SATA Host Controller User Manual Revision 1.01 May 19, 2003 VIA TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
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VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller Revision History Document Release 1.0 1.01 Date 5/15/03 5/19/03 Revision 1.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller Table of Contents Revision History.................................................................................................................................................i Table of Contents...............................................................................................................................................i Introduction ......................................................................................................................
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller INTRODUCTION This section gives a brief introduction on the RAID-related background knowledge and a brief introduction on VIA SATA RAID Host Controller. For users wishing to install their VIA SATA RAID driver and RAID software, proceed to Driver and RAID Software Installation section. RAID Basics RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is a method of combining two or more hard disk drives into one logical unit.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller JBOD (Spanning) A spanning disk array is equal to the sum of the all drives when the drives used are having different capacities. Spanning stores data onto a drive until it is full, then proceeds to store files onto the next drive in the array. When any disk member fails, the failure affects the entire array. JBOD is not really a RAID and does not support fault tolerance.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller INSTALLING THE HARD DRIVES The VT6420 SATA controller provides the following two configurations: 1. Two SATA + Two PATA Configuration: VT6420 supports two “Master” SATA hard disk drives and one “Master”, one “Slave” PATA hard disk drives. Only SATA hard disk drive supports RAID, so it supports RAID 0, RAID 1, and JBOD.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller BIOS CONFIGURATION UTILITY Enter BIOS Configuration Utility When the system powers on, the following information will appear on screen. Press the ‘Tab’ key to enter BIOS configuration utility. The main interface of BIOS configuration utility is as below: Revision 1.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller Create Disk Array 1. Use the arrow keys to navigate the main menu. Use the up and down arrow keys to select the Create Array command and press to call out the list of creation steps. Revision 1.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller 2. Select Array Mode and press , a list of array modes will appear. Highlight the target array mode that you want to create, and press to confirm the selection. If RAID 1 or RAID 0/1 is selected, an option list will popup and enable the users to select Create only or Create and duplicate. Create only will allow BIOS to only create an array. The data on the mirroring drive may be different from the source drive.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller 4. If user selects a RAID 0 array in step 2, the block size of the array can also be selected. Use the arrow key to highlight Block Size and press , then select a block size from the popup menu. The block size can be 4KB to 64KB. 5. Use the arrow key to highlight Start Create Process and press . A warning message will appear, Press Y to finish the creation, or press N to cancel the creation. 6.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller Delete Disk Array A RAID can be deleted after it has been created. To delete a RAID, use the following steps: 1. Select Delete Array in the main menu and press . The channel column will be activated. 2. Select the member of an array that is to be deleted and press . A warning message will show up, press Y to delete or press N to cancel. Deleting a disk array will destroy all the data on the disk array except RAID 1 arrays.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller Create and Delete Spare Hard Drive If a RAID 1 array is created and there are drives that do not belong to other arrays, the one that has a capacity which is equal to or greater than the array capacity can be selected as a spare drive for the RAID 1 array. Select Create/Delete Spare and press , the channel column will then be activated. Select the drive that you want to use as a spare drive and press , the selected drive will be marked as Spare.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller Select Boot Array User can select a disk array as boot device if user wants to boot operating system from an array. Boot disk array cannot be selected if the operating system does not boot from the disk array. Highlight the Select Boot Array item; press and the channel column will be activated. Then highlight the target disk array and press . If user selects a disk array that has a boot mark and press , its boot setting will be canceled.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller View Serial Number of Hard Drive Highlight Serial Number View and press . Use arrow key to select a drive, the selected drive’s serial number can be viewed in the last column. The serial number is assigned by the disk drive manufacturer. View Array Status Press the F1 key to show the array status on the lower screen. If there are no disk arrays then nothing will be displayed on the screen. Revision 1.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller Duplicate Critical RAID 1 Array When booting up the system, BIOS will detect if the RAID 1 array has any inconsistencies between user data and backup data. If BIOS detects any inconsistencies, the status of the disk array will be marked as critical, and BIOS will prompt the user to duplicate the RAID 1 in order to ensure the backup data consistency with the user data. If user selects Continue to boot, it will enable duplicating the array after booting into OS.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller Rebuild Broken RAID 1 Array When booting up the system, BIOS will detect if any member disk drives of RAID has failed or is absent. If BIOS detects any disk drive failures or missing disk drives, the status of the array will be marked as broken. If BIOS detects a broken RAID 1 array but there is a spare hard drive available for rebuilding the broken array, the spare hard drive will automatically become the mirroring drive.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller 1. Power off and Check the Failed Drive: This item turns off the computer and replaces the failed hard drive with a good one. If your computer does not support APM, you must turn off your computer manually. After replacing the hard drive, boot into BIOS and select Choose replacement drive and rebuild to rebuild the broken array. 2. Destroy the Mirroring Relationship: This item cancels the data mirroring relationship of the broken array.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller DRIVER AND RAID SOFTWARE INSTALLATION Microsoft Windows Driver Installation 1. After Windows has finished booting up, the system will automatically find the newly installed adapter and prompt the Found New Hardware Wizard window. Click Cancel to skip it. 2. Insert the RAID driver and software installation CD or diskettes. Browse the CD or diskettes and double click on setup.exe to begin the driver and software installation. Revision 1.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller 3. Confirm the follow-up dialogue windows to finish the installation. 4. When installation is completed, click Finish to restart the system. Revision 1.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller Verify Installation After the driver installation is completed and the system has restarted: 1. Right-click on My Computer and select Properties from the popup menu. 2. From the popup window, click on Hardware and then click on Device Manager. 3. Expand the SCSI and RAID controllers tree as shown below.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller RAID SOFTWARE Installation The RAID software is installed simultaneously with driver installation. Revision 1.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller Getting Start After installing the GUI software, it will be automatically started every time Windows is initiated. An icon the system tray of the tool bar to indicate that GUI software is currently running. will appear in Double click on the system tray icon to launch the main interface of the utility. Revision 1.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller The main interface is divided into two windows and the toolbar above contain the main functions. Click on these toolbar buttons to execute their specific functions. The left windowpane displays the controller and disk drives and the right windowpane displays the details of the controller or disk drives.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller View Online Help Click on to launch the Help Topics. It is recommended that you read through the help articles before using RAID utility. Revision 1.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller View Controller and Device Status Click on or button to determine the viewing type of left windowpane. There are two viewing types: By controllers and by device. Click on the object in the left windowpane to display the status of the object in the right windowpane. Revision 1.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller Create Disk Array 1. Depending on users’ preferences, there are three buttons used to create a disk array: RAID 1, RAID 0. Click on the RAID button you want to create, the Select Array Creating Method will be displayed. Span, and Auto: The utility will arrange the available hard disk drives to be the disk arrays. The hard disk drives can still be modified later. This method is strongly recommended.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller 2. Click on Auto to launch the creating array window. If Custom is selected, the available disks window lists the available disk drives that can be used to create the array. Select a disk drive and click on the right arrow button to add the specified disk drive to the array. Disk drives can be removed from the array by selecting an array disk and clicking on the left arrow button to remove the drive from the array. Click on “Create” to create or “Cancel” to exit.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller 3. A warning message will pop up after clicking on Create button. Click Yes to finish the creation of disk array, or No to cancel. 4. A message box will popup to prompt the user that disk array has been created successfully and ask the user whether to restart the computer. Click Yes to restart the computer or click No to skip restarting. The new disk array setting will take effect only after restarting. Revision 1.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller Delete Disk Array 1. Select the disk array that you want to delete from the left windowpane, click on Remove Array will pop up. 2. Click Yes to delete the specified disk array or click No to cancel. Revision 1.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller 3. A message box will popup to prompt the user that disk array has been removed successfully and ask the user whether to restart the computer. Click Yes to restart the computer or click No to skip restarting. The new setting will take effect only after restarting. Warning: Deleting a disk array will destroy all the data on the disk array except RAID 1 arrays.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller Add and Remove Spare Disk Drive Add Spare Disk Drive A spare disk drive can be added when a RAID 1 array is created. The capacity of the spare disk drive must be greater than or equal to the capacity of the RAID 1 array. If there is no spare disk drive in a RAID 1 array, user can add a spare disk drive after RAID 1 array is created by clicking on . 1. Select the RAID 1 array in the left windowpane and click on window.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller 4. A message box will popup to prompt the user that a spare disk drive has been successfully added to the specific RAID 1 array, and ask whether the user would like to restart the computer. Click Yes to restart the computer or click No to skip restarting. The new setting will take effect only after restarting. Note: The spare disk drive in the RAID 1 array cannot be accessed by the operating system. Revision 1.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller Remove Spare Disk Drive Spare disk drives can be removed from a specified RAID 1 and changed into normal hard disk drives. 1. Select the RAID 1 array that you want to remove from the spare disk drives in the left windowpane, and click on warning message will popup. ,a 2. Click Yes to finish removing spare disk, or No to cancel. 3.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller Check All Disks You can check whether the disk drives are working normally at any time by clicking on a dialog window will pop up to show the status of each disk. See picture below. . After the disk check is completed, The hard disk drive must be compatible with the ATA/ATAPI-5 specification and support SMART commands, or the disk checking will fail. Revision 1.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller View Event Log The RAID software records important events into a log file, such as disk array creation, disk array removal, disk failure, synchronization…etc. 1. Click on to display the event log. There are three types of log items: Information Revision 1.01, May 19, 2003 32 , Warning , and Error .
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller 2. To view the details of a log item, you can double click on the log item, select the log item and press , or select the log item and click on Operation->View Detail in the menu bar. The following dialog will appear. Click on or to browse the next or previous log item. 3. To clear all log items, click on Operation->Clear All in the menu bar. Note: Only the operations in the RAID software can be recorded into the log file.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller Verify Mirror Disk The data on the mirror disk must be the same with its corresponding source disk to provide fault tolerance for RAID 1. 1. Select a RAID 1 array. Right-click the selected RAID, then a shortcut menu will be shown. Click on Verify Mirror to verify whether the source and mirror are identical. Revision 1.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller 2. After executing the “verify mirror” command, a dialog box will show the verifying process. This action can paused or canceled at any time. It may take a long time to verify the source and mirror disk if the capacity of the RAID is large. 3. When mirror disk is not identical with the corresponding source disk, the mirror disk will be marked with a “need-sync” flag. The icon used to indicate this status is Revision 1.01, May 19, 2003 .
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller Synchronize Mirror Disk RAID 1 arrays must be synchronized when the data on the mirror disk is not identical with its corresponding source disk. Sometimes the data on the mirror disk may be newer than the data on the source disk. For example, the source disk is absent and the mirror disk runs in the tolerance mode. So the exact meaning of “Synchronize Mirror” is to make a pair of source and mirror disks contain identical data.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller 2. After synchronization has started, a dialog box will show the process. This action can be paused or canceled at any time. 3. An informing message will appear when the synchronization is finished. Revision 1.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller Disk Error Detection The RAID software will pop up an error message if a disk drive fails or missing. Revision 1.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller Duplicate Critical RAID 1 Array When booting up the system, the RAID utility will detect if there are any inconsistencies between the source and mirror disk drives of the RAID 1 array. If the software detects that a RAID 1 array has any inconsistencies, the status of the disk array will be marked as critical and the software will prompt the user to duplicate RAID 1, as to make the mirror disk consistent with the corresponding source disk.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller Rebuild Broken RAID 1 Array After booting up the system, the RAID utility will detect if any member disk drives of the RAID 1 array has failed or is absent. If the RAID utility detects any disk drive failures or missing disk drives, the status of the array will be marked as broken.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller 3. Select a disk drive from Available Disks and click on Revision 1.01, May 19, 2003 to replace the broken drive and then click Next.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller 4. A warning message will appear. If you want to rebuild the RAID using the disk driver that you selected in the previous step, click Next. Warning: All the data on the selected disk drive will be lost. 5. Reboot the system 6. This RAID is marked as a critical RAID. The RAID software will duplicate this critical RAID 1 process. Revision 1.
VT6420 User Manual – SATA Controller Icon View All icon types and their corresponding meanings are listed below. The real status of an array or a disk drive is described on “Array status” or “Device status” in the right windowpane.
