nelis
01-17-2008, 08:15 PM
Man, I am having a tough time getting these drives to work. I have two Mtron 16GB drives. Ideally I wanted to do a RAID0 but have been unsuccessful. The gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 board version 2.1 (with the latest BIOS) has two SATA controlers, the gigabyte SATA2 controller, and the Intel ICH9R controller.
Ok the ICH9R controller:
When this controller is acting in ACHI or RAID it takes forever to initialize. I would say around 2-3 minutes. It seems to just hang in initializing when these drives are plugged in. At any rate, having sat through that I was able to setup a RAID0 array and boot into the Vista installation. Creating a partition seems to work but trying to format always ends with the system hanging. In the RAID0 configuration I also have tried loading the ICH9R drivers from the gigabyte website resulting in the same hanging issue. So I removed the array and ran the drives in IDE mode. Now in the Vista install, two drives show up. Again I can create a partition. This time when I format, the system hangs (similar to the raid situation). This occurs with either drive. Alas I cannot get Vista to install on either of the drives on the ICH9R controller since I cannot get them to format.
So on to the gigabyte SATA2 controller:
With the controller in RAID mode I was able to successfully create a RAID0 array. The Vista installation loaded but did not see any drive. This was to be expected as I needed to load the gigabyte sata driver. When trying to use the driver that comes on the CD, the Vista installation sees the driver and tries to load it, but just loops through its ‘loading’ screen and never finishes. Downloading and using the driver from the gigabyte web site seemed to work. The drive was then visible in the Vista installation. Creating a partition works as it did in other situations. When attempting to format, again the system hangs (as with the Intel controller). So in similar fashion, I removed the raid array and booted with the drives in IDE mode on the gigabyte controller. Both drives show up in the Vista installation. Working with just one of the drives, creating a partition works fine. Running format yields an error message from the window installer. Running format again, the drive formats. Run format again, the error appears. Format again, it formats (you get the idea). Every other format results in a windows installer error; on either of the drives this was true. Weird huh? So proceeding, on a successful format, I clicked next only to find another error ‘Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation’. This was pretty unfortunate and both drives give the same result.
To verify the drives even work, I booted off my Raptor drive into Vista with the Mtron drives connect to the ICH9R controller in IDE mode. Vista saw both drives with no problems. I low level formatted them as well with absolutely no issues. This is where I am at right now with only a few ideas in my brain on where to go next. I have found other links of weird problems but their end result had Vista install with no problems. I cannot even get to that point.
Any ideas to throw my way would be great.
Ok the ICH9R controller:
When this controller is acting in ACHI or RAID it takes forever to initialize. I would say around 2-3 minutes. It seems to just hang in initializing when these drives are plugged in. At any rate, having sat through that I was able to setup a RAID0 array and boot into the Vista installation. Creating a partition seems to work but trying to format always ends with the system hanging. In the RAID0 configuration I also have tried loading the ICH9R drivers from the gigabyte website resulting in the same hanging issue. So I removed the array and ran the drives in IDE mode. Now in the Vista install, two drives show up. Again I can create a partition. This time when I format, the system hangs (similar to the raid situation). This occurs with either drive. Alas I cannot get Vista to install on either of the drives on the ICH9R controller since I cannot get them to format.
So on to the gigabyte SATA2 controller:
With the controller in RAID mode I was able to successfully create a RAID0 array. The Vista installation loaded but did not see any drive. This was to be expected as I needed to load the gigabyte sata driver. When trying to use the driver that comes on the CD, the Vista installation sees the driver and tries to load it, but just loops through its ‘loading’ screen and never finishes. Downloading and using the driver from the gigabyte web site seemed to work. The drive was then visible in the Vista installation. Creating a partition works as it did in other situations. When attempting to format, again the system hangs (as with the Intel controller). So in similar fashion, I removed the raid array and booted with the drives in IDE mode on the gigabyte controller. Both drives show up in the Vista installation. Working with just one of the drives, creating a partition works fine. Running format yields an error message from the window installer. Running format again, the drive formats. Run format again, the error appears. Format again, it formats (you get the idea). Every other format results in a windows installer error; on either of the drives this was true. Weird huh? So proceeding, on a successful format, I clicked next only to find another error ‘Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation’. This was pretty unfortunate and both drives give the same result.
To verify the drives even work, I booted off my Raptor drive into Vista with the Mtron drives connect to the ICH9R controller in IDE mode. Vista saw both drives with no problems. I low level formatted them as well with absolutely no issues. This is where I am at right now with only a few ideas in my brain on where to go next. I have found other links of weird problems but their end result had Vista install with no problems. I cannot even get to that point.
Any ideas to throw my way would be great.