I have a fairly new machine, self built, Intel motherboard, D955XBK. Two 250 GB hard disks, generally running in RAID 1, using Silicon Image Raid software. OS: WinXP SP2.

Without any warning, on a routine reboot, the system would not boot. The motherboard bios does not recognize my hard drives. The RAID bios recognizes them. Western digital diagnostic software says both hard drives are fine.

Obviously, there is no physical disconnecxtion of my SATA cables, since both, RAID bios & WD diagnostic software 'see' the drives.

How can I get the motherboard bios to recognize the drives again?

I'd appreciate any suggestions.

Also, I could not find any forum appearing more appropriate & this is really not an OS issue. Any suggestions for a more appropriate forum?

Peter Kroeger

Did your motherboard always recognize the drives? Rather than recognizing the RAID which in turn recognizes the drives? Outside of that curiosity I can only offer some links. Hopefully one of our more hardware savvy members will have more ideas

Degraded RAID Volumes
Refer to the Troubleshooting chapter in the User's Manual for complete steps in troubleshooting degraded RAID volumes.

http://www.intel.com/support/motherb.../CS-020811.htm

http://download.intel.com/support/ch...nual45_web.pdf

http://www.intel.com/support/motherb...5xbk/index.htm

Through trial & error, I've been able to narrow the problem down:
My motherboard has two SATA controllers, each with four ports. Before disaster struck, the two hard drives were on ports 4 & 5. Somehow, the bios now only sees ports 0 to 3. If I physically connect the hard drives to ports 0 & 1, the bios recognizes them, but then the RAID bios cannot see them, looking for them on ports 4 & 5.

It seems that the secondary SATA controller, even though set to 'enabled' in the bios, is no longer recognized.

I'm pretty much resigned to having a paid for tech support session with an Intel tech on Monday.

You can't win them all.

Peter K