Hi All,

I built the system with the nvidia RAID with 2 SATA HDDs using SATA3 and 4 (with SATA 1 n 2 disabled in the BIOS) as drive C: and later added an IDE drive which I intended to use as a backup. I am running the A8N32 SLi Deluxe mobo BIOS 1303

Regardless of how I set up the bios, everytime I boot the PC, it will reboot once the windows logo with the running bar comes on. Now if I detach the IDE HDD, all is well and everything is running as per it should, boots into winXP no problem. The IDE HDD was set up on Pri IDE with the jumpers set to Master. Now if I ran just the IDE HDD with all the SATA drives disabled, no problem all is well! So I concluded that, both SATA and IDE drives are good to go.

I am at wits end, how come this is so.... I have tried down grading the BIOS back to the the previous one that shipped with the mobo (12xx?), changed IDE cables, but to no avail.

Any inputs are greatly appreciated

thanks

The first thing to check is the boot order in BIOS. Make sure your SATA array is the first in the list. Report back when you've checked that and let us know if that solves the problem.

Thanks for the reply.

Yes SATA (nVidia RAID) is on the first boot priority.

And with that set, the problem persists.

This sounds exactly like the problem I have with an external drive and e-sata. Unfortunately, I have not solved it yet.

Another thing to check is the location of the drive on the HDD cable. Are you using the connector furthest from the motherboard? And, do you have anything else on that same cable?

Have you tried switching IDE controllers from primary to secondary or vice-versa?

Thanks again for the tips.

I will go and check if indeed I am using the connector furthest from the mobo side. (I suspect should not be a factor because I have hard set the HDD jumper to MASTER and not cable select). But still worth a try.

And no nothing else on the Pri IDE chain. On the Secondary IDE I have 2 optical drives, no issues with them.

Just made sure that the HDD is at the futhest away from mobo.

Switch to Sec IDE

changed a brand new cable

all no joy still

Hey viper

I have herd that 1 should never disable SATA ports in the bios even if your not using them, so try enabling all your SATA leave none disabled, and see if that helps!


Secondly Viper I had a similar problem to you where id have my SATA as primary on its own and it would boot fine, then decided to attach my old IDE drives to my setup to retrive stuff off them and then windows sometimes wouldnt load and sometimes it did and when i did get into windows it was quite slow. Now i never really solved this problem (i actually just bought a raptor HD).

OK, last trick. Unplug the IDE cable, but leave the drive powered up. If that reproduces the problem, then it is a power issue. If not, we're going to have lots of fun figuring this out.

By the way, I disable all SATA connectors I am not using. I'm not sure who gave you that advice, stubarnez. I have always been told and have always advised just the opposite and I've never had a problem.

Thanks again

That's what happened, I got it to boot up ONCE.... was able to get thru the windows splash screen and onto the desktop. After that, just to reconfirm that it was no fluke, I reboot the PC and ..... that was the last time I saw it boot up without a hitch

OK will try the one last "trick" of unplugging the IDE cable with the power molex left on. Anyhow, I am running a FSP (or was it FPS) Episilon 600Watter on my rig, should be enough I recond.

And will enable all my SATA and will see what happens, wish me luck

cheers.

i agree with ARLIE. turn off all the sata ports you don't use. 5 years of running sata raids on 3 different boards with no problems.

I know this isnt really any help to your problem.
I ran an older IDE drive in this rig with the RAID0 setup with no problems.
It was like that for quite a long time before I got the new raptors.
With it jumpered correctly and boot order set correctly it worked fine.