2 RAID Cards in 1 PC

Tasp2Tasp2
edited April 2006 in Hardware
Sorry if this has been covered already I search but found nothing.

I recently bought a Newlink (cheap) raid card installed it no problem, using mirrored array with 4 300gb maxtor drives.

Here comes the problem, I thought the whole raid thing was great, so I bought another of the same kind, installed and windows manager sees it as installed, but can't see the drives. When the computer is booting it shows the 1st card but there's no sign of the 2nd, I go into the raid utility and that doesn't see it either.

The reason I thought 2 cards would work as in thr Raid manager software that came with the card it has a drop down menu as if to be able to select another card, but doesn't show it in the list.

Any ideas?

Ps. the windows device manager sees it as ITE IT8212 ATA Raid Controller.

TIA.

Comments

  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited April 2006
    Yes you can run 2 cards. But I need to ask, why??? Also, why 4 drives mirrored??? This is kind of unusual is the only reason why.
  • Tasp2Tasp2
    edited April 2006
    2 mirrored x2.

    I use my PC as a media server for the house. Both arrays have 250gb used oy of 300gb so need to a further drives, need them mirrored in case 1 dies.

    Any suggesttions as to how I could get this second one working? Is there any software out there I could use to check?
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited April 2006
    What motherboard do you have?
  • Tasp2Tasp2
    edited April 2006
    I think it's a ABIT kv7
  • Tasp2Tasp2
    edited April 2006
    No scrap that, that's another one, it's a PCChips M848A rev.2.1
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited April 2006
    Try moving the card you just added to a different PCI sloot and see if that makes a difference.
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited April 2006
    profdlp wrote:
    Try moving the card you just added to a different PCI sloot and see if that makes a difference.
    Prof is right. If it is in the slot next to the other card it could be in conflict. When you have it right you will see the RAID bios and the option to enter twice (one for each card).
  • Tasp2Tasp2
    edited April 2006
    Thought it may have been something to do with that, so i have already moved the second card, currently 1st (working card) is in slot 2 and 2nd card is in slot 5, windows device manager shows them has having 2 different IRQ's aswell, 18 and 19 respectively, if that makes any difference.

    But thanks for letting me know I should have the RAID menu at start twice.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited April 2006
    What data (if any) is on the drives attached to the new RAID card?
  • Tasp2Tasp2
    edited April 2006
    new card has 2x 200gb Maxtor HD's both empty, and a DVD Writer.
    Both HD's are on primary, and the DVD is on the secondary secondary IDE.
    I have also tried without the DVD writer connected, still same problem.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited April 2006
    Tasp2 wrote:
    new card has 2x 200gb Maxtor HD's both empty...
    Are they formatted, and do they appear in Device Manager?
  • Tasp2Tasp2
    edited April 2006
    They were formatted when they were in use before I put them on the RAID, and they do show up in the device manager
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited April 2006
    Not that this is related to your problem, but on a side note: That dvd burner is not going to work on the raid card. Raid cards almost never support ATAPI devices, and are for hard drives only.
  • Tasp2Tasp2
    edited April 2006
    Thank you PrimteSuspect I didn't know that, I will have to find another channel to put this on.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited April 2006
    You could try different combinations of PCI slots. If that doesn't work you could also try setting the two slots with the RAID cards to a manual (forced) IRQ setting.
  • Tasp2Tasp2
    edited April 2006
    Do we really think this will be an IRQ problem? As Device manager shows these with different IRQ's (18 & 19).

    Ok if I swap the cards around this isn't likely to delete the data already on the drives? I assume not. But I should get the option to enter both RAID Bios's one after the other at start up.

    Thanks for all the help, I'll give it a go.
  • Tasp2Tasp2
    edited April 2006
    Swapped the new card to two different slots but to no avail.

    Still concerned about moving the exsisting raid card to another slot in case I lose the data?
  • Tasp2Tasp2
    edited April 2006
    I've done it! Tookm out a pci Lan card and it started working! Thanks Everyone for your help and assistance!
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited April 2006
    So it appears that you ended up having an IRQ conflict with the new card and an existing device. Way to go!
  • Tasp2Tasp2
    edited April 2006
    Must have been, even tho they were showing different irq numbers, computers don't you just hate em!
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited April 2006
    Tasp2 wrote:
    Must have been, even tho they were showing different irq numbers, computers don't you just hate em!
    I love mine! :cool:

    What I meant was the second RAID card and the NIC were sharing.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited April 2006
    Tasp2 wrote:
    Must have been, even tho they were showing different irq numbers, computers don't you just hate em!
    I'd go along with the old "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" advice, but if you need to have the PCI NIC in there you could either try it in a different slot or give this a shot:
    profdlp wrote:
    ...you could also try setting the two slots with the RAID cards to a manual (forced) IRQ setting.
    I should have added that the forced IRQ setting would be done in the BIOS.

    Glad you got things running. :D
  • Tasp2Tasp2
    edited April 2006
    I no longer need to have the NIC in there, and I'm not confident enough to force anything, espically in the bios.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited April 2006
    Tasp2 wrote:
    I no longer need to have the NIC in there, and I'm not confident enough to force anything, espically in the bios.
    If there's no need for it, you made the smart move by leaving it alone. :thumbsup:
Sign In or Register to comment.