Problems setting up RAID

[nob1]

I've set up a RAID in the BIOS using two identical SATA drives. Ive pressed F6 and loaded the driver fron floppy. When windows setup gets to the partitioning and formatting bit it sees my drives as two seperate drives and asks me which one I want to install XP on. Shouldn't these two drives be seen as one? I cant seem to find anything in the BIOS and the array is recognised during the boot sequence. The mobo is an ABIT Fatal1ty an8sli and the drives are WD Raptors 150GB. Can anybody help?

 

[UnknownEntity]

Hi,

When I have setup RAID mirroring in the past they have been seen as independent drives. If you want to stripe them for performance and no fault tolerance then they will be seen as one. When you say you have WD raptors 150gb. Do you have 2 x 74gb drives ?

Also when installing a 3rd party driver as windows installation is progressing. Does Windows actually prompt you of available drivers from your floppy?

Drakul.

 

[nob1]

No, I have 2x 150Gb (just out) Raptors which I am trying to set up in RAID 0(performance-no fault tolerance). The Bios says they are one drive, XP says they are 2. The RAID driver came with the MOBO (Abit) and loads when I press F6. XP asks for it when I press F6.

 

[jurgen36]

You have to enable the RAID in the cmoss. Once you reboot a screen will come up, you then select which type of raid you will be using, then activate the drives and format them. Afterwards you will find that both drives are counted as one.
Then proceed normally with the installation.
Regards

Jurgen

 

[nob1]

I've done all that. The only problem is that when I get to the bit where you format the array (remember the CMos says its an array) XP sees it as two seperate drives. You say 'then activate the drives'. What does that mean and how do you do it? Sorry to be a bit thick but its my first RAID.

 

[jurgen36]

You have to use the raid screen when it comes up just after rebooting, you select raid 0 in it then format or build the raid array from that screen. Once its finished reboot. The drives will already be formated as a raid system and then proceed normally with the installation.
Regards

Jurgen

 

[nob1]

The RAID screen that comes up just after rebooting does not provide the facility to format the array only to say you want a RAID and to select to boot from that array. I'm at a loss.

 

[UnknownEntity]

Hi,

I experienced something similar recently, I have an ASUS workstation MB, model doesnt matter, but what i realised was that after failed attempts 3 i think at the time my screen would bypass the raid options completely. The manual stated that I had to press ctrl + i at POST, did that and never worked.

So as a resort I cleared CMOS settings, and hey presto! I found the screen, setup stripping easily through the original instructions given.

Try clearing CMOS, then try again. This time enable RAID in BIOS, save and reboot then enter RAID utilty through MB instructions, usually during or after POST.

Hope this helps.

Drakul.