HPT370 Raid problems on Epox EP8KT3A+

[RichL]

I rather have this feeling of impending doom about this - but
here goes the story -
Due to a failing IBM Deskstar14 (10gb) on my second machine I decided to get a new pair of 30gb Maxtors, build them as a Raid 0 (striped) disk on my Epox's inbuilt Raid controller, and install my fairly new 20gb Quantum in my second machine.

The Raid 0 on the Maxtors all seemed to work fine, until after a very bare Win98Se install (yeah, I'm a luddite - but I can fix/fiddle with 98 easier than I can with 2000 )
with little more than the 4.34 Via drivers and the Highpoint raid driver loaded, I attempted to connect my existing 20gb Quantum to the non-Raided IDE channel to copy all my downloaded drivers and stuff across.
This worked but although I could see the Maxtors as 'D' drive, I couldnt access them. Ah - no HPT driver on this install of 98se.
So I installed the driver, and it killed Windows, but after much cursing and swearing, a boot into safe mode and removal of the driver (and McAffees AV which failed) allowed me to use my Quantum again.

Then, fatal mistake, I downloaded the latest Epox bios and flashed the mobo (as it had an updated Hpt370 bios) loaded the latest 98se driver for the hpt370 into windows on my Quantum, and tried to boot from the Quantum with the raided Maxtors online.

BIG MISTAKE! It failed majorly - spending some 15 minutes running Scandisk and checking for crosslinked clusters. Once finished Win98 failed with a bad Keyboard.drv, then when I replaced the file with one from the original .Cab, it just failed to load at all. Fortunately my 2000 partition still worked.

Anyway, starting afresh with the Maxtors, Win98 was stuffed on those. So I rebooted, rebuilt the raid from bios, Fdisked and reformatted, before copying the 98cd to the C: drive and attempting install.
It tells me I have corrupt .Cab files.
I tried direct from the CD - no joy with 'Fatal error' type messages.

Has anyone got any hints, tips as to how to get this Raid array working?
I'm running the Maxtors as slave and master using a new ATA100 spec IDE cable. The only other drive in the system at the moment is my Pioneer DVD106.

TIA

Rich
PS - I also tried reverting to the original clock speed & multiplier & removing my SBLive - that didnt work either.

[The PIT]

Is your C drive on the highpoint ????
If it is move it back to your via controller.
Try clearing cmos and then loading the defaults.
If you're still getting corruption flash back to your previous bios that you backed up.
Hopefully that will get you back and running. Finally ditch your highpoint controller as this is a load of crap and if you need raid buy something from promise.

[Gurm]

The problem is that you're using a highpoint controller.

Seriously though, the HPT is a flaky beast. You will have to play around quite a bit with BIOS/driver combinations to find one that works. I'd go to a motherboard specific site to ask about this. Maybe at 2CPU's (I know it's for SMP, but...) or something.

- Gurm

[RichL]

K'Plah!...as they say on Kronos.

Success! Re-flashing the mobo bios to the 17/4/01 release (which is version 1.10b of the HPT370 bios) and using the latest release drivers from Highpoint (v1.2.0612) , coupled with a bare hardware install (video card only) and a standard 100mhz FSB seem to have done the trick.

I must give credit where its due - the RAID faq for Abit KT7's posted http://www.viahardware.com/faq/kt7/faqhpt370.htm on the Via Tech page was very helpful.

Now all I have to do is try to get my second Network card running. Has anyone got some spare IRQs they can lend me? :-)

[Gurm]

Now you just need to get into BIOS hacking (not hard, really - there are tools) and make yourself a nice newest BIOS with the older HIghpoint BIOS.

- Gurm

[The PIT]

Ahh theres places you can download them already done. Why bother when someone else will do the work for you.
I'm a lazy git.

[RichL]

The Moneypit

Originally posted by The PIT
Ahh theres places you can download them already done. Why bother when someone else will do the work for you.
I'm a lazy git.

I'm just about 'fiddled' out with my PC at the moment.
I'd *just* got the second network card set (Damn Plug&Play IRQ settings - bring back ISA!) when the Macron MPT300 PSU in my case decided to blow up in a rather spectacular fashion - loud bang, flash of lightning, blue smoke etc.
Fortunately my Mobo escaped apparently unscathed, and my system is running with an ancient Arrowana 250psu from my old K6III machine.
I think I'll purchase a proper Enermax 350w PSU to replace it - no more Macrons for me.


I'm reminded of the classic Tom Hanks/Shelly Long film 'The Moneypit', except it's my collection of PCs that seem to swallow my money and give me grief.