RR2300 does not see the disks...

[freakyhair]

Hi All, I posted about a week ago here looking for a good card for RAID1, so I picked up the RR2300. Now it's not working out so well...

My main goal is to be able to take an existing boot drive with Windows XP, and install that drive and a second drive to create a RAID 1 clone setup. I have done this many times before with other RAID cards. Both hard drives are WD2500AAKS drives. Both the drives work OK, with no SMART errors or warnings.

1. When I connect a single OR both drives to the card, and enter the card's BIOS, They only show up maybe 1 out of 10 times. It normally shows no drives, and displays the error "!ERROR. No Suitable disks. Press any key to continue." if I try to do anything. When they did show up a few times, they wouldn't boot to Windows (Yes, i have the MB BIOS set to boot to RAID first.)

2. When I connect the second drive to the card, and the primary drive to my motherboard, and boot-up into Windows, The RAID management shows the HD is correctly installed, even though it doesn't usually show up in the BIOS.

3. I tried to update the card's BIOS from 2.2 to 2.3 within windows, but I get the following error: "No supporting host adapter is found." The card shows up OK in the RAID management software, and in the device manager.

Why is this being complicated? I have tried google, and tried RR's support, with no response yet.

Thanks for your help!

 

[freakyhair]

I just got a response, not what I wanted to hear...

Highpoint said that although their older cards allowed for using an existing HD to create a RAID1 array, this card does not (this seems like crap to me, but that is my opinion.)

They also said that they do not recommend the WD2500AAKS HD's as they drop off the array. This was listed on their site on the compatability list, so I can only blame myself for not checking that out.

Still did not explain why the drives were showing up some times, but then not others.

All in all, they did respond to me withing reasonable amount of time, but I am not happy with the card, and am returning it.

feel free to call this dead, I guess.

 

[Dually]

Both hard drives are WD2500AAKS drives.

Unfortunately, your disks aren't compatible with the controller ... see RocketRAID Series SATA and SATA Hard Drive Compatibility List January 22, 2009 SATA and SAS Drive Information MFG Models ..."WD AAKS and KS disks are not recommended for RAID configurations (single disk “legacy” mode is OK)"

 

[Dually]

Ooops ... got tied up in a teleconference and didn't hit the post button ... only to see that you already found out the issue.