SATA Installing¿

  Make sure you have BOTH the drive jumpers set at SSC-dis.  This is nothing like CD-ROM or ATA Drives, as the rules are different.  The SATA's do NOT have master & slave jumper settings.

  I also suggest NOT mixing ATA and Serial Drive (SATA/RAID) on the same computer.  All my friends who have done this seems to have problems in the long run.  Just use that old ATA as a backup, with the key lock in the off position, except when backing up your machine.

  Mixing types of drives seems to be a problem child that the hardware folks have not completely worked out yet.

  The photo above is formatting one drive, with 2 drives attached.  You can only do a low level format on one drive at a time.

 When you have both drives attached, then both 0 and 1 slots are filled and you get a choice of what size "chunk" to use.

Choose "Create RAID Set".

Choose "Striped Set"

Choose "Manual"

 Pick some different "Chunk" sizes. So far the 64 Meg and 16 Meg seemed OK but not great.  I have tried the biggest chunk, 128 and was not happy with it at all. I'm currently trying an 8meg chunk now.  It's running pretty good.

I just used Western Digital's Life-Guard software to copy from my ATA drive. I've done this 5 or 6 times to see which "chunk" runs the fastest.  As soon as you un-plug that ATA, Windows wants to re-register. 

Ctrl-E to exit.

You can install Windows (or Linux), though you still have to install the RAID drivers from floppy again.  So Hit F6 quickly during the boot from CD (Windows) These are only held in volatile memory at these points.

Finally when you make a partition, it should recognize the capacity of both drives added together  as one drive.  Just let the boot disk format NTFS, install Windows and get ready for some kick ass speed.   This will speed up your system faster then a new processor or RAM.

  I have 2 of these Cremax IcyDock Sata drive covers. I'll review it as I go.  So far, I'm impressed with the quality. IcyDock Cremax

 I've got a lot of help on 3dgameman's forum.  

My SATA  RAID controller chip was posted here http://www.siimage.com/home.asp

The controller is made by Silicon Image

9/14/2003 Finally I found the right chipset drivers that Windows needed and installed at the prompt. It's a small file, installed from a floppy, at the prompt, when the Windows installer, ask for a 3rd party driver.  The installer give you less then 5 seconds to hit the F6 key.  I've learned a lot about RAID/SATA installing.  It's completely different to any normal ATA hard-drive.  You BIOS does not recognize a SATA as an attached drive.  You stab the F6 key what Windows installer ask you for the separate drivers for skuzzy drivers. You have 3 seconds or less.  Then the Windows Disk just keeps loading drivers for a bit, making you wonder if you hit the key in time.

• Without the RAID floppy, you cannot access the hard-drives.
• Use the RAID menu and
• You need to choose the biggest "Chunk" to join the drives together in a "Striped RAID Array.
• Use the manual installation.
• The utility is easy to use, though it does not give you much in the way of messages.
• This make a new Master Boot Record.
• The Windows boot disk sees this as RAW and ready to format and install.

  I used the utility screen (above) to low level format the second drive.  If you try to install a RAID set without doing this, it will not work, but it does not give you any error messages.  After the format, go computer management in control panel and let windows for format the drive. It should be set to simple. Then you just have a second drive (how boring) or you can mirror this (a backup) or make a "striped raid array".  

 The best setup is to use the utility above to make the two drives act as one big drive.  This cuts the read time in half. 

Choose a big chunk.  Now you can go back make a "Striped Raid Array".  This makes two drives, into one big drive that reads super screaming fast.

  Oh GAWD, is this setup FAST.  This is the fastest my machine has ever run!

Oh yes, you have to re-install Windows as this jacks your Master Boot Record (MBR) 

Update: DO NOT let Windows Update site re-install your driver. It sucks so bad, and it sticks to your system like a leach.  I never have gotten this straighten out, despite "rollback" and a fix offered by siimage.

UPDATE 4/25/2004 Do NOT use Windows Update

1. It's has slowed my disk access.
2. Rollback did not help.
3. Downloading the fix from siimage.com helped but it's still slower then it was.

^This is performance test from the Norton Anti-virus disk.

It shows how those FUBAR windows drivers slowed down my system...

 For an ASUS AV78N with a siimage chip, I've posted a driver here.  If your not sure about your chip, then go to your manufacturers web site or just look at your board.  The chip is usually close to the raid plugs.

WD Raptor 10,000 rpm Serial drive.

 Oh yes, another Windows installation prompts a phone call to Microsoft as is tracking your number of installs with the CD-Key. Other rumors that you may have heard about CD burners locking the machine up is pure Bullshit.  The C:\WINDOWS\system32, named wpl.dbl. is an old hack.  It does not work any more.

Page updated 07/02/2005

What a Mess!