Problems with AMD64 and RAID drives with Plextor ???

[DarkMagic]

Gotcha on the dual cpu.. I was actually thinking more about the impact of the supporting chipsets... but it doesn't matter, I understand your point.

About RAID on the IDE ports, that's a good question. I know my ASUS board supports PATA IDE RAID, and the IDE connector is the same whether RAID is invoked or not (the primary 01, primary 02, slave 01 and slave 02 are reconfigured for RAID use in the BIOS).

I will check that later today when I get some time... great idea thanks!

Regards,
Gene

[gduns - with the Lord]

Gene,

Usually when you have raid on a motherboard, you will have 4 ide connectors.

Each connector will support 2 drives hence a total of 8 drives may be hooked up.

I think what Brian was saying, was make sure the Plextor drives are on the main ide controllers and not the raid controllers. Usually the raid controllers on the motherboard are red, and the main ide connectors are blue.

also are you running ide or sata?

[DarkMagic]

Thank you Bryan and gduns. Here's the results of my tests based on your suggestions:

First off gduns:

My ASUS A8N-SLI Premium has 8 SATA connectors, 4 using NVRAID, and 4 using Silicon Image chip. Currently only the NVRAID is active in the BIOS. I'm running 2 WD 400 giggers in RAID 0 on the NVRAID ports because it tests out faster than the Silicon Image RAID.

This board has only 2 IDE ports, one Primary (blue), one Secondary (black). With "Master/Slave" cables, you could theoretically connect (or RAID) up to 4 IDE hard drives with this BIOS. The Plextor's are connected "Master/Slave" on a single cable to the Primary port. I just tried switching to the Secondary "just in case" and nothing changes.

Bryan:

I went into the BIOS and made sure that the IDE RAID option was turned off for both Primary and Secondary IDE ports (it was). Only the NVRAID SATA is turned on. The Silicon Image RAID is also turned off (as I said above).

So the BIOS is setup only for NVRAID SATA, and for regular IDE ports without RAID.

Now, if you look at the attached GIF, you'll see my Device Manager with all relevant sections highlighted in nice bright yellow .

You can see the Plextor's are recognized (and working, except for MicStu).

The IDE PATA and SATA controllers are installed correctly.

Finally, there are two RAID driver sets installed. The first appears to be the "Master NVRAID" driver and the second appears to be the "SATA" extension.

You can see that I've deactivated the NERO IMAGEDRIVE, but that had no effect.

Does anyone happen to know if I'll ***** up my booting process if I deactivate the "Master" RAID controller and just leave the SATA RAID on?

You would think that no drivers would be installed if the BIOS has IDE RAID turned off.

Thanks again guys... this is a hum tickler

Regards,
Gene

[MTUSUPPORT]

Try unhooking the Plextor 740, so that all you have connected is the 716, and see what happens. This is just a hunch, but its worth trying.

Let me know what happens, it may still not work though.

[DarkMagic]

Hey Bryan,

Tried your suggestion. Attached is Device Manager GIF showing just the 716 loaded. I also attached a GIF showing the drivers associated with the 716.

I'm getting the same error. What's weird is that, as I originally described, I'd get 2 pairs of errors, a "(5) error" and a "(35) error" being one pair, then they would repeat. I assumed that was because I had two Plextor's installed.

But now, even though I clearly have only one Plextor attached, I still get 2 "pairs" of errors, as if I still had two drives installed... dunno if that's a clue or not, but there it is.

The only other thing I have attached in "twos" is the two WD drives in RAID 0.

Well, it was worth trying... maybe this gives us another clue.

I'm going to try to see if there are any BIOS updates for the Plextors and try flashing them... just in case.

Regards,
Gene

[horseshoe]

I even went as far as removing the 716 from by backup computer, and installing it in my gig computer to see if the existing drive had gone bad. I still got the 5 and 35 error.

I suspect mine is a bios problem with my AMD 64 board. I downloaded and installed the updated driver again, (about 10 times it seems) This time the errors went away and it recognizes my non-karaoke DVD drive, but not the Plextor. It has me washing my bald head. I was pulling my hair out, but it's all gone now.

[DarkMagic]

hey horseshoe, much thanks for the info...

when you say you downloaded the updated drivers... which do you mean exactly... there are several packages of drivers available, including ones that are one version previous to the most current...

also, if you possibly can, could you please open your Device Manager and tell me what version of drivers (and the date) for the drivers that you installed?

apologies if this is too time consuming, but before I start rolling back my drivers, it would be nice to know what versions actually started to work with your AMD board and Plextor.

this is soooo weird... still have to try flashing the Plextor's BIOS's.

regards,
Gene