No longer able to boot from RAID
I hope someone here can help me on this one as I'm all out of ideas.
For a few years now I've happily been booting WindowsXP from a mirrored RAID array on a Soyo SY-K7V Dragon Plus motherboard that includes the Promise FastTrak100 RAID Controller.
Recently however I had a disk crash necessitating replacing the faulty drive and rebuilding the array. Rebuilding the array worked fine. I pressed Cntrl+F when given the option and used the FastBuild utility to first delete the array and then used option 1 to recreate it. Used the option to duplicate the remaining good drive onto the new one and it all worked fine. Now on rebooting, it gets as far as reporting that the array is Functional then, at the point when I would expect WindowsXP to start, the system reboots.
(Originally the system used to stop at this point with a BSOD showing the error:
*** STOP: 0x00000078 (0xF795C640,0x00000034,0x00000000,0x00000000)
but now it just reboots.)
Curiously I can successfully boot WindowsXP from either of these drives when connected to IDE rather than RAID which suggests to me that there is nothing wrong with the drives themselves or the cables.
In trying to resolve this problem I've;
a) checked each drive using Maxtor's PowerMax utility. (The drives are 80GB Maxtor Diamond Plus 9). They both passed.
b) Booted WindowsXP from each drive attached to IDE and ran CHKDSK /F on each partition with no errors.
c) Run Kaspersky's virus scan on each drive with no viruses found.
d) Reloaded the RAID drivers that were on the CD that came with the motherboard.
e) Loaded the RAID drivers I downloaded from Soyo for this board. (They were actually earlier than the ones on the installation CD.)
f) Reflashed the BIOS and reset the CMOS.
g) Changed the jumpers on the drives from Cable Select to Master.
h) Changed both ribbon cables.
g) finally, in desperation, I used PowerMax to do a low level format on each drive. Each completed with no errors.
I'm really at a loss to know what to do next and would really appreciate any help you can give me.
Regards,
Bryan Balfour
For a few years now I've happily been booting WindowsXP from a mirrored RAID array on a Soyo SY-K7V Dragon Plus motherboard that includes the Promise FastTrak100 RAID Controller.
Recently however I had a disk crash necessitating replacing the faulty drive and rebuilding the array. Rebuilding the array worked fine. I pressed Cntrl+F when given the option and used the FastBuild utility to first delete the array and then used option 1 to recreate it. Used the option to duplicate the remaining good drive onto the new one and it all worked fine. Now on rebooting, it gets as far as reporting that the array is Functional then, at the point when I would expect WindowsXP to start, the system reboots.
(Originally the system used to stop at this point with a BSOD showing the error:
*** STOP: 0x00000078 (0xF795C640,0x00000034,0x00000000,0x00000000)
but now it just reboots.)
Curiously I can successfully boot WindowsXP from either of these drives when connected to IDE rather than RAID which suggests to me that there is nothing wrong with the drives themselves or the cables.
In trying to resolve this problem I've;
a) checked each drive using Maxtor's PowerMax utility. (The drives are 80GB Maxtor Diamond Plus 9). They both passed.
b) Booted WindowsXP from each drive attached to IDE and ran CHKDSK /F on each partition with no errors.
c) Run Kaspersky's virus scan on each drive with no viruses found.
d) Reloaded the RAID drivers that were on the CD that came with the motherboard.
e) Loaded the RAID drivers I downloaded from Soyo for this board. (They were actually earlier than the ones on the installation CD.)
f) Reflashed the BIOS and reset the CMOS.
g) Changed the jumpers on the drives from Cable Select to Master.
h) Changed both ribbon cables.
g) finally, in desperation, I used PowerMax to do a low level format on each drive. Each completed with no errors.
I'm really at a loss to know what to do next and would really appreciate any help you can give me.
Regards,
Bryan Balfour
0
Comments
No, I didn't reinstall windows on the array but put the good drive on IDE, and installed the RAID driver and WindowsXP. I then brought WindowsXP up to date with 'Windows Update' and only then did I put this drive back on RAID together with the new drive and rebuilt the array.
I agree with you that the problem does seem to be with the drivers as Windows XP boots ok from IDE. However I can happily enter the FastBuild utility after booting, view the array, rebuild the array and even duplicate it (the duplicate is ok as I've booted from it on IDE). I would have thought FastBuild would need good drivers to be able to do this.
I can't help feeling that there is something I've forgotten to do but can't for the life of me think what it is.
Any ideas????
THEN you follow the driver install directions (from manual):
1. First, please copy all files of folder under SOYO CD:
\Raid\promise\Raid Family Driver\WinXP, and Fasttrak, readme.txt,
and txtsetup.oem, 3 files under SOYO CD: \Raid\promise\Raid Family
Driver\ to floppy disk for WinXP Raid install.
2. When you into the system install screen, press "F6" key first.
3. Then press "S" key.
4. Insert floppy disk for XP driver to "A:" disk, then press "Enter".
5. Select "WinXP Promise Fasttrak 100 (tm) Lite Controller" then press
"Enter".
6. Press "Enter" to continue XP setup.
If you've done all this- I'm not sure what it could be.
Yes, this turned out to be the solution although there is nothing in the user manual that suggests this. The manual is adamant that the drivers MUST be installed with the drive on which the OS is installed still attached to the regular IDE port. It says nothing about installing the drivers again once you have built the mirrored RAID array. Also I'm certain I didn't have to do this when I went over to using RAID several years back.
What I ended up doing, after I had followed the manual and built the array, was;
<O:p
1. Mounted the Windows XP installation CD.
<O:p2. Mounted the floppy I created earlier containing the RAID drivers.
<O:p3. Started rebooting from RAID and pressed Delete to enter the CMOS screens.
<O:p4. Changed the Boot device order to make CDROM the first device and SCSI the second.
<O:p5. Hit F10 then 'Y' to save the changes. The PC then rebooted from the CD and the Windows installation process commenced.<O:p
6. When invited, I hit F6 to load the RAID drivers from the floppy and followed the on-screen instructions when they eventually appeared.<O:p
7. Continued on the Windows install until I got the screen asking if I wanted to load Windows, Repair Windows or quit the install. I elected to repair windows but, on reflection, I suspect that I could have just hit F3 to quit and this point. Instead I went through the complete install which, although my configuration was preserved, necessitated my re-applying all the maintenance that I had downloaded and applied earlier under IDE. A real pain.
8. Rebooted and entered the CMOS screens to change the boot device order back to SCSI first. On saving this configuration the PC rebooted into WindowsXP under RAID.<O:p