Problems with RAID 1 setup on MSI K7N2 Delta2 MB

[RICHINMINN]

This is a new system, with 2 Seagate 160 GB SATA drives. The motherboard is an MSI K7N2 Delta2 with nVidia nForce2 chipset, including RAID controller. I had installed Windows 2000, using the RAID driver diskette that came with the motherboard. I partitioned the resulting RAID array, but the system had multiple problems, and often wouldn't boot until I had run the Win2K repair from the CD.

I'm starting over, but now the Win2K setup can find only the two separate drives, not the RAID array, plus it sees each drive as only 128 GB, not the full 160 GB (actually 149.05 GB).

Any clues as to what's going on? BIOS problems? (But why did it work initially?)

Rich (in Minn.)

 

[stduc]

I would suggest you check the manufacturers web site for a BIOS update.

I assume you installed the RAID driver at the right point in the installation procedure. After installing the RAID driver you should have had an opportunity to re-format & partition the RAID array before continuing to install Windows.

Some thoughts.

You could try Seagates disk utility to check & then zero fill the disks before you restart. Just in case you either have a disk problem, or, the data already on the drives is confusing the BIOS.

You could just try installing windows with one disk installed. Then add the RAID driver & utilities. Then add the second drive and it should (as you want a RAID 1) make the mirror copy at that point. Either from the BIOS screens, or using the RAID utility you should have on the floppy. (After installing that of course.)

 

[RICHINMINN]

Actually, I was to blame for this situation. My initial installation had used Windows 2000 w/ SP3, but when I tried to reinstall the OS, I picked up the wrong copy of Win2K, and got a pre-SP version of it. You have to use at least SP2 to get the system to recognize drives larger than 128 GB (137,438,953,472 bytes).

I've still got a driver problem that I'm trying to sort out, but at least I've got the full RAID drive functioning correctly.

Rich (in Minn.)