34 replies to this topic

[Denise_M1]

When installing SATA hard drive(s) to the connector(s), be sure to enter BIOS Setup to enable
the Smart Backup function

All of my hdds are SATA, some 1.5 and some 3.0. Smart Backup was already enabled in BIOS.

go Here and get the GIGABYTE SATA2 Driver (1.17.50.02) 3.76 MB 2008/09/29, select OS for available downloads.

I downloaded and installed this driver for XP X64. It didn't fix the problem with the 4 purple ports. For some reason, those ports no longer work with any hdd, not even the CDROM drive

Note 4) A SiI5723 chip supports two SATA 3Gb/s connectors, so the four SATA 3Gb/s connectors are
divided into to two pairs: GS0-Source and GS1 as a pair and GS2-Source and GS3 as a pair.

I'm not exactly sure what "as a pair" means, if it's referring to RAID, because all my hdds are installed as JBOD.

check your device manager for conflicts

Device Manager doesn't show any conflicts.


I downloaded and installed intel_chipset_8.1.1.1010 but it didn't fix the problem.


Good news though! One of the drives that wasn't recognized by My Computer or Disk Management (original problem) is now showing up. I haven't tried the other hdd that I was having the problem with yet. I'm short 4 ports now, so I don't know what I'm going to do


Denise

Edited by Denise_M1, 14 April 2013 - 08:04 AM.

[Denise_M1]

I just connected the rest of my hdds to the 6 ports on the adapter card and the remaining ports on the mobo (not the purple ones). Again, the problematic drive is no longer in My Computer or Disk Management. I can't figure out why it stops being recognized when I connect other hdds. It doesn't make sense. Again, switching cables and ports doesn't make it show up. Thanks for all your help with this, Guy . . . much appreciated. Denise

[8210GUY]

There are only a couple of things I can think of, either there is a configuration\setting issue, or the motherboard has an intermittent fault, starting to become faulty, unfortunately there is no way to test a board, you can only test the other kit, then if all else fails, it's a leap of faith, unless the board shows an obvious flaw, is there any reason for such a large set up ?

[Denise_M1]

either there is a configuration\setting issue

If I took photos of my BIOS/CMOS settings and attached them here, would it give you some info that might be helpful?


. . . also, I just disconnected all the hdds that were connected to the adapter card and the problematic drive (Drive G) is available again in My Computer and Disk Mgmt. I'm going to add one hdd at a time to the adapter card to see if it's one particular hdd that might be causing a conflict with G. G is directly connected to the mobo. No conflicts show up in Comptuter Mgmt but it can't hurt to check it out. I've done everything else that I can think of.


Is there a possibility that my pc/mobo has a limit to the number of Gb that can be "seen" ?


Denise

[Denise_M1]

I just downloaded these 2 drivers: - Intel SATA RAID/AHCI Driver 8.9.0.1023 (Operating Systems: Windows Server 2003 *, Windows Server 2008 * - RocketRAID 2322/2320 I'll be uninstalling the existing drivers and then install these. As I mentioned earlier, I downloaded and installed GIGABYTE SATA2 Driver 1.17.50.02 but I forgot to uninstall the existing driver first, so I'll go back and uninstall the existing and reinstall the new 1.17.50.02. Previous to coming on line, I disconnected all of the drives, added 1 at a time to the mobo. The problematic G drive showed up in My Computer and Disk Management. I then connected hdds to the adapter card, 1 at a time and I didn't loose G. Earlier, when I connected the hdds to the adapter card all at the same time, I lost G. Crazy, huh? It's after 1 am here so I'm heading for bed. I'll post what happens when I do the drivers. Denise

[8210GUY]

Pictures won't help me here, not currently, the more your reporting the more I suspect it's a hardware issue, do you really need such a big case ?

[Denise_M1]

When I booted up this morning, I found drive G gone again. There's seems to be something between the 6 hdds connected to the adapter card or use of the adapter card that makes G stop being recognized by My Computer and Disk Management. Whjen I have the 5 hdds connected only to the mobo, G is always recognized. To try to determine whether it's the hdds connected to the adapter card or the adapter card itself, I'm going to disconnected the hdds that are presently connected to the mobo except for the OS drive and G. I'll also disconnect the hdds connected to the adapter card and connect them to ports on the mobo 1 at a time. This will take some time to do since there are only 3 ports available on the mobo (3 will be taken by the OS drive, drive G and CDROM drive), and 6 hdds connected to the adapter card. I also still have to uninstall the 3 drivers and install the new ones. When I first built the pc about 4 years ago, the hdds, mobo and adapter card worked with no problems or conflicts. About 1 year later, the cpu fan stopped working. I fixed this myself. About a year later, the psu failed but I couldn't figure out what was wrong so I brought it to a pc repair shop in town. They diagnosed the problem and installed a new psu. A few months later, the powr cable failed and again, I didn't know what was wrong so I brought it to the pc repair shop. Then, about a year ago, I had a mobo problem (for the life of me, I can't remember what it was). I brought it to the pc repair shop. It was still under warranty so they sent it to Gigabyte. I don't know if Gigabyte repaired the problem or sent a new mobo. Then about 4 to 6 months later (which is about 6 to 8 months ago), this problem occurred, where 2 hdds have a problem being recognized by My C and Disk M. The warrantys have expired on the mobo and adapter card so if I have to replace one or both of them, it'll take a very long time. If I have to take the pc to the pc repair shop to diagnose the problem, it charges a flat $130.00 to open a pc and I just don't have the cash right now, nor the cash for a new mobo and/or adapter card. After I install the drivers and switch hdds to other ports, I'll let you know how it went. Denise

[8210GUY]

The more I hear the more I wonder about power, but you still haven't answered about the need for such a massive case\set up, is there a reason you can't run less devices ? Even if it means getting a hot swap caddy to use drives that may not fit in a smaller case.

[Denise_M1]

the need for such a massive case\set up

I bought the case to house all of my externals and I didn't want the connect/disconnect of a caddy.

I wonder about power

When my psu failed, the pc shop installed a new one. I RMA'd the original and it's still in the box. I'll swap it out and I'll get a new power cord. If the problem is power related, this should resolve it and we'll have another suspect out of the way.


So I have drivers, adapter card connections and psu swap to accomplish (in that order).


Denise

[Denise_M1]

I found this about the adapter card that's in my pc: "RocketRAID 2320 screws up certain WD drives" http://www.tomshardw...0-screws-drives

My disks were connected to the mobo when I initialized them, not on the adapter card.


I don't know how to "program" a drive to do this or if would help but I thought I'd give it a show before I swap out the psu:

To make them visible to Windows they HAVE to be in an array, even as an 1-disk JBOD array

I'm also wondering if I should uninstall and reinstall the the driver for the acapter card. There are some folders on a disk that came with the card but the disk doesn't install automatically and I don't know what to choose.


Any ideas?

[8210GUY]

My reason for wondering about power, and why such a large set up, was to do with can the PSU actually mange this, I'm guessing larger case means more fans than would normally be used ?
I can't be sure, but somewhere in the back of my mind is something to do with some people using 2 PSU's on such large kit, out of interest could you list ALL the component's ?

I know you gave some when first posting, but I would be interested to see what A PSU calc will say about what you need, I don't need absolute details, just like:-
Total number of drives, hard and optical, and if any are high speed (like 10K spin);
How many various cards, and of what they are, eg modem etc;
Any hubs, and attached USB devices or the like;
And how many case fans, and if they are large, small etc;
Of course when a PSU goes bad, there's no knowing what else it could have effected, and one has to wonder if this may be an error starting to show out from that time, and has got worse as you use it more, I'm not saying that's the case, just the fact it's a possible that may have to be considered at some point if all else fails.

Interesting find on those drives, it's one that would never be considered until you see\hear about it for the first time, but not convinced that is the problem here, because you can access the disc's in other ports, and you had them tested elsewhere and they came back as good, as far as the driver from the disc goes, I don't like using them, because you have no idea if it's out of date or not, even a brand new item off the shelf can come with out dated drivers, because there is no way to know how far back it was packed, and how many updates may have been released since.

Should you want to try from the disc, my best advice is go into the device manager, expand the card section, double click on the adapter, then look for an Update Driver option, then simply point it to the optical drive, and let it find what it wants, odds on it will came back with a better\newer driver is already installed, but it should find what it needs that way, taking out the guess work for you with luck.

The latest driver is Here, you want the Microsoft Windows Device Driver Download - v1.8; Device Driver supports Windows 2000 , XP, 2003 and Windows XP/2003 x64 Edition "VSS Support" one, as best I can see anyway, see how you go, and if you can give me the list I will see what the Calc's spit back.

[Denise_M1]

Case Fans - One large up front and one large on the side, both pulling air out. Two small in the rear to blow cool air in.

Pioneer 20X DVD±R DVD Burner Black SATA Model DVR-216DBK - OEM 022509 (2nd Drive)

HighPoint RocketRAID 2320 PCI Express x8 Controller Card

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Quad-Core

FLOPPY DRIVE - Sony MPF920

GRAPHICS CARD - ASUS EAH4650-DI-512MD2

Hard Drives:
C and D 1T
E 750G
F 750
G 2T (this is one of the problematic drives. I change the drive letter to W last night to see if it would help but it didn't)
H 1T
L 1T
M 1T
N 1T
O 1T
P 1T
R 1T
U 1T

Monitor - Dell UltraSharp 2408WFP

MOTHERBOARD - GIGABYTE GA-EP45-DQ6

PSU - CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W Single Rail design

One 24inch 4pin MOLEX Male to (4) 15pin SATA II Female Power Cable

RAM - mushkin 4GB (2s2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel

Logitech Z2300 Spker 2. 1 200W RMS 400W 8in Subwoofer

Data Cables

No hubs

device manager, expand the card section, double click on the adapter, then look for an Update Driver option, then simply point it to the optical drive, and let it find what it wants

It didn't find a newer driver.

Device Driver Download - v1.8

It's not an .exe driver. Do I need to put it on a floppy to install it?

[8210GUY]

Let's start with the driver, it is a .zip file, so needs extracting, if you don't have any compression software then I suggest 7-Zip, with this you can right click on a compressed file, and select various options, in this case I suggest using the Select To...RR232x-win-v1.8-102607, this will extract into a single folder, which is the simplest way when a compressed file contains lots of files not already in folders, a simple extract here can leave you with a screen full of files depending what it is, so selecting the Name folder keeps it in a single folder.

As it's not an installer file the easiest way is to go into the device manager and update driver as I described last time, and browse to that folder, if it is set to search sub folders selecting the decompressed folder should be enough info for it, if this is not the case, keep going into the folders and select the 64bit folder and it should get what it needs, but there is a very high probability that you will get "it already has the latest driver", or even a newer one, but it can't hurt to check.

Now the PSU, it's not that easy to be exact, and the calc's don't have some of your specific parts, so I had to guess a couple of times, even the Asus calc didn't list your card as an option lol, so I did 2 checks, I tried to guess at something I hope was around the level of what you have, but the possibility of human error (eg I got it wrong lol) is quite high, those came back within your PSU range, then I did another check selecting higher end kit which I knew would be more than you have (thus giving a nice safety net), and that came over your PSU, so I think it's a fair assumption to say it's quite possible your right on the limit of your PSU, or could easily go over your limit if other devices were connected (eg thumb drives etc), and by some freak situation everything suddenly demanded power at the same time.

The PSU you have is a good one IMO, and to have everything demanding power at the same time is not that common, but you have to figure worst case scenario, and that's what PSU's give out in their spec's, so you know what the max it can take is, but the truth is it's not going to run at that sort of rate constantly, not unless you seriously under spec'd it, so on the face of it the PSU "should" be ok, at least for the most part, BUT, there is a risk of it not being able to cope in a freak situation.

Another factor I always put forward, is a comparison to sound, if you buy a stereo that you have to have on full volume if you really enjoyed a song, will sound much worse and struggle to play like that, but if you buy a stereo with double the power you need, it will produce a much better sound, and be far more sustainable reaching the same volume with only a fraction of the effort, a PSU is similar, run it at full power (or near it anyway) constantly, it will struggle to maintain that level for long periods, compared to a bigger unit only having to run at a fraction of it's power to do the same job, and as such a PSU running at a high rate will degrade and need replacing sooner than a more powerful one, that can do the same job with a lot less effort, if that makes sense, at least that's my view on the subject.

But as I said above, it's possible your PSU is able to manage, but I don't know enough to say for definite, not without manually calculating the power required, using the individual spec of every device, and even then I would probably doubt myself as it's been so long since I had to do such things, so do NOT rush out and buy anything to replace it, not unless you have someone with a meter physically check it's values (output down each lead) is within the correct tolerances, the good news is you have a single rail, so it doesn't matter to much how many devices you attach to each lead (video card having it's own lead if applicable), so as you have another PSU already, I suggest plugging in half of the kit into that one, and run with 2 PSU's to test, take care if there are little ones or animal during this time, as you will probably be running with the side off just for testing, just ensure the PSU has all it's fans clear, or it will overheat, see if that makes a difference or not.

*edit
Typo

Edited by 8210GUY, 17 April 2013 - 10:51 AM.

[Denise_M1]

right click on a compressed file, and select various options, in this case I suggest using the Select To...RR232x-win-v1.8-102607, this will extract into a single folder

It said that it couldn't find a better match, etc. But thanks for teaching me this. I didn't know how this worked.

When I built the pc, I'd selected staggered boot of my hdds in BIOS and in the BIOS of my adapter card of 1 second so they don't all pull on the PSU at the same time. I also enabled spin down when a hdd hasn't been accessed for about 30 minutes so they aren't all pulling full power all the time.

I think the problem is specific to these 2 drives but it really doesn't make sense.

I've attached a few things that I found that I thought might help me prior to posting here. I did try jumpers on the hdds but it didn't help the problem. The Notepad doc contains info sent from WD to me when I contacted them because the hdds weren't showing up in My C and Disk M. It's the way I've always installed hdds so no help there but I thought you'd might like to see it.

Attached Thumbnails

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Attached Files

•  0_How_to_install_WD_Hard_Drives.txt   10.15KB   388 downloads
•  0_WD_3.0gb_jumper_settings.bmp   1.56MB   327 downloads

[8210GUY]

I have never heard of or experienced staggered booting of drives, so I have no idea how this could be done, or the affects of doing this, so I can't comment on that, but the power options I have seen, but I don't know enough about those to say how much of a help this would be, or even if it would work the way one would expect, eg only powering up x number of drives at boot, so I have no way to know or say how the power draw is a specific times, I get the logic, if x drive(s) are not being used at a set point, they are kept in a low power state, but given the issues here, I can't but wonder if this is functioning correctly. Jumper settings should be irrelevant, if they were working before, then they were set correctly to start with, I fear that other than what I have been able to suggest here is beyond me at this stage, and is at the point I would need to get my hands on it to just see what I could find, because that's where I need to be when I have never experienced said issue(s), or hardware set up's such as yours, I have pretty much covered everything that could be possible, and possible ways to check in previous re[plies, combined with your comments of drives being good from external sources, there has to be a hardware issue at fault, or a really freak software\config issue, but I am at a loss to say what for sure. When I reach a block like this, I start afresh, so strip out everything, then slowly add a bit back at a time, when things start to go wrong then you have specific areas to look at, but if the error is coming from a problem with the board, albeit an intermittent one (the worst kind), the only way to find out there is get a new board, which is where repair places come in, as individuals rarely have such a spare for testing purposes, I don't know what else to suggest, I hope you get lucky somewhere with this.