Intel i3 H61 Motherboard Upgrade - No SATA in 4.7! Appears to work in 5.0b6a

I'm having a bit of a panic attack here.  I swapped out my old Athlon X2 and NForce motherboard for a new Core i3 2100 with an MSI H61M-E33 motherboard.  I see all four of my drives (2 data, 1 parity, 1 SNAP) in the motherboard's BIOS, so I let it boot up.  

It boots into UnRaid without issue, and the default page says all the drives are missing.  I go to the devices tab to reassign the drives into the correct slots, and see that there are no drives recognized.  UnRaid does not appear to see any of the 4 drives.  I've verified cabling and power, but since the motherboard sees the drives in the BIOS, I don't think that can be it?

Any idea what the problem is?  I'm freaking out a bit about what could be wrong and if my data is still intact.  

Thanks, logs attached.

syslog_i3.txt

Your data will still be intact. However, unRAID might not have the right drivers for your motherboard. You may have to try 5.6ba (CAREFULLY read the release notes and follow the instructions) or contact Limetech and go through the issue with Tom.

Peter

That's kind of what I was afraid of.  I grabbed it because I saw it on the Good Deals! forum, but it looks like these updated Sandy Bridge boards are just a few weeks old.

I sent an email to the support address on the main website.  Hopefully it attracts Tom's attention and he can make a suggestion of how to proceed.

Edit:  Also, I have a follow-up question.  Let's assume it is the controller drivers.  This mobo only has 4 ports, so I was planning on getting a PCI-E controller card at some point to continue upgrading.  If I just get the controller now, would that allow me to get back up and running?

I wanted to chime back in.  I gave 5.0b6a a shot on a spare flash drive I had lying around.  Still no luck.  It looks like the the new H61 Sandy Bridge boards do not play nice with UnRaid.  In case it helps, I've posted the 5.0b6a syslog after booting up.

The SATA controller on this board is the same as Intel's reference design, so there's a high chance that the majority of the new LGA 1155 boards will not work.  If anyone's buying one, make sure it doesn't have the Intel H61 SATA controller (that's the actual name, looks like it's named after the board design).

These will be pretty popular because of their price/power so I assume they'll get support eventually, but they don't appear to work at this time.

I am still curious if I buy a PCI/PCI-E SATA controller whether it'll work as a stopgap measure.  If anyone has any idea if that'd work, I'd appreciate it. I'd have it shipped here pronto.  This setup has so many other things going for it, I don't want to give up on it.

syslog_5p0b6a.txt

Order the $8 one and try it out. http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=10165.0

Actually, I did order one of those a week ago to keep as a spare for when I add more drives. Unfortunately, they take 3 weeks to arrive, and I'd have to order another one to connect all four drives.

I can't afford to be down for that long. I'd have to order something I can get faster (and unfortunately more expensive  )

A SATA card should be recognized and work OK. There have been some cases where a SATA card did not work in the PCIe x16 slot, presumably because the BIOS was written to support video cards only in that slot. Meaning the UEFI on your board might not support it either. So, you'll basically have to take a chance on it unless you can find posts of someone else using the SATA card on your motherboard (in any OS for that matter). Another option is contacting the manufacturer and asking them if the PCIe x16 slot would support the SATA card.

Peter

A SATA card should be recognized and work OK. There have been some cases where a SATA card did not work in the PCIe x16 slot, presumably because the BIOS was written to support video cards only in that slot. Meaning the UEFI on your board might not support it either. So, you'll basically have to take a chance on it unless you can find posts of someone else using the SATA card on your motherboard (in any OS for that matter). Another option is contacting the manufacturer and asking them if the PCIe x16 slot would support the SATA card.

 

Peter

Thanks for that reply, I wasn't aware of that.  It looks like MSI doesn't even have this board up on their website yet.  Yikes.  No mention of this in the manual.

What about a standard PCI card?  I see no PCI-e 1x 4 ports, but I do see PCI 4 ports.  If my research is right, PCI throughput is 125MB/s and PCI-e 1x is 250MB/s, which makes me wonder why there are no PCI-e x1 four port controllers.

My board has 1 PCI-e 16x, 2 PCI-e 1x, and 1 standard PCI.

Actually, I just found a 4 port 1x.  I might grab it.  It's a little more expensive than I'd like but I see a couple mentions of the SIL3124 chipset working with UnRaid even though it's not on the official hardware support page.

http://www.amazon.com/Syba-Express-Ports-Controller-SY-PEX40008/dp/B002R0DZWQ/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1301198276&sr=8-5

A PCIe x1 will only support 2 drives at full speed. Any more and parity checks, rebuilds, and failed drive simulation will slow.

I'd be moving 2 drives off of it in 2 weeks when the other cards come, so I'm not too worried about throughput.  The 65MB/s maximum (each direction) from a single 1x slot is only a tick slower than the average read speed of my WD Greens (80-85MB/s).  I could hobble along for a bit.  I just want to get back up and running without spending a fortune or buying something that won't work.  Especially if I can't use my x16 slot for anything.  I called MSI, but they were clueless.

The other option is grabbing a pair of these:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10407&cs_id=1040702&p_id=2530&seq=1&format=2

I'd have to hope the ebay $9 2 port card I have on the way would work in my 16x slot, but worst case I'm out $9, I suppose.  I guess the Monoprice cards are the safer bet.

Those SiL 3132 are a good bet to get you working with 4 drives. You can then try one in the PCIe x16 slot and if it works then it's quite likely the Supermicro 8-port card will also work. I've just read a few cases of motherboards having issues with the SATA card so it's not too likely but anything is possible.

Oddly enough, my motherboard didn't like the SiL3132 based cards I tried. But, I haven't read about anyone else having an issue so it's very unlikely you will. It does like those Ebay Jmicron based boards just fine.

Peter

The SATA controller on this board is the same as Intel's reference design, so there's a high chance that the majority of the new LGA 1155 boards will not work.  If anyone's buying one, make sure it doesn't have the Intel H61 SATA controller (that's the actual name, looks like it's named after the board design).

I'm using a LGA 1155 motherboard, to be precise:

i3-2100T

Gigabyte H67M-UD2H-B3 (6 SATA PORTS)

1 x StarTech PEXESATA1

1 x Adaptec 1220SA

7 x WD20EARS

2 x WD10EADS

unRAID 5.0-beta6a

All drives are visible. Preclear OK. Stream to PS3 OK. Everything seems OK.

That helps narrow things down a little bit.  You have an H67 board, whereas mine is an H61.  Any chance you could take a peek at your user manual to see what chipset your SATA controller uses?

It must just be the H61 LGA 1155s.

All SATA ports are controlled by the H67 chipset. Looks most likely, H61 chipset are not yet supported by unraid.

Which means they are not supported by that version of Linux.

Now this is a big caution do not proceed without knowing what you're getting into, but you could try booting the latest BETA version of unRAID (5.0b6a) but do NOT start the array. That will tell you if the newer Linux Kernel that it uses supports the H67/H61 chipsets or at least recognizes drives on those SATA ports.

Which means they are not supported by that version of Linux.

 

Now this is a big caution do not proceed without knowing what you're getting into, but you could try booting the latest BETA version of unRAID (5.0b6a) but do NOT start the array. That will tell you if the newer Linux Kernel that it uses supports the H67/H61 chipsets or at least recognizes drives on those SATA ports.

I mention above I tried that, and posted the new syslog.  It didn't work either, unfortunately.  For now, the H61 chipset does not appear to work in any version of UnRaid.

The OP did try both 4.7 and 5beta6a - he has syslogs attached but there is not a single line inside in regards to the SATA ports

I suggest to flash the motherboard BIOS with the latest one, restart, get into the BIOS again, load the "default" values, save them and try this way. You only need to set the boot order.

This is to prevent the user from disabling the onboard SATA ports in some obscure settings somewhere.

...For now, the H61 chipset does not appear to work in any version of UnRaid.

These are very strong words to use. Intel had a lot of problems with these new chipsets and until it is proven by many more users like you then we can assume that. Otherwise - it can be many things including bad motherboard.

And I believe these new chipsets have the abilities to disable the SATA ports (to prevent the end user from doing some damage especially on eSATA). How well this is implemented in the every BIOS I do not know.

But please check out this carefully - they may be visible at boot time to give you and indication, but "disabled" in your settings...

Hrm, my bad then. I missed that post. 

It seems that Linux 2.6.36.x does not support that chipset (used in unRAID 5.0beta6a). I'm not certain if Linux 2.6.37.x would fare any better either (used in Slackware 13.37). I don't know of any Slackware 13.37 LIVECDs, but if you find one you could give it a shot to see if the newer Linux Kernel would work.

You could also try to find another LIVECD Linux Distro that uses the Linux 2.6.37.x kernel. If that doesn't detect your drives either, than you're in the typical Linux waiting-loop where your hardware is too new to be supported.

Well, the combination of the last two posts caused me to go back and take another look.  That, and I had the day off to tinker.  Anyway, there's some good news here.

I'd been trying to get an Ubuntu LiveCD up and running just to see if there's any Linux support at all.  At first it did not work, so I started tinkering around further in the UEFI.  There's a critical setting here.  Advanced->Integrated Peripherals-> SATA Configuration -> SATA Mode.  Set this to "IDE Compatibility Mode" instead of Auto/AHCI/RAID.  After I rebooted, all drives were recognized.  Great!  Then I found Slax, which is a Slackware LiveCD.  It also worked.  There's hope!

So back to UnRaid.  Still no luck in 4.7.  But, now when I boot up 5.0b6a all four drives are picked up!  So, make sure you set your H61 UEFI to IDE compatibility mode.  I'm not sure if this will affect my throughput on the drives, but it does at least appear to function.

I'm still in a bind though since this is an actual in-use array, and if I read the warnings right I probably shouldn't upgrade it to the 5.0 betas.  I ordered the Monoprice controllers a few minutes ago so I can stay on 4.7 while we wait for 5.0 to go final.

Did you read the release notes? If the existing working drives showed up listed as MBR: unaligned or MBR: 4K-aligned then you can try starting the array and using it.

Peter

I did see that in the notes.  I'll probably fire it back up tomorrow to see if it recognizes the MBR alignment correctly.  I forgot to check that.  However, aren't the beta builds unstable? I'm not sure if I should trust beta code with my data, especially with that warning that flashes on the top of the forum.

Maybe it's fine since it seems like people have been using the betas for awhile, but I'm a little timid about it.

I haven't read about anyone losing data if the drives are recognized at the first boot. Some of the features might give issues but it seems to be working OK for the people testing it. So give it a try.

Peter

I've been using 5.0b6 since March 1, and 5.0b4 before that, on my my live system and, for me, they have been running perfectly okay.

I would suggest to you that, provided none of your disks are described as 'MBR: unknown' or 'MBR: error', you should go ahead and start the array.

I would say, though, that I am puzzled that your disks aren't visible in unRAID 4.x, when set to IDE compatibility mode.  I thought that the whole purpose of that setting was that the disks should be usable without loading special drivers (for instance, with an XP installation disk).

I have a Gigabyte motherboard that I had set to IDE mode and XP would install just fine. However, the XP install would be corrupted to the point it would not run within about 36 hours of being installed. Using Vista or W7 mus have installed a newer driver or something like that because neither of those OS's had that issue, with no hardware or BIOS changes between installs.

I guess the point is that the IDE compatibility mode doesn't always work that way.

Peter