Why does my RAID Ready hard drive not show up in RAIDXpert? BIOS is set to RAID

[BobMarso]

I have a e9220Y tower with an AMD Phenom II X4 processor.  I have enabled the SATA controller in the RAID BIOS and set it to RAID per the instructions I downloaded from the HP website.  However, after starting Win7 and running the RAIDXpert program, the drive on channel 1 does not show up under the logical drives as the "Setting Up the RAID Using AMD RAIDXpert Storage Technology" instructions says it should.  Why is this?  I am trying to set up a RAID0 array and have two 500 GB drives and one 80 GB drive installed.  All three drives show up under the "Physical Drives" label.

Thanks in advance for the help.

[Big_Dave]

Hi Bob,

Is this the HP document on Setting up RAID Using AMD RAIDXpert Storage Technology ?  It's best to read through the document a couple of time to develop an understanding of the process.

You are trying to RAID 0 the two 500GB drives, right?

Look at step 5 under Configuring from Raid Ready to Raid 0.

[BobMarso]

Hi Dave,

This is the step I'm having problems with.  When I expand the Physical Device View, I see all three drives.  The Logical Drive View is grayed out and does not have a "plus sign" next to it like the Physical Device icon.  And since there is nothing to select under the Logical Device view, I cannot perform the instructions in the first note under step 5.  How do I fix this?

Thanks for the help.

[Hanspuppa]

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BobMarso wrote: This is the step I'm having problems with.  When I expand the Physical Device View, I see all three drives.  The Logical Drive View is grayed out and does not have a "plus sign" next to it like the Physical Device icon.  And since there is nothing to select under the Logical Device view, I cannot perform the instructions in the first note under step 5.  How do I fix this? Thanks for the help.

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Hello BobMarso, First let me admit I have absolutely not experience with the RaidXpert setup.

However, I have setup and used Raid0 systems for over 15 years, and have never had not even one issue with them.

Let me suggest this. With the new 500 GB hard drive installed in the system, go to the Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Storage, Disk Management, and when the Window populates, look for the new 500 GB hard drive and select it. Then select to create a New Volume, format it in the maximum NTFS file system, label it if you like, so you will know which drive this is when in the RaidXpert Utility, and close out of these Windows.

Now boot the system and enter the RaidXpert Utility and you should see all the drives in your system as Primary drives, not logical drives. Select the two 500 GB drives to be included in the Raid0 array. You should be aware that all the data on these drives will be deleted, and when the system boots, you will need to install the operating system and other applications.

This is the way I always setup a Raid0 array, but the RaidXpert may do things a little differently.

[BobMarso]

Thank you very much.  I'll give this a try over the next few days and let you know how it went.

Bob

[BobMarso]

Your last response got me further along but unfortunately not all the way there.

After going into Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management, I found the second 500 GB and 80 GB drives were not initialized or formatted as they should be.  So I set them up as NTFS formatted drives.  I then went back to RAIDXpert and now had a logical drive, but it was the new drive, not the original drive as step 5 said it was supposed to be.  The second note under step 5 also says if the second (added) disk drive is a logical drive, it must be deleted before it can be migrated to a RAID 0 or 1.  I tried to migrate it anyways, and, sure enough, it didn't work.  So I deleted the logical drive consisting of the new second drive putting me back to where I started, no logical drives at all.  At least all drives are now formatted as they should be.

I have set up RAID's before using the Intel chip set.  In those cases, the RAID is established before the OS is loaded.  During the WIndows installation process, a RAID driver is loaded at the "F6" point, but at least the RAID is established before Windows is loaded.  That does not seem to be the case with the AMD chipset.  Am I missing something?

Here are my BIOS settings: SATA1 Controller - Enabled, SATA Controller Mode - RAID.

In the Option ROM, SATA channel 1 (the current boot disk that was loaded from the HP installation/recovery disks) is assigned as LD1-1, and the two other disks with assignment "Single Disk".  All three disks are "healthy".  The "Define LD (Logical Drive)" windows shows LD1 as RAID Ready, total drives = 1, and status as functional.  There are no other logical drives defined.  The delete LD menu shows only the boot disk as a deleteable item and says to do so will delete all information making the system unbootable so I can't execute RAIDXpert to set one up!

My BIOS is version 5.05 and the Option ROM is version 3.2.1545.2.  I've tried to find more recent versions of both, but they are not available on the driver and software download webpage, even though other documentation refers to version 7 and later BIOS's.

Other than updating the BIOS with a BIOS I can't find, what else might be the problem?

Thanks again for your help!

[Hanspuppa]

Hello BobMarso,  As I mentioned earlier, I am not familiar with RaidXpert at all. It appears to me at least, that the RaidXpert application is a Windows based software program that allows you to manage your Raid arrays from within Windows.

I have always setup my Raid arrays from the Raid Utility that you access from within the BIOS.

Since each Raid Utility is different, you use a different set or single keyboard key to access the Raid Utility.

If you have your BIOS set to Raid enabled, there should be a line of text that appears immediately after the HP Logo screen disappears that would show the key to press for your BIOS to enter the Raid Utility. On some HP systems it would be the F key or the F-10 key.

If you manage to enter the Raid Utility, you can then see the hard drives on your system and add the ones for your Raid Array. I would suggest disregarding the 80 GB hard drive and just focus on the two 500 GB hard drives. The 80 GB drive would almost certainly not have the same specifications as the 500 GB drives. If you are successful creating a Raid0 Array with the two 500 GB drives, you would have a single drive listed that shows approximately 965 GBs of capacity.

You will need to reinstall the operating system, and may need to load the drivers for the Raid controller, but it may be possible that the Windows 7 installation disk will have these drivers included. Windows 7 does have a great amount of drivers included in the installation process, but not all of them.

If you need these drivers, Windows 7 will pop up a message that no hard drives were found. If this occurs, you would need to download and copy the drivers to a CD or USB device, and select Load Drivers in the options at the bottom of the window during the installation process.

If you manage to get the Raid0 Array setup and Windows 7 installed, you can then install RaidXpert and look at what your Raid Array looks like.

Just some thoughts.

[BobMarso]

Thanks again for your response, and rather quick I might add.

I agree with everything you've said and have already tried it.  I have also set up RAIDs and always through the BIOS.  The WIndows RAID  apps have been used to manage previous defined RAIDs.

I think at this point I am going to pursue updating my BIOS.  My BIOS is at least two versions old and may be part of the problem.  If you know where to find the BIOS downloads, please let me know.  HP's drivers and software download page for the e9220y does not have any BIOS downloads and a search of HP's website did not hit on anything.  I'm rather disappointed in HP for that.  They are the first manufacturer that does not include BIOS updates on their driver download page.

Thanks again for your help,

BobMarso

[Hanspuppa]

Hello BobMarso, I checked for any available BIOS updates and was unable to locate any either.

At this point, I am at a loss to advise any other suggestions.

I hope you get this all sorted out.