hard drive won't mount through SATA raid 2 pci card

I have a 500GB WD SATA hard drive and a sii-3124 raid 2, 4 port pci controller. In system profiler, the card is shown as installed and so are the drivers. Although the name on the top of system profiler reads pci1095,7124. I have made sure the SATA cables are installed correctly and seated correctly. The drive is spinning but isn't recognized. I've tried the softraid program but it doesn't recognize the drive either. does it matter what port I use on the pci card? I've run out of ideas. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Power Mac G4 Digital Audio, Mac OS X (10.5.7)

Posted on May 22, 2009 8:16 AM

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10 replies

May 27, 2009 2:34 PM in response to japamac

thanks for the welcome, I'm still having trouble with the controller. I have contacted the seller and he suggested I flash the bios and upgrade to the latest update from silicon image. I've done that, but still no hdd showing up in disk utility. Could it be the controller is flashed for PC and not Mac? The controller still shows up in system profiler though. help!

May 28, 2009 4:23 AM in response to psbrandon

Hi-

That card is not intended to be used for single drives.
It is a RAID controller, and as such, will most likely require two or more drives to be connected.
Even with a second drive, I cannot say as if it will be trouble free.

The Silicon Image chipset is really primarily for the WinPC market, though they are sold as Mac compatible.
Flashing BIOS is not something that should be necessary in a Mac. Updating the ROM may be done, but shouldn't be necessary.

I have seen various reports of difficulties with that chipset. The chipset is listed as 10.3 and 10.4 compatible, so it may be that it is not 10.5 compatible......... might need some drivers.

Might have a look at this discussion:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1985879&tstart=15

Other information on possible drivers that may help are here:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/feedback/MacPCI_eSATAcards.html

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hard drive won't mount through SATA raid 2 pci card

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