Raptor 150 problem - begging for help

[wespaul]

Hi all. I’ve searched the forums, and can’t find the answer, so I am forced to ask. Background:

 

Bought the new WD Raptor 150 to use in my

DFI Ultra-D NF4

OCZ Powerstream 520 watt PS

1 G (2X512) TwinMOS TMSP400

AMD Athlon XP64 3500+

Benq DVD burner

Maxtor 40 gig IDE

WD 120 gig IDE

Geforce 6600 video card

 

I made the mistake of hooking the raptor into the system as was. It recognized the drive on SATA port 1. I installed WinXP on the raptor, but when I put the raptor as the top drive in bios boot prority, it wouldn’t boot to it. System is not overclocked at the moment.

 

Did some research, realized my mistake and pulled the other hard drives, reformatted, and re-installed WinXP on the raptor. Booted up fine. Then I added the 40 gig Maxtor back in to start copying files over to the raptor. Small files copying OK, then it gets to a big file – system crashes after a few seconds of copying the big file (screen just goes black, then reboots). I’m thinking power problem, so I remove the WD secure connector that forces you to use 4-pin power to the raptor, use SATA power from the PS, and a normal SATA signal cable. Then the dang thing wouldn’t boot at all if the raptor was connected.

 

The safe boot jumper got me back up once on the IDE drive only, but I moved the raptor to port 3, system wouldn’t boot, and this time I had to clear the CMOS to get back up on the 40 gig IDE drive only. I haven’t tried to connect the raptor after the CMOS clear – I’m afraid to damage things more (if they are damaged now) without guidance. It kinda feels like the SATA ports are toast, but I don’t have another SATA drive to try on them.

 

Summary:

$300 drive won’t play nice with IDE drives, and now not at all. Anyone have any insight into this problem? I’m hoping some good soul here can help erase this cold feeling in the pit of my stomach.

[Daddyjaxx]

You need to disconnect all IDE drives, install Windows on the Raptor, set you boot priority, go back into Windows and then connect the IDE drives and it will work.

[wespaul]

Daddyjax,

 

Thanks for taking the time to respond. However, I have already done exactly that - disconnected all drives, formatted and installed Windows XP on the raptor, and reconnected the IDE drives. That's when things went downhill.

[expresso]

hi -- i had a similar problem also - i couldnt load windows because i installed the OS on the raptor with my other sata drive connected -- i had to pull the power plug from the other drive - -- then i installed windows again -- formatted it full and installed xp

after its all done - i connected the other drive and it worked out fine --

but the only thing i dont like now is that my other hard drive shows it as a F drive and G drive - i have it partitioned -

 

the system shows my dvdrom and burner as drive D and drive E

 

but besides that its working -- it does throw me off if i have to reinstall windows

i guess i would have to disconnect the second drive again if the need arises

 

and also when i use power quest drive image - to restore a drive -

that program shows that the F drive where the image is on windows

it shows it as the D drive when i have to restore - i havnt a clue why -- but i restored a image to check it and it works - so i guess i just have to remember the drive letter changes -

 

try it again from the start -- i had to do it over a few times myself

 

but it should work -

[wespaul]

HI, expresso, sounds like you have a bit of a confusing situation there with you rdrive letters. Thanks for the encouragement. I don't know why I even bothered to come to work today - all I'm doing is sitting at the PC cruising for answers to my problem. Ah, well, sometimes it helps to get away from it for a while, even just physically. I'd be doing stupid stuff out of desperation if I were home.

 

Your experience sounds a lot like mine, except for the total non-boot I have when I try to plug in the raptor. When I cleared the CMOS last night, it was getting late, and I didn't want to screw things up so bad that I couldn't even use the computer. I'll give it another try tonight, but I was hoping for some insight from the big guns here first. It's like the SATA ports got screwed up somehow. I just hope the CMOS clear fixes it, and it's not physical damage or a toasted raptor. Newegg's RMA seems to work for those who have used it, but I hope I don't have to go through the delay and hassle.

 

Thanks.

[RGone]

You might check google for raptor like you have and NF4 problems. I have heard of a few and I am not sure if there has been an answer. They have two versions of that new thing and the cheaper version is "for" servers by the firmware it has on it and the one with the clear top is aimed at home/gamer/enthusiast setups and may actually have a bearing on why you had trouble transferring files.

 

The drives are new and it would not surprise me at all to see an issue with them and some drivers until they sort it out. The they will likely be Nvidia if and when they get around to knowing there is a problem and then checking with WD. DFI nor any other mobo makers writes the drivers and if it is driver related > I doubt a quick cure.

 

And yes I am quite aware you are 'not now' in windows but you were when you started having troubles and windows will right the master boot record wrong if it thinks to do it at all and then you have two possible problems.

 

RGone...

[wespaul]

RGone,

 

Good suggestion to google NVidia and the raptor. I'll try that. Yeah, and if I can't even get the system to boot with the raptor plugged in, I may not be able to surmount that aspect to address the master boot record (it's the little 8Mb partition that showed up when I formatted it, I assume). I've never tried to be a "beta" tester of anything, preferring to wait for mature software and hardware. I may have let my enthusiasm get me in precisely that situation this time.

 

Thanks for your input!

[RGone]

Since I do not have one of the drives> I can only go by what I have glimpsed and I think you may be in beta mode alright enough at least for now.

 

RGone...

[wespaul]

Well, on the bright side, if I get it working (big "if" as of now), maybe the next guy to suffer this will have a clue how to fix it. Actually, if it weren't for the $300 I dropped for the drive, this kind of troubleshooting is actually fun. Stakes are a bit higher than I'm comfortable with, though. Makes me wish I had done the two Hitachi 80 gigs in RAID0 - less at risk. Thanks, RGone.

[Guest GripS]

I am using the cheaper non-windowed version of the Raptor as well. However my second hard drive is also an SATA drive. I do have a 5gb ide drive i use for testing OS's and i will hook it up tonight and try and transfer a large file from it to my raptor. How big is the file that you are trying to transfer when it crashes?

[wespaul]

Grips - the file was about 375 Mb, but I don't think it could have been any more than 2 - 3 seconds into the transfer before it crashed. Hope you see something informative!

[Guest GripS]

Well it just so happens i have a Battlefield 2 patch file that is that exact size. No issue transferring from SATA to SATA and i will try the IDE drive when i get back from a school function with my daughter tonight.

 

 

Edit: Installed IDE drive and transferred the Battlefield 2 patch(375mb) to the IDE drive and transferred back to the Raptor. No issue whatsoever.

 

When you installed the chipset drivers did you install the Nvidia IDE driver? I did not. I'm also using the 623-1 BIOS. Make sure the RAM passes memtest(built into the BIOS). Sorry if none of this helps, but i think we can be assured that it's not an issue with the spendy Raptor(it was tough for me to justify it's cost, but i just went for it and am very happy with it).