I am new to this, so please bare with me and this long question.

I have just upgraded to a KT7A-Raid V1.2 Motherboard with a 1.4 GHz TBird and 2 x 256 MB of SDRAM.

The system was able to boot up fine and Win98SE was able to reconfigure itself and ask for all the necessary drivers.

I now have 2 main problems:

1. Although the Bios accurately detects my HDDs on IDE1 as "Quantum Fireball CX6.4A A3F.0B00" as the Master and "IBM-DAQA-33240 R6ORA53A" as the Slave, Windows identifies them both as Type 47 instead. The strange thing is that although the Quantum is capable of UDMA, I cannot enable DMA in Windows. As a result I can only achieve read speeds of about 2 Mb/s in HD Tach benchmarks. The IBM HDD, on the other hand, is only capable of PIO 4 but in Windows I can enable it to use DMA and I can achieve read speeds of about 12 Mb/s. Does anybody know how I can get Windows to identify my HDDs correctly and use them at their full potential? By the way, the PC sometimes reboots itself when I attempt to benchmark the HDDs. I encounter non of the above problems with my other 2 HDDs - one each on IDE3 and IDE4.

2. I cannot get power management to run properly on my PC. I need this feature to work properly because I need to leave the machine on all day. If I put the machine to standby using Start Menu->Shutdown->Standby, I cannot get it to wake up again without rebooting. Anybody know how to fix this? If I allow the machine to go to sleep by waiting for my Power Management settings to kick in, I notice that the monitor powers down and the HDDs on IDE1 spin down but not those on IDE3 and IDE4. The CPU fan does not stop rotating no matter how long I wait so I know the machine is not completely in standby. However, I can wake up the machine by moving the mouse or pressing a key if I let it go to "Standby" by waiting. Does any one know how I can troubleshoot this?

My system configuration is as follows:

-KT7ARaid with 1.4 GHz TBird and 2x256 MB RAM
-Quantum Fireball 6.4 GB (Master) and IBM Deskstar 3.2 GB (Slave) on IDE1 using a 40-way cable.
-Asus 40x CD-ROM Drive (Slave) on IDE2 using a 40-way cable.
-IBM Deskstar 40GB (60GXP) as Master on IDE3 using a 80-way cable.
-IBM Deskstar 10GB as Master on IDE4 using a 80-way cable.
-300W Power Supply.
-Creative SB Live Value Sound PCI Card
-Adaptec 2940UW SCSI PCI Card connected to a Yamaha 4416S CDRW Drive.
-Hauppauge IEEE1394 Firewire PCI Card
-Matrox Mystique G200 AGP Card
-Parallel Port Expansion ISA Card
-KT7ARaid Bios updated to 4A with Highpoint BIOS v2.0.1019
-Via 4in1 version 4.34 drivers used

*****BIG QUESTION*****
1:If you upgraded your motherboard to kt7a-raid, and you had all of this on another board -- what was the board?
2:When you installed your Via service pack, did you check off enable DMA on the drives?

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Thanks for the tip. I will give your suggestion a try.

Windows reports both as type 47's also,but everything else reports them correctly -- Norton-Sandra-system Bios-PCpitstop---so I don't worry about what the device manager tells me about generic type 47 ide's--It reports this because your windows operating system is using Windows drivers for your hard drives.

Hope I haven't confused you too much!!!!
Michael

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ANOTHER QUESTION: you did wipe your master boot hard drive before you started this whole process? All your drives should be reformatted, if possible.I know it's a pain in the butt.
Also, if you are going to RAID these drives it is suggested that you use the same MAKE & Models. The sizes don't really matter.
Now that is just a suggestion that is in your manual -- don't forget to read up on it!!

*** ALWAYS START WITH CLEAN FORMATTED HARD DRIVES WHEN INSTALLING A NEW BOARD,UNLESS IT'S THE SAME EXACT BOARD, OR THE EXACT SAME CHIP SET ON THE BOARD<--(JUST TO BE SAFE).If the HD's are brand new then don't worry.

I apologize if I am telling you things that you already are aware of.

Let us know how everything is coming along !!!
Michael

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I do not know every detail about my all my hard disks as some of them are quite old. But this is what I do know:

IDE1 Master: Quantum Fireball 6.4 GB ATA66
IDE1 Slave: IBM Deskstar 3.2 GB PIO4
IDE3 Master: IBM Deskstar 40 GB (60GXP, Brand new)ATA100 7200RPM 2MB Cache
IDE4 Master: IBM Deskstar 10 GB ATA33

Sad to say I did not reformat my HDDs when I replaced the motherboard. I did not see any reason too once Windows as able to detect and load all the relevant drivers when I clicked on "Add New Hardware" in the Control Panel after installing the 4in1 drivers and HPT370 drivers. It would be a real pain to do it as I would have to re-install Windows and all my software and related patches all over again.

At the moment, I do not intend to use my HDDs in a Raid configuration.

Just to be sure, how do I re-install my IDE drivers? Should I use those included in the Via 4in1 or those that come standard with Windows? I think they are called IDE Bus Master Drivers.

This has all the driver updates on it, and fixes - like S/B live fix. everyone has problems with the soundblaster install --
The Abit board doesn't like it.

I stay with the VIA Drivers
Hope this helps you,
Michael

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Ok, so Type 47 detected under Win98SE's Device Manager is fine but I still have the problem that I cannot enable DMA and suffer from very slow transfer rates. I can only achieve average read speeds of about 2 Mb/s. My drive index in Norton SI is only 2.3. Any ideas on how I can get DMA to stick and work in the Device Manager?

I personally also prefer to use the VIA IDE drivers if possible. I have also checked out the Via patch for the SBLive problem, it has already been included in the v4.34 4in1 drivers. Am I right?

As to your other question about device manager - My bus master is version 6 by VIA
with no driver date
The controllers are both Microsoft. Same spec set as you.

You have tried to enable DMA in the device manager on your type47 drives when you open their box? It wouldn' stick? -- We will get into that next !~
Anyway, try benching just your IBM 40GIG & see what you come up with. The reason you get low benches the other way is because of your slower drives being connected to your faster drives.

Get back to me so I know if you benched different.
P.S. Are you sure that all four drives are UDMA capable?
Just to make sure - you know that you should never run a hard drive on the same line with a cd drive? I had to ask, because i.ve seen it before. This slows your HD also...

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If you read my original post, you will realise that my 40GB HDD is on IDE3 by itself and I have no problems with it. My problem is with my Quantum Fireball 6.4 GB HDD (Master) on IDE1 together with my IBM 3.2 GB Deskstar (Slave). I could not get DMA to stick for the Fireball. It is at least capable of ATA33 or UDMA 2. Perhaps the Deskstar is slowing it down as it can only manage PIO 4. Please read my other posts to you for the rest of the details.

Thanks for all your feedback on this topic. I finally managed to solve my problem last weekend.

The main problem was with the Via IDE Bus Master drivers. For some reason when I installed them, they did not completely overide those provided with Win98SE. I tried deleting them (Microsoft) at first so that I can reinstall the Via 4in1 Drivers after rebooting but everytime I reboot they get reinstalled. Later, I unzipped the Via 4in1 drivers to a directory and forced Windows to take the drivers from that directory containing the Via drivers when it prompted for them during start up and everything was ok.