SCSI drive wont boot/coexist with IDE Raid Controller

JuzzamJuzzam
edited July 2005 in Hardware
We have a SCSI drive with the OS on it and want to setup a raid array to store non-OS files. We bought some HighPoint Rocket Raid 100 cards (our motherboards supports only up to 100ATA) and two IDE drives per card.

When the RocketRaid card is connected to the IDE drives, the SCSI OS drive doesn't boot. Here is the email I sent to HighPoint tech support (they haven't responded of course):

Hello there,

We are having problems booting a separate SCSI drive when using your adapter for two IDE drives (total of 3 hard drives on each machine).

I hope you can help, we are trying to use your Rocket Raid 100 (HTP302N) adapter at a datacenter at the University of Florida.

Our Setup
MSI K7-Master-S (MS-6341) Motherboards
http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=K7_Master-S&class=mb

The motherboards includes this embedded SCSI adapter:
Adaptec AIC-7899 SCSI adapter (with BIOS v2.57)

We are using a single SCSI hard drive for the OS only (no raid):
Seagate Cheetah X15 160Ultra 18.35GB
http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/specs/scsi/st318451lw.html

We are trying to use your RAID adapter to setup ftp space separate from the OS. Each machine has two of these IDE drives connected to your Raid adapter:
120GB SEAGATE ATA100 EIDE Barracuda ST3120026A
http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/specs/ata/st3120026a.html

The problem is when the IDE drives are plugged into the Raid adapter we get: "Disk boot failure, Insert system disk and press enter"

The motherboard bios has "SCSI" set as the first boot device. If the RAID adapter card is in it's slot and no drives are connected to it, the SCSI drive does boot. The OS drive fails to boot when one ore more IDE hard drives are connected to the Raid controller. We have not formatted the IDE drives or setup an array yet.

What we have tried so far:

(1) Updated the motherboard bios to 6341MS V1.5 (Award Bios)

(2) Updated your HPT302N Bios to v2.351

(3) We enabled "EBDA reallocation" using "load /c /i /v 3xxv235.p6e"

(4) We tried deselecting "BOOT" on HDD0 under the "Set Boot Disk" menu of the HTP302N Bios Utility, but it does not seem to save this. Upon re-entering the Bios it has "BOOT" next to it again.

(5) We noticed this issue in the readme, however could not find where to disable EBDA reallocation in the Adaptec AIC-7899 bios (we did enable EBDA for your bios as shown above):
* Compatibility issue with Adaptec SCSI adapter

If you encounter compatibility problems when you use HPT3xx controller
together with Adaptec SCSI adapter, please try to disable EBDA reallocation
in Adaptec SCSI BIOS, or enable "EBDA reallocation" in HPT3xx BIOS.
You can use BIOS loading utility v2.2.07.01 or later to enable this
feature (e.g. "load /c bios372.232").

One last thing we noticed is in regard to the 5.2 Set Boot Disk section of instruction manual which says "The Set Boot Disk item appears only when no hard disk is connected to the motherboard IDE connector." This doesn't seem to be true in our case, because when we connect one of the IDE drives to motherboard and the other to the RAID controller, the bios still displays "Set Boot Disk." The motherboard detects the IDE drive connected to it because it displays it on the screen with the IDE CD-ROM on startup.

Thanks for your help,
Juzzam

Comments

  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited March 2005
    The highpoint has changed the drive numbering and the boot.ini no longer points to the correct drive.

    It sees the highpoint as a scsi drive also which might be part of the problem but I bet the array or drives on the HPT just jacked the drive numbering and the boot.ini is now pointing to the wrong drive.

    Tex
  • lucaslucaslucaslucas
    edited May 2005
    i finally figured to make a floppy boot disk for the drive i wanted to boot from
    scsi host adapter with a ide controller both pci add-ins , no operating system found.
    i frigan tried eveything......

    ya gatta copy ntldr and ntdetect from windows setup cd under I386 folder go to root drive c or what ever go to folder options show hidden system files copy boot.ini <says boot configuration file >copy those three files to formated floppy thats for xp

    wouldnt hurt to move controller to a pci slot with better priority "closer to cpu "
    the only thing is that u must boot from boot disk every time u boot not a big deal really
  • lmgoldinlmgoldin
    edited July 2005
    Tex,

    I have a Shuttle MB with HPT built in. I just set it up in March, and now I am getting the disk failure error message. When I try to boot with the Windows XP Pro CD, Windows ignores me pressing the F6 option.

    How can I tell if the hard drive(s) (2 Maxtors) are bad or if HPT changed the drive numbering. I have another computer with HPT and I found a boot.ini file under the Windows directory.

    Thanks for any help!

    Linda
    Tex wrote:
    The highpoint has changed the drive numbering and the boot.ini no longer points to the correct drive.

    It sees the highpoint as a scsi drive also which might be part of the problem but I bet the array or drives on the HPT just jacked the drive numbering and the boot.ini is now pointing to the wrong drive.

    Tex
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited July 2005
    When you say It ignores you pressing F6 what does it do? Are you hitting it when it says on the bottom to press f6 to install drivers right as XP boots from the CD?

    later after copying files it should prompt you to insert a floppy disk for example?

    I assume this is raid-0? and the message is from teh HPT bios?

    Tex
  • lmgoldinlmgoldin
    edited July 2005
    Tex wrote:
    When you say It ignores you pressing F6 what does it do? Are you hitting it when it says on the bottom to press f6 to install drivers right as XP boots from the CD?

    later after copying files it should prompt you to insert a floppy disk for example?

    I assume this is raid-0? and the message is from teh HPT bios?

    Tex

    Tex,

    When I press F6, when it says to on the bottom, Windows setup continues loading as if I hadn't pressed it.

    Later it does prompt me to insert a floppy disk, but I'm not sure what to put on it. I put the drivers for the HPT on one, but then it wanted an "OEMINF.TXT" file (I could have the name slightly wrong).

    It is raid-0. The "Disk Failure" message is from the HPT bios. When I hit Ctrl-H to get into HPT bios, it shows both drives, with the first one set up as the boot drive.

    Thanks for your help...I've seen your posts and I know that you are extremely knowledgeable regarding RAID.

    Linda :scratch:
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited July 2005
    If your getting the drive failure from the HPT bios your screwed buddy. I can help you with the f6 thing but not the drive failure message.

    NEVER ever as in NEVER EVER put anything on raid-0 you can't afford to lose. You WAY more then double your chances of complete data loss. You have to back up the raid-0 array. IDE drives regularly fail in the first 12 months all the time. maybe 30 percent of them.

    Tell me you have it backed up and we can continue.

    Tex
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited July 2005
    lmgoldin wrote:
    ...When I press F6, when it says to on the bottom, Windows setup continues loading as if I hadn't pressed it...
    Do you have a keyboard with lots of extra buttons (like volume control, Internet & email shortcuts, etc) on it? If so, look for a key marked "F-Lock" or something similar. The extra buttons are actually mapped to the F1-F12 keys, which won't work without the F-Lock key being on. The keyboard may have a light to indicate F-Lock status. :)
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited July 2005
    No he is getting the F6 pressed OK as it asks him for the floppy later.

    He doesnt have the CORRECT floppy though it apears. But no matter what floppy he puts in the "drive failure" message concerns me the most.

    Unless he breaks the array and tests that drive I wouldnt continue for sure. If he knows both drives are sound and doesnt need the data we can help him build the correct floppy to reinstall though.

    Tex
  • lmgoldinlmgoldin
    edited July 2005
    Tex wrote:
    If your getting the drive failure from the HPT bios your screwed buddy. I can help you with the f6 thing but not the drive failure message.

    NEVER ever as in NEVER EVER put anything on raid-0 you can't afford to lose. You WAY more then double your chances of complete data loss. You have to back up the raid-0 array. IDE drives regularly fail in the first 12 months all the time. maybe 30 percent of them.

    Tell me you have it backed up and we can continue.

    Tex

    lol...it's backed up. However, I'd appreciate it if you could tell me how to handle the F6 thing.

    Linda
  • lmgoldinlmgoldin
    edited July 2005
    Tex wrote:
    If your getting the drive failure from the HPT bios your screwed buddy.

    BTW, I'm a buddETTE. ;-)
    Tex wrote:
    NEVER ever as in NEVER EVER put anything on raid-0 you can't afford to lose. You WAY more then double your chances of complete data loss. You have to back up the raid-0 array. IDE drives regularly fail in the first 12 months all the time. maybe 30 percent of them.

    Why do you more than double your chances of complete data loss with raid-0?

    Does that mean that IDE drives using raid-0 fail MORE than 30 percent of the time? (That is an astonishing figure, by the way).

    Linda ("Buddette")
  • FlintstoneFlintstone SE Florida
    edited July 2005
    Because when you build a 2 drive raid 0 array, you're spanning the data across 2 drives. So, one dirve essentially has half of the data and the other drive has the other half. The problem is that if one drive fails, the data on the other drive makes no "sense". The data stream is cut up into sections of specific lengths and each length is alternately put on one drive then the other. You can see how the "lengths" of data on one drive could and probably would have absolutely no meaning without the "lengths" on the other drive to preceed and follow.

    Because of all of that, and the fact that the 2 drives essentially become one drive with 2 parts, it is now twice as likely to fail as one drive by itself. The probability of each drive failing adds to the probability of the other. Hence, twice as likely!

    Does that confuse you enough?

    I'll let Tex answer the 30% bit!

    Flint
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited July 2005
    lmgoldin wrote:
    BTW, I'm a buddETTE. ;-)



    Why do you more than double your chances of complete data loss with raid-0?

    Does that mean that IDE drives using raid-0 fail MORE than 30 percent of the time? (That is an astonishing figure, by the way).

    Linda ("Buddette")

    Linda did you ever check out both drives to make sure both are good before trying to raid them again? Thats step one. Once you know they are good (maxtor has a utility you can download) and remake the array in the hpt bios we can continue.

    email or PM me with a email address and I'll make you a floppy disk up that should work for you to use pressing F6.

    Glad to help my struggling "Buddette".

    Cheers and best of luck

    Tex

    I'll be out all day Friday at a corporate training deal. be back friday evening after six o'clock PM mountain time
  • lmgoldinlmgoldin
    edited July 2005
    Hi Tex. I downloaded Maxtor's utility, and both drives check out as good. What do I do next?
  • lmgoldinlmgoldin
    edited July 2005
    Tex,

    Instead of rebuilding the raid array, am I better off just connecting the drives via the IDE cable and formatting them the "usual" way? If so, how do I get rid of the HPT bios?
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited July 2005
    You can even run them as single drives not raided off the hpt if you want.

    To get rid of the HPT bios disable the raid in the compters bios. You know the hit delete when you boot up thing.

    Every MB maker sticks it in a differant section but carefully page through and you will see it. But disabling it you just save a couple seconds when you boot if there are no drives on it anyway. It won't hurt you to just leave it. Even if you take the drives off.

    If you spend enough time tweaking the raid so that its really optimized SOME things are faster. Some will be slower with that controller. If you just chunk it out there and don't really optimize the settings you probably were not seeing any big gains anyway. I have setup hundreds of these.

    For you I would say keep them as single drives. less risk. More stable for a regular user.

    And edit your post above to remove the email address. Never post it online Buddette! If someone needs it email it to them or PM it to them. There are enough weird people on the net these days. And they know your a babe too so.. Just for safety's sake edit the post and take that sucker out OK?

    Good luck "Buddette".

    PM or email me if you need more help. I would still be glad to build you a diskette of the raid drivers if you need them.

    Cheers

    Tex
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited July 2005
    Tex wrote:
    ...edit your post above to remove the email address...
    Good call, Tex. I knew that if you needed it you'd already have it, so away it goes.

    lmgoldin, you're in good hands with Tex. Whichever way you decide to configure things, he'll help you get it set up right. :)
  • lmgoldinlmgoldin
    edited July 2005
    Tex,

    You are a gentleman. Thank you so much for your time and advice. You helped me a lot; I wouldn't have known what to do without you. :thumbsup:

    Best to you,
    Linda
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited July 2005
    Pleasure was all mine

    Tex
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