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Acard AEC-6885 User Manual

Manual is about: PCI-to-IDE ATA-133 RAID Controller

Summary of AEC-6885

  • Page 1

    Pci-to-ide ata-133 raid controller aec-6885 user’s manual version:1.0 copyright © 2002 acard technology corp. Release: december 2002.

  • Page 2: Copyright and Trademarks

    Copyright and trademarks the information of the product in this manual is subject to change without prior notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of the vendor, who as- sumes no liability or responsibility for any errors that may appear in this manual. Acard and scside are the tradema...

  • Page 3: Table of Contents

    Table of contents chapter 1 introduction ....................................... 5 1.1 overview ................................................................ 5 1.2 features ................................................................. 5 1.3 specifications ........................................

  • Page 4

    4.3 in win 9x/me ........................................................ 22 4.3.1 install the driver ............................................................ 22 4.3.2 boot from aec-6885 ..................................................... 22 4.4 in linux ..........................................

  • Page 5: Chapter 1  Introduction

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 5 chapter 1 introduction 1.1 overview acard aec-6885 is a pci 64-bit, 4-channel, high-performance pci pnp ata 133 raid card. It supports raid 0, 1, 0+1, jbod as well as hot swap, and is fit for servers and high-class workstations. 1.2 features n a standalone pci-to-ide control...

  • Page 6

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 6 1.4 package when you open the package, please examine the following items. N aec-6885 × 1 n internal ata 133 cable × 4 n y-splitter power cord × 2 n user’s manual n acard support cd × 1.

  • Page 7

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 7 chapter 2 hardware installation 2.1 quick installation (1). Be sure that the system power has been off. (2). Open the housing of pc. (3). Insert aec-6885 into an available pci slot firmly. (4). Screw aec-6885 onto the housing. (5). Connect aec-6885 to the hard drives with an...

  • Page 8

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 8 2.3 connection of cable and power cord basically speaking, it is easy for any user to connect the ata 133 cable and the 4- pin power cord, because they are foolproof. The methods are given below. (1). Find out a color line of the ata 133 cable indicating pin 1 of the connect...

  • Page 9

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 9 2.4 compatibility aec-6885is particularly designed for dma hard drive, and has been fully tested with the hard drives available in laboratory. Aec-6885 supports various ata 66/ 100/133 hard drives as listed below. C quantum c seagate c ibm c maxtor c fujitsu c western digita...

  • Page 10: Chapter 3  Bios Setup

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 10 chapter 3 bios setup after installing aec-6885 and booting the system, you will see the following figure appear immediately behind the figure of motherboard. The figure indicates your bios version, hard drive information, raid status, etc. Figure 3-1 please press ctrl + or ...

  • Page 11

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 11 3.1 description of functions on bios screen use á >, â > to change items, press to select and con- firm, and press to cancel or exit (return to previous screen). Meanwhile at the bottom of the screen, you can see the model numbers of hard drives connected to the channels, t...

  • Page 12

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 12 3.1.2 build mirror disk when changing a mirrored hard drive, you can rebuild the hard drive’s data by “build mirror disk” according to the prompt upon booting. Please see 3.2.2. 3.1.3 quick erase disk this function allows you to quickly erase the data on a selected hard dri...

  • Page 13

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 13 figure 3-4 select any array in “set raid modes”, then press to select a raid mode. After selection, the screen will prompt “please select disks to create array”, and the cursor will move to the display area of hard drive at the bottom of the screen. Use á >, â > to select h...

  • Page 14

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 14 figure 3-5 3.2.2 mirror mode this mode needs a pair of hard drives for each array. If the two hard drives you have chosen contain the same data, or different data that you don’t want to keep, you can select “create only”. But if not, please choose one of them as the source ...

  • Page 15

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 15 3.2.3 stripe + mirror mode this mode needs four hard drives. You can connect four hard drives to four chan- nels that are all set as master or slave. Besides, you have to select stripe block size, too. 3.2.4 jbod mode this mode means to add all selected hard drives and make...

  • Page 16

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 16 chapter 4 system & driver installation driver installation varies somewhat in different operating systems. You can install the driver of aec-6885 in an existing os, or install a new os to the hard drives connected to aec-6885. The second method can be said to boot from aec-...

  • Page 17

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 17 (3). Follow the wizard. Windows xp will require the driver’s location. Select “include this location in the search”. (4). Select “browse” to find the driver’s directory of aec6885.Inf such as a:\winxp. Figure 4-2 (5). After the wizard finds the driver, click “next” to insta...

  • Page 18

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 18 (6). Click “continue anyway” to continue the installation. Figure 4-4 (7). Follow the directions. The system will complete the setup automatically. Figure 4-5.

  • Page 19

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 19 (8). After setup, please boot the system again, and click “my computer”. Figure 4-6 (9). Find “view system information”, and double click it. Figure 4-7.

  • Page 20

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 20 (10). In “system properties” click “hardware” and then “device manager”. (11). Under “scsi and raid controllers” double click “acard aec-6885 pci ultra ata 133 raid controller” to see if the card has been installed successfully. Figure 4-8 figure 4-9.

  • Page 21

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 21 4.1.2 boot from aec-6885 notice: during driver installation, if you encounter the problem of win- dows logo, please click “continue anyway”. Windows logo is a mechanism designed to prevent os from working abnormally because of installing unidentified software. Yet, the driv...

  • Page 22

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 22 (3) follow the wizard to complete. After execution, boot the system again. 4.2.2 boot from aec-6885 please refer to 4.1.2. 4.3 in win 9x/me 4.3.1 install the driver (1). The procedures are similar to those in 4.1.1. Follow the wizard to complete. (2). After installation, bo...

  • Page 23

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 23 linux driver”. (1). Install a new system into the hard drives connected to aec-6885: a. Boot the system with linux installation cd. B. On the first installation screen, you will see a prompt “boot:” at the bottom of the screen. Please type [linux dd] to install linux to a s...

  • Page 24

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 24 chapter 5 the aec-6885 utility acard has designed a program called aec-6885 utility for you to use the ide card effectively. The utility will execute automatically after installation, setting and booting anew. 5.1 install the utility please follow the three steps to install...

  • Page 25

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 25 figure 5-2 5.2.1 file click “file” to find “exit”. It is used to leave the utility. But if you don’t like to end the program, you can click on the upper right of the window to minimize it. 5.2.2 action click “action” to find “rescan bus”. It is used to refresh the screen; t...

  • Page 26

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 26 5.2.5 system info click “system info” to find the information and status of your raid and hard drives. 5.2.6 event log click “event log” to find all important things about raid such as the damage, re- moval, and adding of hard drives. However, in the beginning there is no r...

  • Page 27: Chapter 6  Troubleshooting

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 27 chapter 6 troubleshooting after installing aec-6885, if it cannot work normally, please follow the checklist given below to solve the problems. (1). Inspect if the power cord’s connectors are loose, or if the watt of power supply is not sufficient. (2). Inspect if the jumpe...

  • Page 28: Appendix A  About Raid

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 28 appendix a about raid raid (redundant array of independent disks) is a system composed of many hard drives; that is, a pair of hard drives or more unite into a whole drive or an array. For the system only one hard drive is revealed. The advantages of raid technology are inc...

  • Page 29

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 29 it is suggested to compose raid 1 with hard drives of the same capacity. Because the capacity of mirrored disk array is that of the smallest hard drive. For example, a 100gb hard drive and a 120gb one unite into raid 1. The capacity is 100gb. A-3 raid 0+1 (striping/mirrorin...

  • Page 30

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 30 appendix b make an installation disk for installing an os like windows 2000/nt/xp into a hard drive with acard adapter, you need a floppy disk containing the adapter’s driver to boot the hard drive. Please follow the steps below to make an acard adapter’s driver disk. 1. In...

  • Page 31

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 31 3. Under the “driver” folder find your adapter’s model number. For example, aec- 6880’s driver is driver>ide>aec6880v1.3..

  • Page 32

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 32 4. Choose the driver folder, and right-click “send to 3.5” floppy”. Meanwhile insert an empty disk into floppy drive. 5. Now use the driver disk to boot the hard drive and install the os..

  • Page 33

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 33 appendix c aspitool32 manager the aspitool32 managerprogram has many functions aimed at making the hard drives work properly under the windows os while they are connected with the acard scsi or ide adapter. The aspitool32 manager program is proudly devel- oped by acard. You...

  • Page 34

    Aec-6885 user’s manual 34 technical support form email: support@acard.Com http://www.Acard.Com model aec-6885 f/w version system configuration motherboard bios version scsi adapter chipset memory display card other i/o card os version hard disk configuration hard disk model/type capacity firmware ve...