I'm trying to create a new raid 1 array on my GAK8nsc-939 mobo, using 2 brand new 500gb SATA HDs.

When I boot up, regardless of what key I press it will POST and then go into "detecting array". I don't get any choice to enter the RAID set up utility . After 3 or so minutes it will go into BIOS. I can start Windows setup from the XP CD but surely I need to determine the Raid Array type first.

ideas?

TIA

Digikiwi

EDIT: Have tried clearing CMOS, now I can't even get into BIOS, it just hangs at "prepare to enter Setup". Still POSTs ok though. Have also tried running each RAM stick alone - no difference. Houston, I think we have a hardware issue...


This post has been edited by digikiwi: May 11 2008, 02:54 AM

This would suggest there's an issue with one or both of those drives.
Plug only one drive in at first, see if you can get into BIOS, then try the other way round. If it hangs on one drive only it would suggest an issue with that drive.

Hi Neil,

Have tried disconnecting one SATA drive at a time, but it's not even letting me into bios, so I suspect the motherboard rather than the drives (you may not have seen the edit to my first post above). Any other diagnostic advice up your sleeve

EDIT: Tried going back to my old Raid 0 setup - everything works fine. but with the 500gb WD caviar drives it won't recognise the drives. I've even uplugged all the IDE drives and no joy. In Advanced BIOS options the only choice of boot priority I get is for "additional boot cards". I eventually get to either bios or windows set up disk, but at no point are the HDs recognised and regardless of whether I use the outdated RAID drivers (from mobo CD) or let Windows throw its own ones it will go into an eternal "Setup is starting Windows".

Is there a limitation to the drive size this mobo can handle? I've seen that on laptops but they just won't recognise the entire capacity rather than ignoring it outright.

Also I have tried hooking up the new drives to an external enclosure and Windows recognised each one just fine.

This post has been edited by digikiwi: May 11 2008, 02:53 PM

Doubtful on the HDD limit, if a board can see anything over 137Gb, it'll see anything up to a terabyte, possibly more (current generation boards may need BIOS updating to see hard drives bigger than 1Tb, though whether this applies to two drives in RAID I couldn't possibly say).

This may be a mainboard limitation I would argue. If possible recreate RAID 1 on another newer board with those drives to see if it can do it. If so, it's going to be a board issue that realistically isn't going to be fixable and would require new hardware.