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Is my controller card failing?


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#136
Denisejm

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When I was uninstalling CCleaner, I noticed that I have a program named Web Companion.  It may have installed when I installed another program.  I didn't specifically install it.  I've never used it.  Is it okay to remove it or is it something that Windows or Internet Explorer or Firefox needs to run?

 

 

Edit:  I decided not to install HD Tune.  It was a Trial version and I don't wish to buy it later on.


Edited by Denisejm, 18 October 2018 - 11:11 AM.

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#137
RKinner

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It's foistware.  Feel free to uninstall it.


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#138
Denisejm

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In Post #116, I mentioned this.  Do you have any idea why these drives aren't recognized by My Computer or Disk Management and why my computer won't boot up

 

Last week, I bought another hard drive, connected it to my pc, formatted it, labelled it Drive D and moved files onto it.  It worked with no problems all day that day.  The next morning, when I booted up, my pc wouldn't get past Verifying DMI Pool Data.  I shut down my pc, disconnect all the hard drives that I had connected except my C drive and started connecting one at a time again.  The hard drive that was causing Windows to stop loading to my desktop was Drive D and 3 others are no longer recognized in My Computer and Disk Management. 

 

Do you have any idea what's going on?  Should I start a new topic for this?


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#139
RKinner

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Are these connected directly to the mobo or to the 8 port adapter?  Do the drives show up in BIOS Setup?


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#140
Denisejm

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The hard drives don't show up in My Computer or Disk Management whether I connect them to the mobo or the adapter card.  They were working well when I had XP running.  Except drive D, which was new, and I had it connected to the mobo.  I had to disconnect it because my computer wouldn't boot up past Verifying DMI Pool Data when it was connected even though it was working the night before.


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#141
Denisejm

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I thought I'd keep you updated as to the progress on this project.

 

I brought the two new hard drives that wouldn't work in my computer to a pc repair shop in town.  They tested them and said that they are dead.  I'm going to be RMAing them.

 

Four of the ports on the adapter card don't work.  It seems that the 4 left-hand side ports don't work.  I tried connecting only one hard drive at a time to those 4 ports with no other hard drive connected to it and no matter what hard drive I connect to any of those 4 ports, it's not recognized in Disk Management.  I'm also RMAing the adapter card.  Hopefully, a new one won't have this problem.

 

Then my CD ROM drive stopped being recognized in Device Manager.  I followed all the steps that I found on line to solve the problem but none worked.  As a last resort, I bought new cables for it and it's again recognized in Device Manager.

 

Very unexpected and unusual problems with the hardware.

 

Once I get the new adapter card and hard drives and get them connected, I'll let you know how it worked out.


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#142
RKinner

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There were some comments in the reviews about your adapter card where they had similar issues.  Hopefully a new one fixes the problem.


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#143
Denisejm

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Well, I did an RMA on the adapter card.  The new one I received only has 4 ports that work as well.  I don't know if I can get my money back but it looks like it either doesn't work with my motherboard or a percentage of them are defective.  I'm going to see if I can get my money back and buy a different one.  Can you recommend a different adapter card I can buy that would work with my motherboard (GIGABYTE GA-EP45-DQ6 (Award Bios v F13a) and Windows 10?

 

I also bought another set of twin sticks of RAM.  It didn't crash my pc/BSOD so I guess that's okay.  :)

 

Those two hard drives that I received DOA?  I got an RMA for them and a prepaid UPS sticker, put them in a UPS drop box on Nov 1, but they never received them.  I put in a claim with UPS. 


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#144
RKinner

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Could you use 2 4 port cards instead?  Lot cheaper and might be more reliable?

 

Did you try your old rocket card just to see if it would magically work in Win 10?


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#145
Denisejm

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I'm not sure if I can use 2 4-port cards.  In the picture, I color-coded the ports with arrows. 

 

Gray arrow = Empty

Blue arrow = External SATA Port Multiplier

Purple arrow = Empty

Red arrow = Controller card

Pink arrow = Empty

Green arrow = Video card

 

I can't put anything in the slot with the pink arrow because there's not enough clearance because the video card comes up too high and almost covers the top of it.  An adapter card in that slot might even touch the video card or cause very little air to get between the two of them.

 

I think that the only slots I can put something in are the slots with the gray and purple arrows (the first and third ones down).  Can all slots support any kind of card?

 

 

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#146
RKinner

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The two gray slots are PCI the others are PCIe.  There are PCI 4 port SATA cards available.

 

Semlos 4 Ports PCI Sata Internal Raid Controller Card Sil3114 Chipset 013577 with 2 Sata Cables

 

$17.99


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#147
Denisejm

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My hard drives are JBOD.  This card says RAID.  Will this controller card affect the JBOD configuration?

 

Also, I have my External SATA port multiplier card in the second gray slot down. 


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#148
RKinner

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Reading the reviews:

"I am building a computer mainly for storage and needed more sata hard drive attachments. It was an older motherboard and had only PCI slots open. The card appears to be well built. I slipped in the card but it did not get recognized on the first boot. I downloaded the drivers from silicon image since I do not have cd rom on my computer (drivers do come on a mini rom). Use the SATA5 drivers even if you want to do JBOD. Use control panel, device manager and update driver. Browse to find the driver making sure you have the right 32 or 64 bit driver. It will highlight only if you have the right driver and push okay. It immediately recognized my drives and worked immediately. I have found that the speed is not as fast as my other SATA 2 drives but it is not slow and is adequate. I bought another one I was so pleased and they both work great on the same motherboard. I did find one problem. I did encounter some hard drives which COULD NOT BE SEEN on the computer not even in control panel, administrative tools, computer management, storage, disk management where I usually manage my drives. These drives were working on other computers. I tried to format on other computers still no go. For some reason some drives need to be formatted by this card. When the computer is booting press F4 when the card comes up, under the menu go to low level format, and then highlight the drive and quick format. This will delete all of your data so make sure the drive is empty before you do this. Now it can be found in disk management for formatting etc. If you want to use hardware RAID push F4 when booting and use the card to set up your RAID. I am using win 7 mirror mode to use software RAID which is easier for me. The ports are labeled 0-3 under the RAID setup the ports go clockwise 0, 1, 3, 2. Not sure why 3 and 2 are switched. Hope this helps someone else in the future."


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#149
Denisejm

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"Did you try your old rocket card just to see if it would magically work in Win 10?"

I'll try this first.  If it doesn't work, I'll then try to do these things:

 

"For some reason some drives need to be formatted by this card."

I ordered two new hard drives yesterday.  When they come in, I'll connect them to one of the 4 working ports on the adapter card and format it, then move it to one of the non-working ports and see if it's recognized.

 

"Browse to find the driver making sure you have the right 32 or 64 bit driver." 

There are a lot of drivers on the driver disk.  It's unclear which one I'll need.

 

"When the computer is booting press F4 when the card comes up, under the menu go to low level format, and then highlight the drive and quick format. This will delete all of your data so make sure the drive is empty before you do this. Now it can be found in disk management for formatting etc."

I'll give this a shot.


Edited by Denisejm, 09 November 2018 - 10:19 AM.

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#150
Denisejm

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"Did you try your old rocket card just to see if it would magically work in Win 10?"

I just installed my old Rocket card but Device Manager doesn't recognize it.  When I tried to update the drivers for it, the message says, "Windows was unable to install your SCSI controller.  Windows could not find drivers for your device.  If you know the manufacturer of your device, you can visit their website and check the support section for downloadable drivers."

 

The controller card is a HighPoint RocketRAID 2320 v 1.04 PCI Express x8 Controller Card.  Their website no longer offers drivers for it.  http://www.highpoint...00_download.htm

 

Do you know of any other place where I can find the drivers I need?  (see below)

 

 

 

 

Edit:  I have a floppy disk that's labelled "Rocket Raid BIOS MS-DOS Startup Disk."  It's one that I made myself.  I built this pc 9 years ago and can't remember if this disk has the RocketRaid drivers on it but I thought I'd explore it.  When I popped it into the floppy drive, it clacked and clacked.  I don't know if Windows was reading it or what.  But nothing else ever happened.  I don't remember if I was supposed to change Floppy Drive to first in boot order in BIOS and install files that way.

 

 

 

 

Edit:  I found the adapter card driver at https://drivers.soft...7702-WHQL.shtml

I saved the zip file to my desktop.  I tried installing them by unzipping the file but it didn't install them.  Do I have to put them on a floppy disk?  What do I do at start-up to get them installed?


Edited by Denisejm, 10 November 2018 - 01:03 PM.

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