Silicon Image Sil 0680 Ultra-133 Medley ATA Raid Controller.

Asked my local supplier for a PCI to IDE controller and this is what I was given. Don't know why it should include RAID.
Wanted to do this to eliminate the use of Drive Overlay to get the use of Drive Image and Partition Magic.

1. Connected the card.
2. Booted up.
3. Card detected & installed the drivers.
4. Booted to "Maxblast 3" and removed drive overlay.
5. Shut down, switched off, connected Maxtor HDD to controller card using supplied 80 conductor IDE cable.
6. Restarted PC. "Please supply system disk" [no OS found]
7. Booted from Win98 Startup floppy, formatted C: drive, restored backup of C: partition from CD-RW disks using "Simple Backup".
8. Booted into Windows. C: D: E: F: seen, but G: not seen.
9. Ran "Maxblast 3" & "Maxblast 4" to check out the drive.
Only 32,253MB seen by BIOS, 33,816MB seen by Maxblast 3 & 4.
Partitions C,D,E,F seen correctly at original correct size & FAT32.
Partition G seen at correct size, but not correctly named/identified and seen as FAT16 [it was partitioned as FAT32 like the others].
If I select that and begin to repartition Maxblast offers to partition it to 33,816MB [full drive capacity seen] as though the other partitions don't exist. Normally it would only offer the remaining space.

Does anyone know how to get this to see and use the full 80GB capacity of the drive? :confused:

I notice there are 2 sets of drivers available:
One WITH RAID functions and the other without.
When I tried to install the driver without RAID [searching for a suitable driver], no suitable driver was found in the folder, but when I pointed at the folder with the RAID driver, a suitable driver was found.
Have I installed the wrong driver?

You may need to completely wipe the drive.

A number of options. fdisk /mbr, then delete partitions, repartition and reformat. Do a low level format with MaxBlast utilities, etc. Drive overlays can be a pain to remove. I would try the low level format.

Your motherboard bios (which I assume does not support large drives) will not report the full size of the drive. The controller card's bios should, however. Have you tried entering the card's bios setup? Did you get a manual with the card?

The raid drivers would only be required if you set up a raid configuration in the card's bios setup. So don't bother with those. Also, the drivers will only matter when in Windows. The card's bios should detect the full 80 gigs of the drive, whether the drivers are installed or not.

Do the low level format. And one last thing you can check is the jumpers on the drive. They may be set to "Master w/ CLJ" or "Slave w/CLJ", CLJ meaning Cylinder Limiting Jumper. Picture can be seen here: http://www.maxtor.com/_files/maxtor/en_us/documentation/quick_specs/diamondmax_plus_9_quick_specs.pdf

The drive is jumpered as Master.
When I previously tried using the CLJ [when the new 80GB drive was 1st connected to the onboard Primary IDE Controller] the PC wouldn't POST!
So I switched the jumper to Master and all was well.

How do I get into the cards' BIOS? Don't see any way to do that, but will look for it.

"So don't bother with those"
Those were the only drivers detected as suitable. Did try forcing the install of the other IDE/without RAID drivers, but they showed as disabled, so I reverted to the RAID driver.

"The card's bios should detect the full 80 gigs of the drive, whether the drivers are installed or not."
The problem is:
"fdisk" won't see the drive [or work], just get an error when I run it.
Maxblast 3 & 4 don't see the full capacity; report 33,816 MB drive.
During startup something about RAID is displayed showing a capacity of 32,253 MB.

Only got a leaflet with the card.
It mentions "Installing Medley Software", "Used to change the UDMA mode", and "manage the RAID functions". A pdf manual for this software is on the mini-CD.
The leaflet says if there is already a bootable HDD connected to the main board's' IDE controller, but I want to boot from the HDD connected to the card, then I need to set the mainboad's BIOS to boot SCSI 1st.
I don't have a bootable HDD on the main board's' controllers.

"fdisk /mbr, then delete partitions, repartition and reformat"
fdisk doesn't work! Gives an error. Never done that before.
Maxblast doesn't see the full drive!

ErnieK suggested using "Partition Magic" [which can now be used because the drive overlay is gone] to attempt to fix the partitions.

Well, it sounds like the card is set up as raid. There must be a way to get into the card's setup to disable the raid function. This Sil chip is not the best chip, many have had problems with it, data corruption, etc. With little or no documantation, I would consider returning the card and save yourself the grief.

In your previous thread, I recommended getting a Promise Fast Trak controller card. Look for one of those. Cheap raid cards aren't worth the bother.

If you wish to try making this work, then go with ErnieK's idea.

Edit- If the Bios does not come up, try another slot. If it comes up quickly, after the motherboard's bios post screen, start tapping F1 to get into the stup.

Boy, when you have a question you sure come up with a lulu... :D
No surprise though, you manage to answer some of the toughest ones the visitors here throw at us...

I'm mostly stumped, but wondering what the rest of the hardware setup is, onboard IDE-wise, and have you looked into BIOS settings? Can the onboard IDE be disabled and is that affecting the add-on card?

Woops. The button to press to get into setup is F3.

Is this your card? http://www.syba.com/product/43/02/01/2/index.html

And is this the manual? http://www.syba.com/bin/silicon_image/sil680/sil680-manual_041103.pdf

I found the FAQ for it here: http://www.syba.com/support_download/faq/03/index.html


Possibly the reason fdisk will not work and Windows chooses the raid drivers is because the card is set up for raid. I feel if you can get into the setup using F3, disable the raid function, you should be able to solve this.

Ran:
"Partition Magic" : result = "Error #701
"fdisk" : result = "Error reading fixed disk".

malcore
"it sounds like the card is set up as raid"
It looks like that to me [though I know nothing about RAID].
"SilCfg" is running in the System Tray, and if [as instructed] I double-click on it, then "SilCfg for Medley" opens. It shows a small hardware tree [like Device Manager] with the PC, below is the controller card "PCI-680U-0", then "Primary" & "Secondary". Beneath primary is "Master" with a drive icon. If I click on that icon the right pane has 3 tabs = "Device", Smart/Configuration, Identify Data.
"Device" gives lots of info about the HDD = Manufacturer, Serial Number, Firmware Version, ATA version, Media Type, Current Mode [UDMA 6], look ahead & write cache , capacity [32,253MB].
"Smart/Configuration" gives: "support" = yes, "enabled" = yes, "status threshold" = ok, "current mode" = UDMA 6, "mode after reboot" [select from a drop-down box and apply], "spare drive (after reboot) = disabled [radio button selected and greyed].
"Identify Data" : has a grid full of numbers. Along top is "+0" thru "+7".
Down left side is "0000" thru "0248" in steps of 8.

"There must be a way to get into the card's setup to disable the raid function."
Still don't see anyway to do that.

"I would consider returning the card and save yourself the grief."
Will definitely put that on my list, but won't give up 'till I'm beaten.

"Cheap raid cards aren't worth the bother."
I never wanted a RAID card, so I wonder why he gave me one? I expect this shop to keep its customers right, and they generally do.

"go with ErnieK's idea"
Tried that and it failed. :(

"If the Bios does not come up, try another slot. If it comes up quickly, after the motherboard's bios post screen, start tapping F1 to get into the setup."
This BIOS uses F2 to get into the HP setup. More primitive than my MJN BIOS setup.

[B]Pete
"wondering what the rest of the hardware setup is, onboard IDE-wise"
Primary/Secondary Master/Slave, both enabled at present, What sort of details?

"have you looked into BIOS settings?"
Yes, and wrote down all the original settings before any were ever changed.

"Can the onboard IDE be disabled"
Yes, but haven't done so yet.

"is that affecting the add-on card?"
No idea, but I wonder.

More later...

"There must be a way to get into the card's setup to disable the raid function."
Still don't see anyway to do that.

"If the Bios does not come up, try another slot. If it comes up quickly, after the motherboard's bios post screen, start tapping F1 to get into the setup."
This BIOS uses F2 to get into the HP setup. More primitive than my MJN BIOS setup.

When I say press F3 to enter the bios, I am apeaking of the controller card's bios, not the motherboard's. Are you seeing anything on screen after the motherboard's bios is finished its routine?

During startup something about RAID is displayed showing a capacity of 32,253 MB.

At this point, or just prior, start tapping F3. This should get you into the card's bios/raid configuration.

I also feel the MaxBlast DDO has possibly not been completely removed. It's LBA translation may be conflicting with the LBA translation of the card's bios. Even though the MaxBlast software reports the drive as being smaller than it actually is, I would still do a zero fill, low level format of the disk.

Pete's idea of disabling one of the onboard ide controllers (if both are no longer needed) might be worthwhile, if only for the sake of freeing up an IRQ slot. When I used a controller card on an older system, I put all of my hard drives and optical drives onto it, and disabled both onboard controllers. As the controller card uses only one IRQ and each onboard IDE controller uses one, I actually freed up an extra IRQ (which can be handy in a Win9X system).

Continuing...

" Is this your card?"
Looks like it, but no sign of "Syba" on the box.

" And is this the manual?"
After a quick read of it: it looks and reads identically, except:
Mine says:
SIL680-RAID
SIL680-IDE
Yours says:
ATA680-133I
ATA680-133R
Leaflet/manual number is SD-SIL680-041103 in both.

" I found the FAQ for it here"
Reads as pertinent.

"get into the setup using F3, disable the raid function"
Began blipping F3 instead of F2, saw quick flash of "hit F3 to enter setup" [or similar], and the following menu was displayed:
F1 : Delete RAID Set
F2 : Create RAID Set
F3 : Create Spare Drive
F4 : Resolve Conflicts
F5 : Configure 1st HDD
Esc : To Exit
No Mirrored Set. Press any key to return.
Should I delete a raid set, or configure the HDD?

"I would still do a zero fill, low level format of the disk"
Do you think it will manage to do the whole of the disk?

"I put all of my hard drives and optical drives onto it, and disabled both onboard controllers."
Sounds like a smart strategy [one I should copy].
Odd thing at the moment:the Secondary Slave = CD reader is not being detected by the BIOS [shown as "None"], yet it's working normally.

So what should I do 1st?

Alternative Strategy
The object of all of this:
To get the use of "Drive Image" and "Partition Magic" programs, by eliminating the use of Drive Overlay Software.

Recently bought an external drive housing, inserted the old 8GB HDD into that to use as a backup store for the much larger and newer 80GB HDD. That hardware is now functioning normally, but haven't done anything with it yet.
The 8GB drive didn't need drive overlay, but the 80GB does.


What if I were to put the 8GB drive back into the PC's IDE controller and use the 80GB in the housing?
The 8GB wouldn't need drive overlay, and the prog's would then work. Only using 3GB C: partition & 2GB D: for all the data moved off C: [MY Documents, emails for all identities, Address Book, Favourites, Temporary Internet Files], so plenty of room for the basics.
But would the 80GB then work too slow [because of the method of connection]? And would the whole of the 80GB be seen in the external housing [does the housing have its own BIOS]?
Probably need to buy a USB2 card to replace the USB1.1 [assumed, how do I find out its capability? "Everest" reports "SIS 7001 PCI-USB Open Host Controller"]

Then wouldn't need an IDE controller card. Would put the money into a new USB2 card.

What d'you think?

First, I assume you are ok with backups? Making changes in the Raid setup of the card could remove all data.

After hitting F3 and getting to the Raid setup, I would first try F4 :Resolve Conflicts. Might get some information. If it is configured as raid, then delete it (this will destroy all data). I would then see what options are offered by going to F5: Configure 1st HDD.

If none of this resolves the problem, then the final option is to do the low level format.

As for moving optical drives to the card, you will have to test this. On some cards it is fine, others prefer to just have hard drives connected.

Do disable at least one ide controller in your bios, if only to lessen the possibility of IRQ conflicts.

Edit-Just saw your post above. My feeling on USB connected hard drives is they are OK for backups, and connecting on a temporary basis. Because of the flakiness of USB, especially on legacy operating systems, I wouldn't choose to use a USB connected hard drive on a permanent basis.

But if the idea is ok with you and it works, yes give it a go.:)

"I assume you are ok with backups?"
Almost completely, but not quite.
I have up-to-date backups of C: D: & E:
F: is empty
G: partition was lost and I have no backups of it. but that's no big problem because I never intended to make backups of that, and only put on it things that weren't vital. That was the theory anyway. I never expected to actually lose it and was hoping to transfer backups made to there [made some MS Windows Backups of C:] onto the external drive. Lost the partition before doing that.

Can't proceed with your advice until later this afternoon. A guy is coming to replace a refilled ink cartridge I bought [£13 as opposed to £25] and won't work. [1st time I've tried this]. Must be able to run Windows to test it out.

I have a usb to ide controller (not a card) that i have only been able to get it to function with usb2 enabled motherboards. I've tried it with an HP that has a PII233 processor and a socket A with an 850Duron and it does not work on either due to the usb1.1. Also it will not operate an optical drive at all connected to the newer ASUS board with usb2. But there is no BIOS for it that I am aware of.

I'm unclear as to your intentions with this setup, but here's what I would do in your situation nonetheless. Use your 8 gig as primary master and the 80 gig on the controller card for storage if you can get the whole of it recognised. IMO, your board is not set up to handle RAID so don't try to force it to act as if it does. It would seem that for faster performance, this would be the way to go. Usb1.1 or even usb2, routed through your pci interface could only be slower than using your ide channels IMO (I'd need to look up the info to be sure though). So using it for your os would not be of any benefit.

The more 'hoops' needed to reach a means to an end, each involve time and therefore your ide channel in your particular case seems where I would want the OS to reside.

Sorry, didn't make my question clear enough. Realized that later, but wasn't able to get here and do a bit of editing...

What I was asking is whether anything is currently connected to the onboard IDE controller that would prevent disabling it. You should have room on the card for 2 hard drives and 2 CD ROM drives, same as the onboard controller. And it frees up an IRQ, as already noted.

In configuration I would go straight for F5, that sounds like the place to start, configure the drive you have plugged in is what you want to do. That might allow you to simply switch RAID off and not damage anything. I don't see any jumpers in the picture unless that black blur at upper right is a jumper header, so it seems something in the F3 configuration should be able to just toggle RAID on and off without going swimming in the deep end and deleting things...F5 is the only place I see "configure" in there, so that's where I would start...F4 might have possibilities, and would be my second choice. Anything that says "delete" would be a last resort.

Many thanks for giving your time to help guys. :)

FRUSS [or is it Ted?]
Did you have in mind something that was said when you gave your contribution?
I'm trying to imagine what you had in mind.
"I have a usb to ide controller (not a card) that i have only been able to get it to function with usb2 enabled motherboards."
Is this in response to me saying... "[does the housing have its own BIOS]?" Or is it in response to the idea of using an external HDD to store part of the PC's data? I guess you were responding to my "Alternative Strategy". Are you saying not to attempt to boot from a drive in the external enclosure or not to use an external enclosure for any purpose?
I got the drive functioning, so I should be able to use it for [slow(er)] storage. And I don't see any limitation on size applying.

"Use your 8 gig as primary master and the 80 gig on the controller card for storage if you can get the whole of it recognised."
Sounds good!
Problem is, that there is no extra bay inside the box. I'd need to rig something special to hold an extra drive. That's why I went with the 8GB in the external enclosure [for backups], and an IDE controller for the 80GB HDD.

"your board is not set up to handle RAID so don't try to force it to act as if it does."
I phoned the shop and the guy spoke VERY rapidly [very confusing] and advised me to either bring in the mini-tower and card for them to test and set up [at no cost], or to phone the technician. I'll phone him and see what he advises.

"your ide channel in your particular case seems where I would want the OS to reside."
Never intended to put the OS on the external HDD, no way! But I wondered if it could be used for data storage. A problem I foresee is playing music or video. If the connection [USB2] wasn't fast enough, they wouldn't play adequately.

PETE
"I was asking is whether anything is currently connected to the onboard IDE controller that would prevent disabling it."
No, there's nothing on the Primary.
The CD-drives are on the Secondary. They could be transferred to the controller card, but that seems a waste of its capability. Better to keep the slower devices on the on-board slower IDE controllers.

"You should have room on the card for 2 hard drives and 2 CD ROM drives"
I do, there is.

"that black blur at upper right is a jumper header"
You actually saw that?
I think what you are seeing is the "HDD busy LED" 2 pin connection.
At the moment the HDD LED [2 wires] are included in a bundle going to a multi [six?] socket plug connected to the board. Is it possible to buy an LED with wires and 2 socket plug to connect to these. I wonder if the existing LED can be removed, put aside, and replaced?
There are no jumpers on the card; pretty sure of that.

As an aside...

The guy from the shop that sold me the ink cartridge has just been.
He took out the cartridge, looked at it, put it back in, hit the right buttons on the printer and it printed a perfect test page!

Well, b*gger me!
How's that!?
So I show him that if I run the HP "Toolbox" to test the cartridges, it displays a warning that the cartridge is fitted incorrectly. Only it doesn't give any such warning this time. And he prints a test page using that software and it's perfect!
The cartridge is so simple to fit in place I find it hard to believe I fitted it incorrectly.

Excellent service by the shop! :D

Now to phone that technician.

Phoned him.
This guy is not a native speaker, and although his English is pretty good, he's still a little difficult to understand.

He says there could be a number of things causing the problem.
He needs to see the info displayed on-screen by the BIOS.
I need to take the hardware in to his workshop and he will test it and fix it. [That won't be so easy.]
If the HP splash-screen is concealing that, then it should be disabled.
I haven't seen any way to do that in the BIOS.

The cards' BIOS needs to see the full capacity of the drive.

By default the card does not have RAID enabled; it works as a basic IDE controller.

Just tried going into the cards' BIOS.
Hit F3 and got the menu.
Hit F4, heard an ominous click, but no response.
Hit F4 again, again a click and no response.
Hit F5, a click but no response.
Hit Esc, nothing, hit Esc again and after a short delay the PC continued with startup.

Is there something wrong with yet another item of hardware from this shop?
Or is it not properly seated?

The CD-drives are on the Secondary. They could be transferred to the controller card, but that seems a waste of its capability. Better to keep the slower devices on the on-board slower IDE controllers.


What I was getting at was if you put the CD ROM drive(s) on the card you could disable the onboard controller entirely in case that's causing trouble. Yeah, that would put slower CD ROM drives on a higher speed controller, but might rule out one possible source of trouble or conflicts.
Along the same track, is the card going into RAID mode because it sees the onboard controller? I doubt it but anything's possible with these infernal confusers...

What I'm looking at in the picture....there are 4 roundish black/silver thingies, probably surface mount capacitors, in a horizontal line near the top right and a rectangular black thingy to the right of them with two silver stripes. Wondered if that might be a jumper block with the silver markings. Or are the silver marks the pins you noted for the HDD Busy Connection?? I can't tell even with my glasses on... :rolleyes: Without them last night it was just a blurry spot...

"you could disable the onboard controller entirely"
I thought there were 2 on-board controllers; the Primary and the Secondary.
The primary is disabled at present, Secondary has the CD drives on it.
You think it would be a good idea to have BOTH disabled?
I wonder why the Secondary Slave [CD reader] isn't being seen?
I'm sure both are correctly jumpered [Master/Slave], with the CD-RW on the end of the cable and the reader in the middle.

" is the card going into RAID mode because it sees the onboard controller?"
Big question is:
Is it in RAID mode or not?
It shouldn't be, because it's supposed to be not in RAID mode by default, and I don't remember seeing anything that says it IS in Raid mode.

"Wondered if that might be a jumper block with the silver markings. Or are the silver marks the pins you noted for the HDD Busy Connection??"
I specifically looked for jumpers and found none.
Just above the middle of the right-hand side there are 2 prominent pins [right at the edge of the card, and much more prominent that in that image], about the size for jumpers but a little larger, pointing off toward the right [the front of case]. These are the connections for the HDD LED.

I'll take the mini-tower in to the shop tomorrow I think.

On my own on-board Promise controller I have to setup a RAID array before fdisk etc can see any attached HDDs. That includes using a single 120gb ATA HDD, which needs to be configured into a newly created RAID-0 stripe array.

It may seem a bit strange to call a single drive array an array at all - but that is the way it works on my system. This is all a very non-standard area to troubleshoot so maybe you would have to add more than one drive to an array on your system.

If that is the case you could also try adding two HDDs to the card (just to test this out), configuring them into an array and see if that works OK. If that worked you could forget about any mobo BIOS settings needing reconfiguring.

Do you recommend I should keep this [or any] RAID controller?
I had never intended to buy one [know nothing about the topic].
Are they better than a plain, simple IDE controller?

Do you think that despite the fact that F4 & F5 produced nothing but a "click", perhaps F2 ["Create Raid Set"] may work? I'll try hitting F2 and get back.

The technician said that the card works as a plain IDE controller by default, so I'd think it should work like that.

Maxtor say that their "PowerMax" utility doesn't work with HDD's connected to RAID controllers.
I ran it and during the "Installation Confirmation Test", just after "Smart Attribute Check...Passed" it reported "Error Opening - Log file us".

OK, F1 worked, and so did F5.
Hit F5, given the choice of F1 [create a set] & F2 [delete a set]. F1 allows me to enter the Set Number.
The screen was displaying that the set number for the Maxtor HDD was 1, so I entered that and hit "Esc" to exit and continue.
What now?
How do I know if that made any difference?
Do I try to partition & format the drive?
I'll go try fdisk.
I've got 2 PC's here, but only 1 monitor. Wish I had a 2nd. Could work on one & post on the other.

No change with fdisk. Still doesn't work.

I really think you need to clean the disk of all partitions. These partitions were in use with DDO software, more than likely formatted after the DDO software was installed.

I see three options here:

1. Lug the system into the shop (he'll probably wipe the drive :) )

2. Return the card.

3. Wipe the drive yourself, clean it up and see if you can start over. (Personally, this is the first thing I would have done if I had a drive that previously used DDO software. Was also my first suggestion.) ;)

The more I look at this problem, the more I feel that a drive wipe is the best and possibly only route.

You removed the drive overlay, thus the mbr was altered, the overlay software is no longer loading immediately upon power on. Therefore you no longer have 48-bit LBA translation, and are left with the 32GB size barrier. (Does this number sound familiar?)

What has happened is similar to when drive overlay software fails, ie data corruption. The mbr of the drive is now different than before, resulting in Windows being confused, other software being confused and data loss.

The card will boot to Windows, is detected, and a driver can be installed. This would seem to indicate that the card is functioning. You have disabled the primary onboard controller, (and have tried another PCI slot?). This would seem to rule out IRQ conflict in BIOS. Putting aside the possibility of a defective card and IRQ troubles, we are left with the drive itself.

The mbr has been altered while the drive was partitioned and formatted. Data loss has occured, software no longer detects the drive properly. Solution? Wipe the drive, zero-fill it, and rebuild it from scratch.

When migrating from DDO software to a hardware solution, the best method is to attach the drive(s) to the new hardware, confirming proper detection of said drive(s). Only then can the drive overlay be removed nondestructively.

Wow, you are spot-on!


"Lug the system into the shop (he'll probably wipe the drive"
I did, but he didn't wipe it, I did. He studied my system booting, then tested the card on his test board.

"Return the card."
Said it just didn't work with my board and they'd give me a refund.

"Wipe the drive yourself, clean it up and see if you can start over."
Did just that standing at the counter. He wouldn't take any part. I'd taken in the necessary items just in case. Re-connected the HDD to the on-board Primary IDE controller, repartitioned and formatted the drive [drive overlay added automatically by "MaxBlast 4"], and restored a backup of the C: partition. So the HDD is working normally now. This was just to check before leaving the shop that all was well.
Tried to get a plain IDE controller card, but the only shop that had one was asking more than I was prepared to lay out on this. I sat on one of the benches in the sunshine and figured out yet another alternative strategy [see below].

"you no longer have 48-bit LBA translation, and are left with the 32GB size barrier. (Does this number sound familiar?)
The BIOS was reporting 32,253MB and MaxBlast reporting 33,816MB.

"Solution? Wipe the drive, zero-fill it, and rebuild it from scratch.
MaxBlast seemed the only program that made any [half] successful go at dealing with the drive.
fdisk just displayed an error.
Would it have succeeded in zero filling all of it and partitioning it correctly?

"When migrating from DDO software to a hardware solution, the best method is to attach the drive(s) to the new hardware, confirming proper detection of said drive(s). Only then can the drive overlay be removed nondestructively.
AHhhhh, so that's what I did wrong.
Must engrave that in my memory.

[B]Alternative Strategy Number 2
1. Use the 80GB HDD connected to the on-board Primary IDE Controller; keep C: & D: small [MOST IMPORTANT]; use "Simple Backup" to make backups [of C: & D:] to CD-RW's [rather than Drive Image backups to file on (external/internal) HDD].
2. Use "MaxBlast 4" to re-partition [rather than Partition Magic], then restore C: & D: from "Simple Backup" CD-RW's.
3. Make [and restore] backups of all other partitions from within Windows using either MS Backup or some other.

You'll notice that so long as the C: partition can be quickly and easily restored, then Windows can be got back up and running and the remainder of the restoration done from there.

Bought a USB 2.0 card when in Edinburgh.
Working on that now.
Had to re-install the drivers for the Network Interface card and the SCSI controller card. The NIC was tricky, but just got it fixed. Was surprised to find that if these are moved to different PCI slots [chose more convenient locations for plugging in cables], Windows requires that the drivers be re-installed.
Now to study how to fit the USB 2 card. :)

Go with the Promise Fast Trak Raid controller card. Setting up raid with these cards makes it eaiser.

He studied my system booting, then tested the card on his test board.
Said it just didn't work with my board and they'd give me a refund.

Did he test on his board with your hard drive? And it detected your drive's full capacity?

If this is the case, your alternate plan is sound if you are alright with it.

If this is not the case, you could have made this work.

I still feel using a drive overlay is an unnecessary evil. Check around the web, there is an almost unanimous consensus that drive overlays are a bad idea and a risk to data.

" Did he test on his board with your hard drive?"
No he didn't, so I guess he just took an easy way out.

" If this is not the case, you could have made this work."
I think you're right, and I will probably have another try at this once my "wounds" have healed.

" I still feel using a drive overlay is an unnecessary evil."
I understand your thinking, and I'd like to eliminate it.
On the other hand though, I've been using it for years without problems, so...

My understanding of what you said earlier is that I should have left the overlay in place until I connected the drive to the new controller and only then eliminated it. Or would it have been better to have used fdisk.exe to repartition and format.com to re-format [with no drive overlay], and then connect it to the controller? And then restore the backups?

My understanding of what you said earlier is that I should have left the overlay in place until I connected the drive to the new controller and only then eliminated it.

Yes, this is the way. You want to do it this way for two reasons.

1. You want to see that the drive will be detected correctly with the new hardware while the DDO software is still on it. (obviously, the drive was formatted after the DDO software was installed). Then you can remove the overlay without destroying data. The maxblast software will detect that it is no longer needed. Good overlay software should warn you if you will destroy data when removing it.

2. There may be a problem when restoring an image created on a drive with DDO software to the same drive with the DDO software removed. One would assume the drive overlay, which is written to the mbr, will be "reinstated" when restoring the image.

Therfore the procedure is to attach to the new hardware and check that all is well. If so, remove the overlay and check that all is well. If so, immediately make a new set of backup images.

There is another method (the way I would do it) but it entails zero filling and installing the OS and all drivers/programs fresh.

Edit- Here is a blurb from the Seagate site. They use "Ontrack" disk overlay. Western digital also uses this after changing from EZ-Bios.

Remove Dynamic Drive Overlay This option will remove the DDO from the selected drive. You can use this option if your system is using software that cannot coexist with the DDO. You may use this option if you have moved drives to a system with a BIOS that supports translation, eliminating the need for the DDO. If your BIOS can support the drive as it is installed, the DDO will be uninstalled nondestructively.

http://www.seagate.com/support/images/buttons/warning.gif You will get a warning if uninstalling the DDO will be data destructive. Always make a backup of your data before uninstalling a drive.

From here: http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/howto/use_dwse_maint.html

"One would assume the drive overlay, which is written to the mbr, will be "reinstated" when restoring the image."
I believe "Simple Backup" does not do this; it only restores the files. That's why I use AVG to backup the "System Area" [MBR etc].
"Drive Image" and "Ghost" do this I believe.

I'd certainly suggest that you use fdisk to wipe out the hard disk. Also, I don't think that the raid drivers matter. Whether you have those or not will not affect how much space the bios sees in your hard drive.

With respect to the mbr, restoration imaging software only takes an interest in the partition tables that it would need to reference/edit. As long as the overlay maintains these as the originals, then restoring partition images should not be problematic. One can usually determine such overlay if it states that it can be removed by using fdisk /mbr. This is since fdisk /mbr rewrites the mbr - that is with the exception of the disk signature and the partition tables.

Using software to restore the system area from a backup (one made prior to restoring an image) will almost certainly fail unless the replaced image is of the same size, type, position and format. If backing up that system area one should always include the whole of track-0 and not just the mbr.

With respect to the mbr, restoration imaging software only takes an interest in the partition tables that it would need to reference/edit.

I may be too tired here and have been looking at this thread for far too long, but my understanding is that with software such as True Image (not sure about DI or BiNG), it is capable of doing a "bare metal restore", which in essence means that everything on the disk is imaged (MBR and all) so that one can restore the image to a completely blank disk.

My point was that depending on the software used (DDO, imaging, backup), restoring an image created from a disk using DDO software, to the same disk that has had the software removed, "may" be problematic or rather, undesirable.

"restoring an image created from a disk using DDO software, to the same disk that has had the software removed, "may" be problematic or rather, undesirable."
Not only that, but it's also problematic and undesirable to restore to the same disk that HAS NOT had the DDO software removed!
The manufacturers of "Ghost" say they do not support the use of drive overlay software, and I found in practice that after such a backup was restored Windows would not boot. Just sat there with a flashing cursor at the point where Windows should begin loading.

Spot on Malcore - I should have specifically stated that I was referring to restoring partitions rather than restoring a clone of a whole drive sector by sector. Obviously if you restore a whole drive the partition table entries don't need any editing since everything is as it was before. The point I was trying to emphasise was that when individulal partitions are restored the partition tables are likely to need editing (and at the least to be read by the imaging software). With much DDO the physical position of the partition tables will not be where they are normally kept and this can lead to all sorts of unbootability; and an unbootablility that will not be corrected by reinstating the mbr to what it was before the imaging began, because the old values would now incorrectly reference the newly restored partition.

v_shirin: Please keep your question in the thread you started for it. That helps us keep up better with what's going on with each question, and trying to answer two or more people in one thread gets confusing.

Sorry Pete,
I already split it off this thread, only to find it was a duplicate, so I closed one of them.