Broken sata controller.

[Jabba]

My motherboard died last week (ABIT IC7 MAX 3) but I was lucky enough to find a second hand one on ebay seeing as they are all now discontinued.

I have also taken this opportunity to have another go with my vapochill sub zero cooling system seeing as they have released another clamshell that is more condensation proof...anyway thats another story...heres the current problem.

The PC was originally set up with four sata drives with two of them being 36 GB raptors set up in a raid.

Having lost all the bios settings I have no idea how to set these up...there seems to be dozens of possible combinations and I am not even sure which connectors they should be plugged into..there are six available - sata 1,2,3,4,5,6

So far I have made it into the raid config utility (just after the post screen) but then it either says there is no raid configured or just crashes or exits then crashes.

Any ideas on where to start and try and get any of them working ?

Thanks

Jabba

http://www.jabbasworld.net/userfiles/jabba/raid/1.JPG
http://www.jabbasworld.net/userfiles/jabba/raid/2.JPG
http://www.jabbasworld.net/userfiles/jabba/raid/3.JPG
http://www.jabbasworld.net/userfiles/jabba/raid/4.JPG

[DeMoN]

Never had a "go" at that, but there are supposed to be RAID 0 and RAID 1. I suppose that depending on which type you have, you have to choose different setup. The best thing would be to download your MoBO's manual as I am sure it will say where the raids are and how to set them up for the different raid options.

Maybe if you post the RAID type, I can lookup a DIY online, or someone else who has done this before can help too.

[Jabba]

Never had a "go" at that, but there are supposed to be RAID 0 and RAID 1. I suppose that depending on which type you have, you have to choose different setup. The best thing would be to download your MoBO's manual as I am sure it will say where the raids are and how to set them up for the different raid options.

Maybe if you post the RAID type, I can lookup a DIY online, or someone else who has done this before can help too.

Yeh I got the manual but not much help as the main problem is somebody else set them up for me...and trying to work out what he did or how he did it is the hard part.

[SafirXP]

if you can't get'em to work at all... just look for raid rebuilding programs, saved me 80GB when my raid0 setup suddenly died on me. don't remember the name of the proggy though :S

[Jabba]

Well I guess thats a start...although I still don't get why I would have lost anything...after all they are being plugged back in to an identical motherboard.

[5vz-fe]

^You shouldn't lost anything, as long as you figure which cable goes to which harddrive (ur original setup of ur old one).

In your user manual , Appendix E-3, re-setup your raid configuration.. u should really ask ther person who set this up for you. (there is also a resolve conflicts option, I don't know if it works for ur case tho)

I believe you also need to set Harddrive boot priority to "SATA RAID" if you install your windows under RAID configuration.

Check also section 3-13 where "onchip serial ata" is set as [Enhanced mode]
and "onchip serial ata mode" is set as [RAID]

Sorry ... that's all I can help jabba....

[Jabba]

Thanks for your help.

Lets just say that I dont have a diplomatic relationship with the dick head that set it up for me.

I think I have all those options set but will double check when I get home.

I have been doing a lot of reading up on the subject and it seems that the array information may have been stored on the old motherboard somewhere...so I will have to set up an new array on them and so goodbye to all my data.

That is really shit IMO as if I had upgraded the bios then that would also mean that you loose all the information in your array I would presume.

[5vz-fe]

Your motherboard died, but ur bios may be fine, maybe you can take that bios chip out and replace it on ur new one.

[Jabba]

Already hot flashed it in an attempt to make the old board work...which was successful...so I guess the bios must have somehow been corrupted on the original board anyway....

Good idea though...please keep them coming.

[5vz-fe]

RAID Reconstructor V2.31
Recover data from a broken RAID Level 5 or RAID Level 0 Array. Even if you do not know the RAID parameters, such as drive order and block size, RAID Reconstructor will analyze your drives and determine the correct values. You will then be able to create a copy of the reconstructed RAID in an image file or on a physical drive.

http://www.runtime.org/raid.htm

"Even if you do not know the RAID parameters, such as drive order, block size and direction of rotation, RAID Reconstructor will analyze your drives and determine the correct values. You will then be able to create a copy of the reconstructed RAID in an image file or on a physical drive. "

[Jabba]

Thats great...thank you so much...I cant wait to get home and give that a try.

Thanks again

Jabba

[5vz-fe]

no problem :)

[Jabba]

Tried another max 3 board and all booted up first time...didn't even have to change any bios settings....made sure the other board had exactly the same settings and even just swapped the bios chip over...no go....so I guess the sata controller is fucked or something....thanks for all the help anyway.

[5vz-fe]

Can you get an SATA controller card (that support raid) and try recover the data?

[Jabba]

Yep I got all the data off with the max 3 board with the working sata controller.

Now I have three max 3 boards that wont boot my p4 3.4 and one that does...and of course the only one that does has the broken sata controller. All have identical bios versions and in fact even have swapped the actual bios chip between them.

Also have an AsuspP4c800E that boots the P4 3.4 fine as well. The boards that wont boot the P4 3.4....they boot a 3.2 prescott fine LOL.

http://www.jabbasworld.net/userfiles/jabba/raid/5.JPG

[DeMoN]

Might be kind of a silly solution (unlikely one), but the cable that connects from the hard drive to the MoBo, maybe its dead. I've had 2 IDE cables go bad during my lifetime. I havent had SATA (this is first time) so I dont know how well they last.

EDIT - BTW, you say the mobo doesnt load the P4? Might it be cuz it was overclocked?

[Jabba]

I used the same cable on the other 3 mobos and it worked fine though :?

[DeMoN]

when you go to bios, do you see the brands of the hard drive, or are they not recognized alltogether?

[Jabba]

On the broken one...nothing at all...it crashes the moment it displays the sata controller information...all the others display it automatically.

[DeMoN]

thats sad to hear =/ from what I read, if one of your had drives fail, then the files between it and the "brother" drive dissappear. You will have to get another exact same harddrive to get the pair working together.

You have more than 2 hard drives right? Can you boot to windows if you disconnect the defective hard drive and it's pair?

I recall seing that you had like C D E F (in windows) drives when you showed a screen shot. If you can boot to windows by disconnecting the pair of defectives then the HD is dead :(

[Jabba]

ahh no...all the drives work perfectly on three mobos....its just the fourth one that they dont...so I guess its the controller on the mobo that is fucked.

[DeMoN]

and that mobo that does not work is the one you bought that is exactly as your previous one right? So now what? Get another one of those and see if the controller works?

Another thing you could do is get a PCI to SATA. I bought a sata HD a while ago to install in my friend's desktop to put all the JW videos there (since I had a laptop with 60gb) and I bought a PCI card cuz he did not have SATA RAID connectors.

[Jabba]

Yeh the other 3 mobos (in the picture) that work are all exactly the same (abit IC7 max 3)..the only problem is they wont boot my p4 3.4..the only one that will boot it is the one with the broken controller.

My current solution is to use one of the mobos with the working sata controller and a prescott 3.2...I just hope I can OC that as high to over 4 GHZ though.

[DeMoN]

2 things...

1) Are all those mobos with the same flash of BIOS version? Maybe that is the reason the others dont recognize your P4.

2) You said they discontinued that MoBo... why not get a new ASUS or MSI that will surelly support more stuff?

[Jabba]

1) Yes as I said I have even swapped the actual bios chips between them.

2) Yes I have the asus board (you can see it in the picture) but it is not considered to be quite as good as the abit one (a fully working one of course).

[DeMoN]

Then Im out of ideas =/ I hate it when these types of things happen. No solution... that should only happen in math calculus problems.

[Jabba]

At last some good news :

I beat my superpi record last night as that new prescott is overclocking like a bitch in that max 3 board....so I guess that means the p4 northwood is a little fucked...although it does work ok in at least 3 other boards :P

http://www.jabbasworld.net/userfiles/jabba/raid/2-42.jpg

[DeMoN]

Great to hear. No file lost no problems then! What progz do you use to overclock ur PC (or do you use bios?).

[Jabba]

http://www.cpuid.org/clockgen.php