Gigabyte RAID 1 Repair Reinstall in Windows XP Pro (32-bit)
G'day,
For my issue below, here's the customer's server setup (the parts that will matter to this Q, anyway):
- Running Windows XP Pro (32-bit) - SP3;
- Running RAID 1 mirrored (Seagate ES SATA HDDs);
- Motherboard is the Gigabyte GA-8I954G Pro (that's an i, not the number 1)
As some brief background to my issue, a customer's server won't start up saying the volume is degraded. I've replaced with a suitable drive and the RAID software during boot now says that the drive is a RAID volume. Because the PC won't boot, pausing at AHCP driver (IRQ 9) on boot (basically, just before it would otherwise show the Windows load screen), I'm trying to run a repair reinstall via Windows XP SP3 disk. After having loaded the SATA RAID driver for this mobo via floppy (hitting F6 during boot from CD and selecting the only non-mobile RAID driver mentioned (ICH8R/ ICH9R SATA RAID CONTROLLER)), however, I'm being told that the repair can't proceed as the drive/s can't be detected. Do you know what might be causing this?
This is the 2nd time I've needed to run a repair reinstall of XP on a system running RAID and it's possible I've missed something.
For my issue below, here's the customer's server setup (the parts that will matter to this Q, anyway):
- Running Windows XP Pro (32-bit) - SP3;
- Running RAID 1 mirrored (Seagate ES SATA HDDs);
- Motherboard is the Gigabyte GA-8I954G Pro (that's an i, not the number 1)
As some brief background to my issue, a customer's server won't start up saying the volume is degraded. I've replaced with a suitable drive and the RAID software during boot now says that the drive is a RAID volume. Because the PC won't boot, pausing at AHCP driver (IRQ 9) on boot (basically, just before it would otherwise show the Windows load screen), I'm trying to run a repair reinstall via Windows XP SP3 disk. After having loaded the SATA RAID driver for this mobo via floppy (hitting F6 during boot from CD and selecting the only non-mobile RAID driver mentioned (ICH8R/ ICH9R SATA RAID CONTROLLER)), however, I'm being told that the repair can't proceed as the drive/s can't be detected. Do you know what might be causing this?
This is the 2nd time I've needed to run a repair reinstall of XP on a system running RAID and it's possible I've missed something.
nobus
>> , pausing at AHCP driver << do you mean AHCI? then check how your sata drive is set - sata, ide, or compatible - select ide, or compatible
ASKER
Nobus, yes, it was AHCI - sorry, rushed through that without really proofing it. Speaking of rushing, I also missed the fact that there are actually 5 HDDs in the machine, not just 4 (it was tucked away good and proper). Of these 5, it appears that there are two pairs of RAID drives running off the mobo via SATA and another (which I've now found out is the boot drive) which is running off a PCI SATA card. Very unobservant of me not to pick this up originally. I can't see that the mobo can see the boot drive, so I'll replace the PCI SATA card to see if that helps. If memory serves, too, there is something tricky that needs to be done once you reach more than 4 drives running off the mobo?
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ASKER
Chose own comments as solution as worked out solution myself.
tx for feedback - good to know it's ok