Silicon Image® 3x12
Onboard SATA RAID/BASE Installation Files

If you have an Intel® 875P chipset and are using Parallel ATA (IDE) hard drive(s), you should be able to use the Microsoft® native storage driver built into Windows®.

• This software should only be used on the Bistro875MAX™ or Bistro875Placido™ systems if you have Serial ATA drives on the secondary Silicon Image 3112 SATA RAID Controller Hub.
   
• If you are not using a RAID array, but are installing Windows XP on the drive(s) connected to the onboard secondary Silicon Image 3x12 series SATA RAID Controller Hub, only install the drivers for the SATA controller during a clean OS installation, using F6 to install drivers from floppy during the OS installation.  We recommend that SATA operating system boot drives are connected to the onboard Intel® SATA controller hub instead of the Silicon Image® controller hub for increased performance, and that drives connected to the Silicon Image® controller hub are utilized for additional storage.
   
• If you are not sure whether or not you require this software, please contact technical support for clarification.

If you are using the attached drives in a RAID array and would prefer to manage your RAID array from within Windows® (not required), 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), enabled the Silicon Image SATA RAID controller in your motherboard's BIOS, created a RAID array in the Silicon Image RAID BIOS menu and would like to install the related SATA RAID 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 Silicon Image SATA connectors, you must pre-install the RAID driver using the F6 method described below:

1. Label a standard 1.44 MB floppy disc "Silicon Image SiI 3x12 SATARaid Driver Installation Disk", 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.
    
2. Download, then execute the silimg3x12_10051whql_f6_raid.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.

    

3. Ensure that 8 files are located on the root directory of your floppy disc.
    
4. 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).
    
5. When prompted, select 'S' to Specify Additional Device.
    
6. When prompted, insert the floppy disk you created and press enter.
    
7. At this point you should be presented with the following 2 selections:
    
   1. Silicon Image SiI 3x12 SATARaid Controller for Windows XP/Server 2003
   2. Silicon Image SiI 3x12 SATARaid Controller for Windows NT 4.0 and 2000

   Highlight the correct selection for your operating system and press enter.
    

8. 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.
    
9. During Windows setup, create a partition and file system on the RAID volume as you would any physical disk, Notice that the size of a RAID 0 volume is the combined capacity of the two Serial ATA (SATA) 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 SATA disk drives.
    
10. You may install the Silicon Image Windows Software RAID after the operating system and chipset drivers have been installed if you have created a RAID array and want to manage and view the array configuration from within Windows® instead (software RAID.)

FOR CLEAN OS INSTALLATION USING A NON-RAID (BASE) ARRAY

If you have reformatted your boot drive(s), created a RAID array in the Silicon Image RAID BIOS menu and would like to install the related SATA 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 disc connected on the Silicon Image SATA connectors, and do not want to create a RAID array, you must pre-install the BASE driver using the F6 method described below:

1. Label a standard 1.44 MB floppy disc "Silicon Image SiI 3x12 SATALink Driver Installation Disk", 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.
    
2. Download, then execute the silimg3x12_12057whql_f6_base.exe Hardware BASE (non-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.

    

3. Ensure that 8 files are located on the root directory of your floppy disc.
    
4. 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).
    
5. When prompted, select 'S' to Specify Additional Device.
    
6. When prompted, insert the floppy disk you created and press enter.
    
7. At this point you should be presented with the following 2 selections:
    
   1. Silicon Image SiI 3x12 SATALink Controller for Windows XP/Server 2003
   2. Silicon Image SiI 3x12 SATALink Controller for Windows NT 4.0 and 2000

   Highlight the correct selection for your operating system and press enter.
    

8. 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.
    
9. During Windows setup, create a partition and file system on one of the disks.
    
10. If SATA drives are being used in a BASE configuration (not RAID) on this controller, you should not install the software after the operating system and chipset drivers have been installed.

Please Note

• In order to allow readiness for future drive upgrades, these drivers may be installed during a clean Windows installation even if no drives are currently attached to the controller.
• If you are already running drives attached to the Silicon Image SATA onboard controller and wish to update the drivers only, you may download the applicable RAID/BASE F6 floppy creator and direct Device Manager to update drivers from the created floppy, if desired.

Chipset must be using the Silicon Image 3x12 series SATA RAID I/O Controller Hub
 

view the Silicon Image® 3112 SATA Controller user guide (1,058 KB)
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