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Problem with two SATA HDD dives on Sil 3512 controller.


Sfor

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I do have two 1TB SATA drives. Both of them are working fine when either one of them is connected to the PCI Sil 3512 controller. But, when both are connected at the same time, the Windows 98 does not boot freezing during the Sil driver initialization.

The driver installed is SiI3x12 32-bit Windows SATARAID Driver 1.00.51. It seems to be the newest one.

There is another driver available named as "SiI3x12 32-bit Windows IDE Driver" 1.2.0.57. But, it does not seem to be recognized as a valid one for this particular controller.

I tried with two different Sil 3512 controllers form different manufacturers, but result is still the same. It appears the Windows 98 RAID driver works fine as long as it is just one drive connected. With two drives not arranged in a RAID set the driver hangs the Windows 98 during booting.

Does anyone else encountered the same problem? Or perhaps someone was able to get two SATA HDD drives working on Windows 98 without a RAID set defined. I'm out of ideas, for the moment.

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Or perhaps someone was able to get two SATA HDD drives working on Windows 98 without a RAID set defined.

No problems on my previous and current system with two 250GB SATA drives in such configuration. Previous system was an Abit NF7-S mobo with a Silicon Image SATA controller and the current one is an Asus A8V Deluxe with VIA and Promise SATA controllers (never used the Promise one so far).

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Or perhaps someone was able to get two SATA HDD drives working on Windows 98 without a RAID set defined.

No problems on my previous and current system with two 250GB SATA drives in such configuration. Previous system was an Abit NF7-S mobo with a Silicon Image SATA controller and the current one is an Asus A8V Deluxe with VIA and Promise SATA controllers (never used the Promise one so far).

There are many Silicon Image chips on the market. Are you sure it was the Sil 3512? I have not heard about this particular chip to be integrated on a motherboard, so far.

Are you sure the silicon image configuration isn't set to raid (in the bios ) ?

No, it is not set to the RAID. There are no RAID sets defined, there.

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There are many Silicon Image chips on the market. Are you sure it was the Sil 3512?

I have not said it was a 3512, I just answered your generic question but looking it up, it appears to be the 3112A.

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The Sil 3512 seems to be based on the 3112 design. The chips are close related, so the same set of drivers can be used. The question remains, what driver version were you using?

In my case, everything seems to be working fine, before the SiI3x12 32-bit Windows SATARAID Driver 1.00.51 kicks in.

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Guest wsxedcrfv

I have a generic SATA PCI card installed on this win-98 system. Under SCSI controllers in device manager I have two devices as follows:

A347SCSI SCSI Controller

- c:\windows\system\iosubsys\a347scsi.pdr

- c:\windows\system\vmm32\ios.vxd

Silicon Image SiL 3512 SATARaid Controller

- c:\windows\system\iosubsys\si3112r.mpd (version 1,0,0,51)

- c:\windows\system\vmm32\ios.vxd

- c:\windows\system\silsupp.cpl (version 3,0,0,15)

- c:\windows\system\iosubsys\siisupp.vxd (version 1,0,0,15)

I'm not sure where the first device comes from (I don't think I have a real SCSI controller on this system).

I don't have a problem with two SATA drives attached to this card during bootup. My boot drive where win-98 is located is on the system primary IDE drive (I don't boot from the SATA drives). I currently have 400 and 750 gb sata drives attached to the system.

You might want to set a jumper on your SATA drives to force them to SATA-I operation. I've read where that can be a solution in some cases.

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Apparently, there some differences in two files in my driver set:

si3112r.mpd (version 1,0,57,0)

silsupp.cpl (version 3,0,22,0)

I'll try to make some experiments related to these files, later.

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The Sil 3512 seems to be based on the 3112 design. The chips are close related, so the same set of drivers can be used. The question remains, what driver version were you using?

I used the drivers that came with the motherboard install CD and the files apparently were:

Si3112r.mpd 1.0.0.28

Siisupp.vxd 4.0.0.950 (1,0,0,10)

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I think you'll have to flash to a non-RAID BIOS, or at least change the device ID the driver looks for, to be able to install the non-RAID drivers.

A347SCSI SCSI Controller

- c:\windows\system\iosubsys\a347scsi.pdr

- c:\windows\system\vmm32\ios.vxd

I'm not sure where the first device comes from (I don't think I have a real SCSI controller on this system).

That's Daemon Tools.

Edited by shae
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Guest wsxedcrfv

> That's Daemon Tools.

For emulating a virtual SCSI controller?

I can't imagine why it's on this system, unless it came as part of EZ CD creator or Nero burning rom or some other CD/DVD app. The file a347scsi.pdr exists nowhere else on this drive other than \windows\system\iosubsys. File properties don't list any corporate owner / author. Description is simply "SCSI port". Copyright is just "Copyright © 2000-2004".

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I have a generic SATA PCI card installed on this win-98 system. Under SCSI controllers in device manager I have two devices as follows:

A347SCSI SCSI Controller

- c:\windows\system\iosubsys\a347scsi.pdr

- c:\windows\system\vmm32\ios.vxd

Silicon Image SiL 3512 SATARaid Controller

- c:\windows\system\iosubsys\si3112r.mpd (version 1,0,0,51)

- c:\windows\system\vmm32\ios.vxd

- c:\windows\system\silsupp.cpl (version 3,0,0,15)

- c:\windows\system\iosubsys\siisupp.vxd (version 1,0,0,15)

I'm not sure where the first device comes from (I don't think I have a real SCSI controller on this system).

I don't have a problem with two SATA drives attached to this card during bootup. My boot drive where win-98 is located is on the system primary IDE drive (I don't boot from the SATA drives). I currently have 400 and 750 gb sata drives attached to the system.

You might want to set a jumper on your SATA drives to force them to SATA-I operation. I've read where that can be a solution in some cases.

I was able to get the same version of drivers installed. But nothing have changed.

I can not force the 1.5GBit transfer rate on the ST31000524AS. The other drive is WD10EARS, so it does have the jumpers to force the 1.5GBit transfer rate.

The drives are both working correctly, when connected without the other one to the same controller. So, the 1.5GBit transfer negotiation should be working fine. The problem starts only when both are connected, in the moment the windows driver is initializing. In some point the HDD LED stops blinking and gets permanently lited. The system gets frozen, before GUI kicks in.

As a workaround I'm using a IDE to SATA adapter in order to connect the ST31000524AS through the mainboard IDE port.

Edited by Sfor
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I have a generic SATA PCI card installed on this win-98 system. Under SCSI controllers in device manager I have two devices as follows:

A347SCSI SCSI Controller

- c:\windows\system\iosubsys\a347scsi.pdr

- c:\windows\system\vmm32\ios.vxd

Silicon Image SiL 3512 SATARaid Controller

- c:\windows\system\iosubsys\si3112r.mpd (version 1,0,0,51)

- c:\windows\system\vmm32\ios.vxd

- c:\windows\system\silsupp.cpl (version 3,0,0,15)

- c:\windows\system\iosubsys\siisupp.vxd (version 1,0,0,15)

I'm not sure where the first device comes from (I don't think I have a real SCSI controller on this system).

I don't have a problem with two SATA drives attached to this card during bootup. My boot drive where win-98 is located is on the system primary IDE drive (I don't boot from the SATA drives). I currently have 400 and 750 gb sata drives attached to the system.

You might want to set a jumper on your SATA drives to force them to SATA-I operation. I've read where that can be a solution in some cases.

I was able to get the same version of drivers installed. But nothing have changed.

I can not force the 1.5GBit transfer rate on the ST31000524AS. The other drive is WD10EARS, so it does have the jumpers to force the 1.5GBit transfer rate.

The drives are both working correctly, when connected without the other one to the same controller. So, the 1.5GBit transfer negotiation should be working fine. The problem starts only when both are connected, in the moment the windows driver is initializing. In some point the HDD LED stops blinking and gets permanently lited. The system gets frozen, before GUI kicks in.

As a workaround I'm using a IDE to SATA adapter in order to connect the ST31000524AS through the mainboard IDE port.

I have had mixed results with Silicon Image Drivers. My girlfriend's Computer would not boot with the provided Driver, so I installed my SATA Patch. It can handle two SATA Drives.

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