Foxconn A7DA-S Raid problem

[ecaffeine]

hmm well there is no new BIOS listed on their website Foxconn - Support - Downloads. When I have talked to tech support over the last few days they have tried to get me to install a BIOS 879F1P04 (a separate issue RAM related) but when I had vista working NON-RAID I tried to update via their update utility and it failed to update(the utility works fine b/c I used it to update the BIOS to P03 from P02 before) so I booted from cd and tried to install the BIOS and it loaded the bios update program but then when it tried to update.... Error: ROM file ID Incorrect. I know I did everything right, I am almost certain that the .rom file they gave me was not compatible with my motherboard which is why 2 different utilities rejected it.

If you could link me to the this new BIOS I will give it a shot though.
About destroying the RAID. I might be able to switch the sata cables and get it to error out and then get in the utility. Thats the only thing I can think of but I am pretty sure its a BIOS problem and not an array problem so I will try that after a BIOS update if it doesn't fix it outright. If I do not hook up the drives at all I can get into the utility but I cant do anything obviously.

 

[KurrentEweser]

Sorry I looked up the wrong motherboard. Swapping cables should do the trick.

 

[ecaffeine]

OK well I switched the cables and it booted up and it still said functional which makes sense I guess b/c I havent written anything to the hard drives. I then turened it off and tried unplugging one and rebooting and I did get the same screen as before except instead of saying functional it said OFFLINE and it was flashing. Well naturally this is what I expected. But what I didnt expect is that there is no key to press to enter the utility. It will just sit there and flash at you all day. This is getting ridiculous. This is by far the worst RAID controller I have ever dealt with.

 

[KurrentEweser]

Maybe its telling you not to use raid 0 with drives that large.

 

[ecaffeine]

Well 1) Maybe it should let me get rid of the array then and 2) I've seen a RAID 0 with two 1TB drives before so it should just shut its mouth and work :tounge:

 

[KurrentEweser]

If you could boot with a live cd, you could use a disk editor and zero out the first 10 megs or so of each drive. That will trash the array.

 

[ecaffeine]

Yea I was gunna do that next... Luckily I have a UBCD4Win ready and burned on my desk but its just that I really shouldnt have to go through all this trouble and I doubt that recreating the array will do anything. But I guess I'll give that a shot now since I don't really have anything else to try.

 

[KurrentEweser]

I cannot get into the utility to modify/delete/add new arrays. It is very odd. Most controllers you can hit f3 or w/e to enter the utility as its booting up but not this one.

The manual says to use Control F

 

[ecaffeine]

you can only do ctrl-f when it says "press ctrl-f to blah blah blah." Which it usually doesnt when you want it to. Believe me I have slammed ctrl-f from boot to hang many times and it does nothing

This is what I am up to now. I unplugged the drives, booted into BIOS. Changed from RAID mode to IDE and I am booted from my livecd but I am starting to notice something wierd. When I used explorer I found my old C:/ drive. THE UTILITY DID NOT EVEN FORMAT THE DRIVE WHEN IT MADE THE ARRAY! I am formatting the drive now and hopefully this will solve the problem but I just dont know. This is all so bizarre.

THIS IS RIDICULOUS.

I set the drives as IDE I booted into a livecd. Formatted both the drives. Deleted the volumes. Created new volumes. Turn RAID back on hoping I could recreate the array BUT NO still get the RAID offline error. SO FRUSTRATED.

 

[KurrentEweser]

I don't think formating and partitioning affects the areas that are used to store the raid array data. Wiping each disk is the only sure way to destroy the faulty array since you can't get into the bios utility. Wiping the first 10mb of each disk hopfuly should be enough.