HDD problems

[8 I3ALL]

I have to HDD that are the same and i was going to setup Raid 0 on them but for some reason when i set the raid option in my bios it only finds 1 of the drives when it boots up

ive had a look on the net and people seem to same that its older drives that dont work in AHCI mode ...but this drive is newer than the 1 that shows up.

Is it worth RMAing it back as its still well in warranty ?

If there is nothing wrong with the HDD will Maxtor charge me ?

[Mark]

What motherboard have you got? Do you have a motherboard with more than one SATA controller (some Gigabyte motherboards, for example)? Different-coloured SATA connectors is a giveaway on the Gigabyte boards at least.

In any event, disconnect the good drive and see if the other drive appears, swap SATA cables, SATA ports on the motherboard, power connectors, etc. Finally, run the Maxtor diagnostics (some manufacturers won't accept an RMA without this step).

I don't know if Maxtor charge, but there's a fair chance given it'll at least cost them postage. Besides, best to eliminate everything you can first to avoid the RMA hassles.

[8 I3ALL]

Thanks Mark

Its an Asus motherboard so all the connectors are SATA

Ive tried in different slots and different cables already

I cant run any diagnostics if i hook up the drive the system wont boot so im kinda stuck now !!!

[Mark]

Does the drive spin up? Does it appear in BIOS on its own? (try disabling AHCI and RAID on the SATA ports, but don't forget to change this back before booting Windows).

If it isn't detected at all, then it's probably DOA.

[8 I3ALL]

It works fine in non RAID/AHCI but i cant use it in my system as it is

[divine]

...unless i've totally mistaken what you're saying, surely once it's in RAID mode, you won't see two drives, as the point of RAID is making them into one drive?

[Mark]

I was assuming that he's saying he couldn't create the RAID because only one of the drives showed up in the RAID utility. If that is not the case, then it may well be a different problem.

If you're installing Vista, then it should 'just work', with one drive showing. However, XP setup doesn't understand all this newfangled tech, so you have to do voodoo nLite magic to merge the XP setup image with the AHCI/RAID drivers to make setup behave. Been there myself but it's been a while and I don't have the details to hand of how I did it.

Google should turn up the answer as it's a very common problem.

[8 I3ALL]

Divine that is not what im saying. The system will not boot with this drive in AHCI mode which i have to enable to setup the RAID section on this motherboard.

Both drives would show up in the RIAD setup as you have to point the bios to both drives before you can move on.

Im going to pull the Serial number off the drive which works and see the date difference beween them both if the drive that is working is older than the other im going to RMA the non AHCI and see what they have to say.