn't it F10 for the nVidia RAID bios?

[Rivalyn]

Oh no, I'm booting off the drive in the raid set. I'm just concerned about the "new hardware found" function. He's saying previously he never got the whole "Press ctrl-s or F4 to access the raid" and it went straight to Windows. Should I go ahead and let the found new hardware setup continue?

[dangel]

Well if you booted off it your sorted - so yes, don't worry about it re-finding the array it should be fine.