RAID 0 help!!

[xclusivex]

OK call me a newb for even posting this.. but this raid stuff has me all confused. I just went out and purchased 2 samsung 160g SATA hard drives.. and using my DFI lanparty UT i figured it would be a snazzy idea to run these in raid 0... now im pretty sure i did everything in the BIOS correctly, my confusion comes when trying to install windows. After i install the RAID drivers from the floppy windows is showing 2 unpartitioned spaces (I was aware after setting up a raid 0 it would only show 1 partition). now I dont know what to do. Do I just partition the first drive and not even acknowledge the second? or do i format both spaces with the NTFS file system and then install windows on the first drive? someone please help ive been going at this for hours and its driving me nuts.. i have been able to find NOTHING to answer this question on the web.. thanks

 

[eydolic]

You have to enter the RAID setup utility prior to booting off of the Windows CD and create a striped array.

 

[xclusivex]

did that... everything having to do with "settings" and BIOS settings was done... its still showing 2 physical partitions in windows setup.. thats why im confused too...

 

[eydolic]

It isn't in the BIOS- it's in the SATA Rom. It'll come up after the info screen and before the DMI Pool Data screen... It should take about two hours to create the array or so with 160Gb drives.

 

[xclusivex]

Correct.. i hit f10, i set the drives up for "stripping" 64k put both drives in the array blah blah blah... everything looked good... hit enter... done.. all it said was "hit enter for details" or "hit CTRL - x to exit" i figured everything worked good so i hit CTRL - X... was there something in there i missed? my mobo seemed to make the array instint... or should it take 2 hours going through the format proccess? thanks for replying

 

[xclusivex]

still with me man?... would anyone else by chance have an idea?

 

[xclusivex]

Ok... then let me just ask this... will the windows install still see 2 seperate partitions? or should it just see 1 unpartitioned space? thanks

 

[xclusivex]

No one?

 

[boomerang]

You will see one space.

You've missed a step or two in that RAID BIOS. Recreate the array and this time hit enter for details. You're going to have to poke around in there to verify that you have indeed created a RAID 0 array.

You can't hurt anything at this point so explore around and get familiar with it.

You don't have to do any partitioning or formatting as the XP install will take care of that. You are correct that the XP install will see the array as one drive. If you're seeing two, the array is still not set up correctly. It should be one big 320GB (approximately) drive.

The RAID creation will be very quick. I think the other poster was thinking of adding a second drive to an existing drive and creating a RAID 1. With those size drives, that would take quite some time.

 

[eydolic]

You will see one space.

You've missed a step or two in that RAID BIOS. Recreate the array and this time hit enter for details. You're going to have to poke around in there to verify that you have indeed created a RAID 0 array.

You can't hurt anything at this point so explore around and get familiar with it.

You don't have to do any partitioning or formatting as the XP install will take care of that. You are correct that the XP install will see the array as one drive. If you're seeing two, the array is still not set up correctly. It should be one big 320GB (approximately) drive.

The RAID creation will be very quick. I think the other poster was thinking of adding a second drive to an existing drive and creating a RAID 1. With those size drives, that would take quite some time.

Yeah. That.

 

[xclusivex]

Ok when in the RAID bios i set it up and it shows as 291 gb.. (which sounds right both drives format to be around 150gb) and that was cool... there really are no other options to do in the BIOS its pretty strait forward... my problem happens when running windows.. it will see two drives instead of one.. thats where i get REALLY confused... considering i did everything possible and have played with several settings.. im not sure if it has to do with using an older version of windows xp or not.... also the drivers they supplied with the disk wont install once windows is installed i think that might have something to do with it.... I disassembled the raid and just installed windows on 1 of the drives out of frusteration but i still hit F6 during the install to install the SATA drivers... after windows was finished installing it asked me for the disk for the Nforce 3 SATA controller... i pointed to the driver and it says "can not install, this processor type is not supported"... Is there by chance any Silicon Image drivers i should be using for my board? (DFI lanparty UT NF3 250gb) ive been far convinced that the nVIDIA raid drivers blow... thanks again for responding im going to format again and play around with it..

 

[boomerang]

At this point I'd like to download the manual for your motherboard and see what I could see. But the DFI site is not cooperating right now. I'll keep trying and come back in if I learn anything.

This one's got me curious.

While we're waiting.....the reason you can get as far as you can is because the RAID is controlled by the nForce chipset which is natively sopported bu your BIOS. The motherboad BIOS not the RAID BIOS. You're setting up the array just fine now, but it sounds like Windows is seeing two drives for the very reason you are describing. The drivers are not installing properly.

Dumb question here, please excuse me if necessary but you do have the drivers on a floppy correct?

Edit: I just downloaded the driver package from the Nvidia site. I double clicked and expanded the files. I think if you copy the contents of the IDE\WinXP folder to a floppy, you will be good to go. You can exclude the raidtool folder and the nvuide.exe file. The rest should fit nicely on a floppy.

Once you get this going, it's gonna knock your socks off when you see how fast your XP install goes.

Now there is mention at the Nvida site that you must have at least SP1 installed. This is in reference to the entire driver package and I think I would take it with a grain of salt in regards to getting this RAID going. But the file structure may be similar on the disk that came with your board. You may want to explore that and give it a try.

 

[xclusivex]

The drivers im using are the ones that came with my motherboard, they are equivalent to the drivers on the 5.10 Unified driver package from Nvidia.. and when im installing im using a Windows XP disk with sp2 slipstreamed so i know its up to date, also the install seems quick while just doing the install with the drivers.. (by hitting F6).. its not installing the raid but with the drivers and doing the install it installs windows XP in under 5 minutes (not including the time it takes to format). as far as the manual goes.. its just about useless.. the DFI may possibly be the best 754 board made.. but it has by far the WORST manual that was ever written for any product i have ever bought.. it is very vauge.. if you need to read a manual i suggest getting one for the MSI Neo platnium it has basically the same features, the same BIOS and the same RAID controller... I can really find no other way to set up my drivers in order to get the RAID to work.. im at wits end here.. if you can think of anything else please let me know. thanks for the responses

 

[xclusivex]

To give you a better idea of what my raid bios looks like ive included some pictures at photos.yahoo.com/xclusiv3x (i dont know how to host them here..) and you can also see how windows is seeing both partitions..... all i can possibly think of is maybe i need some kind of silicon image drivers or its a BIOS setting that i missed... im completely stumped..

 

[boomerang]

With your RAID 0 established and XP installed by way of the F6 press and drivers, close out of any prompt for drivers at first boot.

Insert the CD that came with your board and install the driver package for your board. I'm guessing that after that, your problems will be taken care of.

I believe the drivers you are using at the F6 prompt are enough to get the SATA drives recognized to install and boot XP. In order for XP to properly recognize the RAID array (by that I mean as a single drive), the drivers for the chipset on your board must be installed.

Look at it from this perspective.

Your array is functioning.
Your XP install is as quick as can be. Further proof your array is good.
XP boots off the SATA drives. Remember, you have a striped array. No way it's going to boot if the array is not functional.

With your chipset drivers installed, you should be all set. As I said, ignore that first prompt. It's either bogus, or it's not asking for (or receiving) the correct drivers.

If this doesn't work, I'm throwing in the towel. The only suggestion I could make would be to post over in the Motherboards Forum. Maybe someone with the same board can help.

Please try this first. I really think it's the answer.

 

[xclusivex]

The problem with that whole thing is.. the IDE drivers on the motherboard CD and the RAID class drivers for my controller are the same thing...so either way it wouldnt matter.. however I GOT IT!!! woo hoo.. kinda a stupid thing that i didn't try it earlier.. but I reset the BIOS via jumper and then reconfiged my BIOS to the way I had it before and PRESTO 1 300gb driver being formatted as i type... i kinda feel like a duche bag for not even considering resetting the BIOS.. so a fair warning for anyone that could be experiencing the same problems as me... look for a jumper near the battery on your motherboard, Thanks boomerang for all your help im going to tool around with this now... 1 last question.. whats a good stripping size to use?? i put it at 32k but default its at 64k.. I wasnt exactly sure..

 

[boomerang]

I'm no authority on that. As you've probably guessed I'm running two SATA drives in RAID 0 myself. My RAID configuration utility has no option for stripe size. I had to go with what it gave me and I don't know what that is.

My understanding is the size of the stripe can be related to the size of the files you typically deal with. I seem to recall that it's one of those backward kind of things. The bigger the files, the smaller the stripe and visa versa. But I may be remembering it backwards.

I've read many who say don't concern yourself with it, the performance difference is small.

One thing I do know for certain. You can't change the stripe size without a reinstall. You could of course copy or image to a third drive, change the stripe, recreate the array and copy back.

I'm really glad you got it going. Sometimes you've got to walk away, slow down and take a look at it from a different perspective. That's sometimes all it takes to make it work. For me the enjoyement is learning something new. I learn more about this stuff nearly every day.

 

[MiKeDaDoC]

Had the same problem... 2 disks in XP Setup environment but Raid 0 configured..

solved it like this (no BIOS reset, no newer drivers):

The case is that you got to install BOTH of the drivers on the diskette ("RAID Class" AND "ATA Controller")

...guess nVidia had to split the driver cuz they implemented the RAID Function over all of the devices, not only for a special Controller.

Well, now my sleepless night are finally over The only things thats left to do is repair my Audi

(...not everything in this life is about PC-Hardware *lol*)

greetz

Mike

 

[Blazer]

it sounds like you need to CONFIGURE SATA AS RAID=YES in bios,then make sure it shows up as {1} one drive in the boot from page,then make sure it is listed in the CMOS page,while booting to install OS on the raid 0 make sure no other drives with OS are connected or boot files could be installed there which would create probs if removed latter.

some bios settings require reboot to take affect as to make other changes.