[Fernando 1]

hclarkjr, on Sep 18 2005, 01:59 AM, said:

if i may i have integrated the SATA driver into my install CD but am wondering - in order for the SATA drive to work in windows it needs the controller driver installed to be seen by windows. you know the silicon image driver, do i need to integrate it also??

The method I have described is only suitable for NVIDIA nForce Sata or Raid Controllers. If you have a Serial ATA Controller from Silicon Image, you may not use the NVIDIA nForce chipset package 6.66, but the SATA drivers from Silicon Image for integrating the correct Sata drivers for your board.
For all other Controllers you have on your nForce2 board (IDE, LAN, GART etc), you can use the NVIDIA driver chipset package 5.10 (don't try the package 6.66 for these controllers, they don't work with nForce2 boards).

[hclarkjr]

yes, the silicon image controller is built into my AN7. thank you for you help. much apreciated as is nuhi for taking the time to make nlite.

[TwoDogs]

G'day Fernando
Just wanted to say thanks, I've had the nVidia RAID problem for a few days and found your site and app. Followed your directions and everythings seems to be working fine (fingers crossed).

I'll get back if have any troubles or can contribute anything to the thread to help others.

AMD 64 3800
GA KN8F-9
1Gb Corsair DDR
2 x 250Gb Seagate SATA (striping RAID)
XP SP2 and nVidia 6.66 drivers

[javs1979]

Hi guys and gals,

For the past 4 days I had lots of problems installing RAID 0 with a friend of mine, on his brand-new machine.

I found this topic (refered by Short-Media.com forums) and FINALLY managed to install my RAID 0 setup without a single hiccup. Thanks to you guys, especially Fernando ;-)

I :

- Updated my BIOS to the latest release (1009.001, September 13th 2005 release)

- Enabled ACPI (it was on by default)

- Installed XP using the special unattended install CD, using the FIRST method mentionned in the first message of the thread (modified version of WINNT.SIF).

One thing though : make sure that you include these lines in the WINNT.SIF file :

[Data]
OemDrivers=OemInfFiles

[OemInfFiles]
OemDriverFlags=1
OemDriverPathName="%SystemRoot%\OemDir"
OemInfName="whatever_driver_inf_file","any_other_driver_inf_file"

My WINNT.SIF did not have "Data" section and I almost omitted the "OemDriverFlags=1"

Also, I have a question : what is the better driver to use ? I only tried the one from the nVidia nForce drivers package but I wonder if the Silicon Image 3114 works better... I did not compare the two 'cause I only wanted RAID 0 to work and since then, I don't touch anything else ;-)

What you think ?

The configuration :

- Athlon 64 X2 3800+
- Asus A8N-E, BIOS 1009.001
- 2 * 512 Mo DDR400 Corsair Value (eventually 2 * 512 DDR400 Corsair XMS TwinX)
- 2 * 80 GB Seagate 7200.7 SATA in a RAID 0 configuration
- Windows XP w/Service Pack 2 and nForce 6.66 Drivers

This post has been edited by javs1979: 20 September 2005 - 10:02 AM

[Fernando 1]

javs1979, on Sep 20 2005, 04:56 PM, said:

Also, I have a question : what is the better driver to use ? I only tried the one from the nVidia nForce drivers package but I wonder if the Silicon Image 3114 works better... I did not compare the two 'cause I only wanted RAID 0 to work and since then, I don't touch anything else ;-)
What you think ?

It is not the question of the driver, but of the Raid Controller.
Most of the users who have both Raid Controllers (nVRaid and Sil3114), prefer the nForce Raid controller.
The best drivers for the nForce4 SataRaid Controller will certainly be the brandnew ones from the NVIDIA chipset driver package 8.12 (look here:).

[javs1979]

Hi Fernando,

I try to figure out something : the website you're talking about (Station-Drivers) contains nForce 4 drivers that are stamped version 8.12.

On the other hand, nVidia offer the 6.66 nForce 4 drivers (AMD Edition).

What are the differences between the two packages ?

[Fernando 1]

javs1979, on Sep 21 2005, 03:55 AM, said:

I try to figure out something : the website you're talking about (Station-Drivers) contains nForce 4 drivers that are stamped version 8.12.
On the other hand, nVidia offer the 6.66 nForce 4 drivers (AMD Edition).
What are the differences between the two packages ?

The 6.66 package is complete, whereas the 8.12 packages contains only SATARAID, Ethernet and SMBus drivers.
Both driver packages were built by NVIDIA. The driver package 6.66 was already officially presented by NVIDIA, whereas the brandnew package 8.12 was leaked first by the french website "station-drivers", but now already presented as "official" nForce4 driver package by ASRock:
http://www.asrock.com.tw/support/Download/...8NF4G-SATA2.htm

Users with an nForce4 system should take the SataRaid drivers from the new package 8.12. They are really better than the older ones.

CU
Fernando

[Striker]

Acpi is enabled, (S1 /S3)
Tried it first with F6 and a floppy disk.
Copied nvatabus.inf to sataraid and did that .oem change.
XP booted ok afterwards but showed ms drivers.

Then I made a nlite bootdisc using the 2nd method, deleting the other ide drivers.
But had the same results as above.
I'm getting tired of this.
Gonna try the first method and then I'm gonna give up and delete my raid array..

Attached are some shots
I have no idea what that unknown device is.
Btw my mb is an Asus a8n-e

Attached File(s)

•  raid.JPG (97.82K)
  Number of downloads: 108
•  device_manager.JPG (42.04K)
  Number of downloads: 109

[Fernando 1]

Striker, on Sep 21 2005, 07:43 PM, said:

XP booted ok afterwards but showed ms drivers.
I have no idea what that unknown device is.

What is your problem? Everything is fine within your device manager!
The only little thing you have to search for is your "Unknown Device". (My tip: Google for "Asus A8N-E" +"Unknown Device"!)
Everything else is totally OK.
As you can see within the pictures, your NVIDIA Raid Controller and the nForce4 SATA Controller have their correct NVIDIA drivers.
It is totally normal, that the "device" NVIDIA Stripe shows MS drivers (disk.sys and PartMgr.sys).
CU
Fernando

EDIT:
I found something about your "Unknown Device" in an ASUS newsgroup::

Quote

I had that problem but I had ignored the Asus CD (I installed the latest nVidia 6.53's instead). The solution is a missing driver that is installed when you install Asus's "AI Booster" program. Install it, and the Unknown Device will go away instantly.

This post has been edited by Fernando 1: 21 September 2005 - 02:48 PM

[Striker]

yeah i had already found that too, it seems to work
just installed xp again using your 1st method.
it has some other ide controllers installed, see pic
and what happend with the human interface devices??
something not really ok?

now going back to your second method.
Are there any other nice hotfixes, patches, tweaks to include that you can recommend?
thanks for the help so far

Attached File(s)

•  device_manager_2.JPG (81.25K)
  Number of downloads: 85

This post has been edited by Striker: 21 September 2005 - 03:26 PM

[Fernando 1]

Striker, on Sep 21 2005, 10:24 PM, said:

just installed xp again using your 1st method.
it has some other ide controllers installed, see pic
and what happend with the human interface devices??
something not really ok? 

If you have only S-ATA and no IDE (P-ATA) hard disk drives, then you did something wrong this time.
The first pic looked much better.

Quote

now going back to your second method.
Are there any other nice hotfixes, patches, tweaks to include that you can recommend?

Each user has his own preferences. You can include what you want, but you have to remove the IDE bus drivers (see my first post within this thread).

[jayhall0315]

I too, like many of you, have an ASUS a8n-sli deluxe motherboard (version 1.02) on which I am attempting to run raid using the Nvidia contoller (not the Silicon Image controller). I have been enduring problems up the wahzoo trying to get this motherboard to work with either nvidia reference drivers 6.66, asus drivers 6.65 for winXP 32 bit or BIOS version 1013 (version 6.53 works so so, but more on that in a minute). After about one week and a hundred permutations later, here are the results:

BIOS versions 1001 to 1011 -> Fernandos OemInfFiles Method while very clever and a great step forward (thanks for posting your work, it has been a godsend) does not work. Changing the txtsetup.oem makes no difference. You may use nLite or you may take the F6 floppy route but the result is the same, endless reboots or blue screens. The reason as Fernando correctly points out, is that nvatabus.sys and nvraid.sys (found in nforce4_amd_6.66\ide\winxp\sataraid or pataraid) are not f&#*!$& WHQL by the Microsoft Gods. They are replaced during the GUI install portion of XP by generic Intel IDE drivers and this is what is causing the endless reboots/BSOD. The creation of an $OEM$ file system is not enough to override the generic IDE drivers that XP normally uses.
Fernandos Driver Removal Method DOES work with BIOS 1008, 1009 and 1011 (sorry, not enough time to test all earlier versions) but YOU MUST ALSO enable the txtsetup.oem tweak mentioned in the OemInfFiles method. This method works only by the nLite method. The reason it works is that you are using nLite to remove all the generic IDE drivers so that during the GUI install portion of XP, XP can only see the Nvidia files. The irritation with this method is that you will be warned during setup and everytime in the future that you install drivers that XP has found a problem with incompatable drivers (the sataraid crap) that could damage your system. You will also find an annoying icon in the taskbar that continually asks you to uninstall your RAID system. I have also found other small problems (such as ASUS update 6.07 does not recognize my motherboard BIOS and device manager problems) and I am still testing. Basically, it works but I am a perfectionist so that crap drives me batty.

BIOS version 1013 -> If you are one of the few lucky ones who thru sheer cussing, mountain dew binges and/or compulsion to rake your own eyeballs have updated the BIOS to 1013, then congratulate yourself, you are a Siddhartha of motherboards. The 1013 BIOS is a bit different from all previous versions because it includes specific changes that allow the Nvidia SataRaid controller to be recognized by the non-WHQLed nvatabus.sys and nvraid.sys files (this is done, I believe by sequencing at the machine code level, not at the C++ level). These changes take the place of the nvcchflt filter file found in the 6.53 drivers.
Long story short, the OemInfFiles method DOES works and so does the Driver Removal Method (both using nLite). You still will have all the minor irritations I mentioned above though. It works, I believe, because the generic IDE drivers are now seeing the Nvraid controller as an ide extension. The easiest method with the least problems seems to be the OemInfFiles method but I am still testing. If you want to use the floppy method, go to the sataraid folder, copy in the nvatabus.inf from the pataraid folder, then change the nvraid.inf line to nvatabus.inf in the txtsetup.oem file, then copy all the sataraid folder to one floppy.

I will be testing BIOS 1013 with 6.66 for the next few weeks and BIOS 1013 with version 6.53 drivers to see how it goes. BIOS version 1009 and 1011 work fine with Nvidia's reference drivers 6.53 because of the included filter file nvcchflt in the sataraid folder. You will still get the taskbar icon asking you to disable your RAID hardrives but just ignore it. Stay tuned...

Please Note: I use an AMD X2 4800 and two of the four drives I worked with to get the above results have been Hitachi T7K-250s, which use the new SATA II standards (3 Gbps and NCQ)(that is part of the reason I wanted to use the Nvidia raid controller, which is made to work with SATA II, instead of the Silicon Image one). Using or not using dual core processors or SATA II makes no difference (as long as you use a BIOS version that recognizes dual core processors)

reach me at jayhall0315@yahoo.com because I will most likely forget to post here often.

(Homebuilt) X2 4800/ASUS a8n-sli deluxe/BFG 7800 GTX SLI/2 74 GB Raptors and 2 250 GB Hitachi T7K-250s/Creative X-FI Fata1tly/DangerDen watercooling/Plextor Burners/Dell 2405 FPW/PC Power and Cooling 850/Gigaworks S750

This post has been edited by jayhall0315: 22 September 2005 - 11:32 PM

[dale5605]

I think that driver removal method is actually my method but ok...

You might want to wait for next nLite, seems to integrate nvraid perfectly without having to use my driver removal method.

[jayhall0315]

Attention to all thread users: The "unknown device" that is appearing for many of you in device manager (especially for those of you who have nforce 4 boards) is the ATK0110 APCI Util that is used to change the FSB with software like ASUS's AI Booster. To clear the problem, do the following:
insert your motherboard driver cd or download the latest AI Booster from Asus.

browse the cd and goto \software\aibooster\acpi64 and copy the win2000 folder to your desktop.

open the win2000 folder on your desktop and open the file ATK2000.ini with Notepad.

Look for this


[Manufacturer]
%ATK%=ATK

[ATK]
%DeviceDesc1%=DriverInstall,ACPI\ATK0110



and change it to this (bold text is only to show you what you have to change)


[Manufacturer]
%ATK%=ATK,NTamd64

[ATK.NTamd64]
%DeviceDesc1%=DriverInstall,ACPI\ATK0110


save the file and then go to the unknown device in device manager and manually update the driver pointing it to the win2000 directory on your desktop.

There should be no more problems. Also, even if you overclock, avoid ASUS's AI Booster and Nvidia's nTune. Short story is that they both suck and are alot like the 6.66 driver package, full of bugs.

This post has been edited by jayhall0315: 22 September 2005 - 11:12 PM

[jayhall0315]

Sorry Dale, I did not mean to give credit to someone else for your work.

For all the rest of you, I am attempting to get the source code from a contact in China at ASUS. I contacted Nvidia and they do not seem to give much of a **** wether the nForce community hangs in limbo (that is about 2,100, 000 nforce 4 motherboard purchases and counting). If my contact comes thru (a big "if"), I will attempt to rewrite the sataraid drivers and test them on my own systems. If I am successful and my coding works well, then I will release the new drivers here in the forums as a Beta release to test out. In the meantime, I encourage those who are still having problems to try the 6.67 drivers at www.guru3d.com. Stay tuned.......................

[Fernando 1]

jayhall0315, on Sep 22 2005, 11:01 PM, said:

I too, like many of you, have an ASUS a8n-sli deluxe motherboard (version 1.02) on which I am attempting to run raid using the Nvidia contoller (not the Silicon Image controller).  I have been enduring problems up the wahzoo trying to get this motherboard to work with either nvidia reference drivers 6.66, asus drivers 6.65 for winXP 32 bit or BIOS version 1013 (version 6.53 works so so, but more on that in a minute).  After about one week and a hundred permutations later, here are the results:
The creation of an $OEM$ file system is not enough to override the generic IDE drivers that XP normally uses.
Fernandos Driver Removal Method DOES work with BIOS 1008, 1009 and 1011 (sorry, not enough time to test all earlier versions) but YOU MUST ALSO enable the txtsetup.oem tweak mentioned in the OemInfFiles method. The irritation with this method is that you will be warned during setup and everytime in the future that you install drivers that XP has found a problem with incompatable drivers (the sataraid crap)  that could damage your system.  You will also find an annoying icon in the taskbar that continually asks you to uninstall your RAID system.  I have also found other small problems (such as ASUS update 6.07 does not recognize my motherboard BIOS and device manager problems) and I am still testing.  Basically, it works but I am a perfectionist so that crap drives me batty.
Long story short, the OemInfFiles method  DOES works and so does the Driver Removal Method (both using nLite).  You still will have all the minor irritations I mentioned above though.

Thank you very much for the perfect description of your nVRaid problems and your thoughts about their reasons, but I see causes to point out the following:
The experiences of Jayhall0315 were done with an ASUS A8N-SLI and cannot be automaticly transferred to users with other mainboards.

jayhall0315, on Sep 23 2005, 06:11 AM, said:

Attention to all thread users:  The "unknown device" that is appearing for many of you in device manager (especially for those of you who have nforce 4 boards) is the ATK0110 APCI Util that is used to change the FSB with software like ASUS's AI Booster.

Same thing: This is only a problem for users with an ASUS mainboard and has nothing to do with the integration of the nForce SataRaid drivers into a bootable Windows XP CD.

jayhall0315, on Sep 23 2005, 06:25 AM, said:

I am attempting to get the source code from a contact in China at ASUS.  I contacted Nvidia and they do not seem to give much of a **** wether the nForce community hangs in limbo (that is about 2,100, 000 nforce 4 motherboard purchases and counting).  If my contact comes thru (a big "if"), I will attempt to rewrite the sataraid drivers and test them on my own systems.  If I am successful and my coding works well, then I will release the new drivers here in the forums as a Beta release to test out.  In the meantime, I encourage those who are still having problems to try the 6.67 drivers at www.guru3d.com.  Stay tuned.......................

That would be great! All users with an nForce SataRaid system wish you good luck!

CU
Fernando

This post has been edited by Fernando 1: 25 September 2005 - 09:48 AM

[Stephane]

Hi all,

I was finally able to create a working boot cd including sata raid drivers based on the following config:

- Official NVIDIA nForce4 6.66 drivers
- nLite 1.0 beta 6
- XP Pro cd with SP2 and latest hotfixes already slipstreamed
- Motherboard MSI K8N Neo4-F with bios 1.6
- Raid 4.84
- 1 single Hitashi Deskstar 7K250 160Gb SATA disk on Channel 3 SATA
- Raid enabled for Channel 3 in Spanning mode (JBOD)

I started by applying the exact steps of post #1 by Fernando 1 using the OEM method. My installation always crashed right after loading the drivers, even before partionning the disk.
I found post #133 by mjswooosh to be very helpful. Here are the exact steps that I used to build a working cd:

1.- Started from original XP Pro cd
2.- Slipstreamed (integrate) SP1
3.- Slipstreamed (integrate) SP2 + latest hotfixes
4.- Downloaded 6.66 nForce4 drivers from NVIDIA: here
5.- Renamed .exe to .zip and extracted all files using 7-zip (like WinZip)
6.- Started nLite, selecting "Integrate Drivers" + "Unattended Setup" (nothing else)
[EDIT]
7.- When nLite asked me to choose the driver to integrate, I browsed my unzipped 6.66 driver directory structure and selected the IDE\WinXP\sataraid\nvraid.inf file. Then in the textmode driver select box, I picked up both drivers listed.
[/EDIT]
8.- Finished nLite integration (without creating iso at this point, no parameter changed)
9.- In bootable cd root, created the $OEM$/$$/OEMDIR directories
10.- Copied "nvatabus.sys" and "idecoi.dll" from original IDE\WinXP\sataraid\ directory into $OEM$/$$/OEMDIR directory
11.- Copied "nvatabus.inf" from original IDE\WinXP\pataraid\ into $OEM$/$$/OEMDIR directory (I didn't modify the file)
12.- In I386/WINNT.SIF, changed OemInfName = "nvraid.inf" to OemInfName = "nvatabus.inf" (yes, no nvraid.inf here)
13.- In I386/WINNT.SIF, changed OemDriverPathName = "%SystemRoot%\nldrv" to OemDriverPathName = "%SystemRoot%\OemDir"
14.- Restarted nLite, selected only "Create a Bootable ISO"
15.- ISO created by nLite
16.- Burnt ISO with Nero
17.- Installed XP successfully
18.- NVIDIA nForce™ RAID Class Controller visible in Device Manager
19.- Disks Manager now reports a 153Gb JBOD (raid spanning) device

This was my 8th cd, after 7 failed attempts... Thanks a lot to Fernando 1 and mjswooosh for their detailed posts.

Next step (9th!) will be a bootable dvd, not-so-fully-unattended-setup and slipstreamed with all the remaining drivers (SMBus, Ethernet, Audio, ...). I'll post the details if it works.

Cheers,
- Stéphane

This post has been edited by Stephane: 25 September 2005 - 02:58 PM

[nite0859]

Stephane, on Sep 24 2005, 12:34 AM, said:

Hi all,

I was finally able to create a working boot cd including sata raid drivers based on the following config:

- Official NVIDIA nForce4 6.66 drivers
- nLite 1.0 beta 6
- XP Pro cd with SP2 and latest hotfixes already slipstreamed
- Motherboard MSI K8N Neo4-F with bios 1.6
- Raid 4.84
- 1 single Hitashi Deskstar 7K250 160Gb SATA disk on Channel 3 SATA
- Raid enabled for Channel 3 in Spanning mode (JBOD)

I started by applying the exact steps of post #1 by Fernando 1 using the OEM method. My installation always crashed right after loading the drivers, even before partionning the disk.
I found post #133 by mjswooosh to be very helpful. Here are the exact steps that I used to build a working cd:

1.- Started from original XP Pro cd
2.- Slipstreamed (integrate) SP1
3.- Slipstreamed (integrate) SP2 + latest hotfixes
4.- Downloaded 6.66 nForce4 drivers from NVIDIA: here
5.- Renamed .exe to .zip and extracted all files using 7-zip (like WinZip)
6.- Started nLite, selecting "Integrate Drivers" + "Unattended Setup" (nothing else)
7.- Selected the original (unzipped) IDE\WinXP\sataraid\nvraid.inf driver to integrate in nLite
8.- Finished nLite integration (without creating iso at this point, no parameter changed)
9.- In bootable cd root, created the $OEM$/$$/OEMDIR directories
10.- Copied "nvatabus.sys" and "idecoi.dll" from original IDE\WinXP\sataraid\ directory into $OEM$/$$/OEMDIR directory
11.- Copied "nvatabus.inf" from original IDE\WinXP\pataraid\ into $OEM$/$$/OEMDIR directory (I didn't modify the file)
12.- In I386/WINNT.SIF, changed OemInfName = "nvraid.inf" to OemInfName = "nvatabus.inf" (yes, no nvraid.inf here)
13.- In I386/WINNT.SIF, changed OemDriverPathName = "%SystemRoot%\nldrv" to OemDriverPathName = "%SystemRoot%\OemDir"
14.- Restarted nLite, selected only "Create a Bootable ISO"
15.- ISO created by nLite
16.- Burnt ISO with Nero
17.- Installed XP successfully
18.- NVIDIA nForce™ RAID Class Controller visible in Device Manager
19.- Disks Manager now reports a 153Gb JBOD (raid spanning) device

This was my 8th cd, after 7 failed attempts...    Thanks a lot to Fernando 1 and mjswooosh for their detailed posts.

Next step (9th!) will be a bootable dvd, not-so-fully-unattended-setup and slipstreamed with all the remaining drivers (SMBus, Ethernet, Audio, ...). I'll post the details if it works.

Cheers,
- Stéphane
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Brilliant. Will try later.

Has anyone dared to try this:

1. Using HFSlip, integrate all XPSP2 hotfixes.
2. Using Nlite, add the references to the nForce4 raid drivers.
3. Integrate all of BTS's driver packs, including mass storage, using method 1.

This post has been edited by nite0859: 23 September 2005 - 05:44 PM

[dale5605]

You SHOULD NOT be integrating SP1 and then integrating SP2 over top. SP2 contains all the things from SP1 but updated and more. So just integrate SP2...

[Stephane]

dale5605 -

You are pefectly right. In fact, I didn't realize that I was using my previously-slipstreamed-sp1 cd when I started to integrate the sp2 and the sata drivers.

Anyway, it seems to work just fine.

Cheers,
- Stéphane