 The
ITE® IT8212F Onboard IDE GigaRAID software package provides support for
high-performance ATA RAID 0/1/JBOD/BASE arrays on select Intel®
chipset-based platforms. These drivers requires the ITE® IT8212F IDE GigaRAID Controller Hub.
- This software should only be used on the
Bistro875MAX™, Bistro875Placido™ or Bistro955™ systems if you have
Parallel ATA drives on the ITE® IT8212F Onboard IDE GigaRAID
Controller Hub (IDE3 and IDE4.) The GigaRAID controller does
not support ATAPI devices, such as CD/DVD/ZIP drives
properly. Devices of those types should be connected to the
main IDE1/IDE2 ports of your motherboard.
- If you are using a RAID array, and are
installing Windows XP on the drive(s) connected to the ITE®
IT8212F Onboard IDE GigaRAID Controller Hub, only install the
drivers for the GigaRAID controller during a clean OS
installation, using F6 to install drivers from floppy during
the OS installation.
- You must be sure that the GigaRAID controller is
enabled in your motherboard's BIOS, and create a RAID array
from the separate GigaRAID BIOS (by entering Ctrl+G when
prompted during the initial boot process, only accessible if
the controller has been enabled in RAID mode in the
motherboard BIOS, and more than one drive is currently
connected to IDE3 or IDE4.
- If you are not sure whether or not you
require this software, please
contact technical support for clarification.
In a RAID array, it is preferable that this
should be the third thing installed, after the operating
system and the Chipset Drivers have been installed
correctly, before installing other hardware drivers.
 FOR CLEAN
OS INSTALLATION USING A RAID ARRAY: If you have
reformatted your boot drive(s) and would like to install the
related GigaRAID drivers during Windows® XP installation by
using the F6 command to install additional drivers:
Installation Details (download link follows
below)
If you are installing the operating system onto a new RAID
volume on the ITE GigaRAID (IDE3/IDE4) connectors, you must pre-install the RAID driver
using the F6 method described below:
- Label a standard 1.44 MB floppy disc
"ITE IT8212 ATA RAID Driver Diskette", then completely format
it, making
sure that the floppy is undamaged and no errors are present
on the disc, keeping the disc inserted in your floppy drive.
- Download, then execute the ite8212_v1729driverdisk.exe
Hardware RAID Drivers
file
below.
Clicking
on the Unzip button should
automatically extract the needed F6 installation
files to the root of your formatted floppy drive. |
|
 Click
on OK, then close the WinZip Self-Extractor. |
- Ensure that 8 folders and 3 files (total of 28 files)
are on the root of the formatted floppy disk.
- At the beginning of the operating system setup, press F6
to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver.
Note: This prompt appears at the beginning of
the installation routine and only appears for a few moments,
so watch for it closely. After pressing F6, setup
will temporarily continue loading drivers and then you will
be presented with a message stating, 'Setup could not
determine the type of one or more mass storage devices
installed in your system'. You will then be prompted with a
screen to load support for mass storage device(s).
- When prompted, select 'S' to Specify Additional Device.
- When prompted, insert the floppy disk you created and
press enter.
- At this point you should be presented with one or more of the following
selections:
- ITE IT8212 ATA RAID Controller (Windows NT)
- ITE IT8212 ATA RAID Controller (Windows 2000)
- ITE IT8212 ATA RAID Controller (Windows XP)
- ITE IT8212 ATA RAID Controller (Windows 2003)
- ITE IT8212 ATA RAID Controller (Windows XP, Windows 2003 64bit )
- ITE IT8212 ATA RAID Controller (Windows Vista32)
- ITE IT8212 ATA RAID Controller (Windows Vista64)
Highlight the correct selection for your operating system
and
press enter.
- Press enter again to continue. Leave the floppy disk in the system until the
next reboot as the software will need to be copied from the floppy disk again
when setup is copying files.
Important: Please follow the Windows Installation prompt to eject the
floppy disc before the system reboots. When the system reboots for the
first and subsequent times during Windows installation from a CD, you may see a
prompt to "Press any key to boot from CD." DO NOT PRESS a key at this
point, as the OS installation will have already copied the needed installation
files to your hard drive, and needs to be booted from your hard drive during
this portion of the install routine.
- During Windows setup, create a partition
and file system on the hardware-based RAID 0 or RAID 1 volume as you would
any physical disk, Notice that the size of the RAID 0 volume
is the combined capacity of the two disk
drives if they are of the same capacity. If they differ in
capacity, your RAID 0 volume will be twice the size of the
smaller of the two disk drives. If you have a
RAID 1 array, the size of the RAID 1 volume is only the
capacity of one of the two disk drives if
they are of the same capacity. If they differ in capacity,
your RAID 1 volume will be the size of the smaller of the
two disk drives.
- You may still install the RAID Windows software after the operating system
and chipset drivers have been installed, if desired. Open the ZIP archive with Windows XP's default file archive viewer, or with
a third party program such as
WinZip® (link will open in a new browser window.) The downloaded WinZip
archive
(8212 driver & ap.zip), when extracted, contains a single file named ITE8212.exe.
- Double-click the ITE8212.exe file to automatically begin the driver installation routine.
Installation files will be extracted, then you will see an initial setup
screen, be asked to agree to the license agreement, then the RAID software
will be installed, and you will be asked to reboot at the completion of the
installation routine.
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