Moving RAID1 ICH8R --> ICH10R - Possible?

[Bleser]

So I've been running a mirror (RAID 1) array on the Intel 965G/ICH8R chipset since 2006 to store all of my music/photos/videos. I am going to be upgrading to the new P55/ICH10R chipset with a core i5 750 this week and I REALLY don't want to have to reformat/partition my array.

This might be sort of a noobie question, but can I simply plug my two drives into the new motherboard, tell it they are a RAID 1 array and still have it recognize my existing partition and data? Or do I HAVE to re-format/setup?

Lastly, although I'm not a huge fan of this, I'm considering uninstalling ALL of my drivers (video, sound, network, chipset, etc) and then booting off the new motherboard and loading the new drivers as if it is a fresh install... will this work or is it a waste of my time? This is for Vista Ultimate x64.

Thanks!

 

[Bleser]

Well, I did a bit of my own searching and it looks like this is possible in my situation. Since it is not the boot drive and I'm moving from one Intel controller to another Intel controller, it should be easy.

From Intel:
http://www.intel.com/support/c.../imsm/sb/cs-022435.htm

They do say not to try and move a RAID 0 array and boot to it on the new motherboard and to instead access the contents via a separate bootable drive. But this isn't my boot drive so it shouldn't matter. I'm sure I'll end up backing up everything anyway, as I should do...

 

[Bleser]

As a final follow-up and for future reference, this was childs-play easy. All I had to do was plug my RAID array into the Intel controlled SATA ports on the new motherboard, setup the controller as RAID in the BIOS, and that's it. I didn't even have to enter the Matrix RAID configuration utility during boot to "tell it" there was an array - it found it automatically and all my data is intact.

I did, however, format the SSD and re-install Vista x64... just cleaner that way.

 

[Old Hippie]

They do say not to try and move a RAID 0 array and boot to it on the new motherboard and to instead access the contents via a separate bootable drive.

Only if there's a different controller.

I just did it yesterday with a Vista RAID0 bootable array going from an ICH9R to a 10R.

I was ready for a repair install with the RAID drivers on a USB stick and my Vista disk in the optical drive and it kinda freaked me out when it booted. :shocked:

Live and learn!

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: Bleser
So I've been running a mirror (RAID 1) array on the Intel 965G/ICH8R chipset since 2006 to store all of my music/photos/videos. I am going to be upgrading to the new P55/ICH10R chipset with a core i5 750 this week and I REALLY don't want to have to reformat/partition my array.

This might be sort of a noobie question, but can I simply plug my two drives into the new motherboard, tell it they are a RAID 1 array and still have it recognize my existing partition and data? Or do I HAVE to re-format/setup?

Lastly, although I'm not a huge fan of this, I'm considering uninstalling ALL of my drivers (video, sound, network, chipset, etc) and then booting off the new motherboard and loading the new drivers as if it is a fresh install... will this work or is it a waste of my time? This is for Vista Ultimate x64.

Thanks!

The RAID 1 thing should work fine. Also, I'd recommend uninstalling the device drivers like you said, but actually installing the latest chipset drivers so that everything on the motherboard gets auto-detected when you boot up. Although it's not the absolute optimal way to go, I've gone from a 975x, to P55, to my current X58 using this method. Vista will probably ask you to reauthenticate, but otherwise it should go smooth.

Edit: I see I'm late to this party, but you can keep it in mind for next time .

 

[ByteRider]

*sigh* .. I'm currently trying to do exactly this (move a RAID-1 from ICH8R to ICH10R) and for some reason it's not working out well.

The first hurdle was that when I hooked up my drives, the ICH10R wouldn't recognize them as part of a RAID (shows up as non-member disks) ... I added them in by doing a "Recover" operation on them. They now show up in the BIOS, but when I go to the OS (XP), they don't show up (if I have RAID enabled for the SATA drives) or the Matrix Manager won't load (if I don't enable RAID .. but then the OS can see the disks).

Currently banging my head against the wall.

 

[mv2devnull]

As a final follow-up and for future reference, this was childs-play easy. All I had to do was plug my RAID array into the Intel controlled SATA ports on the new motherboard, setup the controller as RAID in the BIOS, and that's it. I didn't even have to enter the Matrix RAID configuration utility during boot to "tell it" there was an array - it found it automatically and all my data is intact.

The ICH does write to each member disk of each array, which kind of RAID array that disk is a member of. That array configuration info is called "metadata". RAID controllers of different brands tend to place the metadata at different locations on physical disks, and use different format too.

On bootup, the RAID BIOS (of fakeRAID) checks for the existense of metadata, and if everything looks consistent and clean, is happy. Then the drivers of the booting OS check for existense of metadata, and if they find something, treat the disks as an array.

There should not be a need to do anything via the RAID BIOS, if both old and new controller understand the metadata of the old.


As (un)related side story: I once had RAID-1 on Nforce4 chip. Then I created RAID-1 onto the same disks with Silicon Image chip. After boot the OS was still running "nvidia RAID". The "Create array" by Silicon Image had not overwritten the metadata of Nforce4, and the OS happened to check for the Nforce4 metadata before the Silicon Image format. :sneaky: