Raid install walkthrough?

[homercles337]

Has anyone seen a walkthrough for a raid install? I currently have the Chaintech nForce4 mobo and didnt see anything about raid in the BIOS and its not clear when one is supposed to hit F6 to install the drivers. Im pretty sure i screwed up since im currently formatting drive 1 of two and havent seen anything about raid yet.

 

[sharkeeper]

You need to create an array (either stripe of a pair of disks commonly refered to as RAID0 or a mirror commonly refered to as RAID1) FIRST otherwise your OS will recognise both disks.

Cheers!

 

[homercles337]

Yep, thats what im realizing. I just dont want to stop the current format. Just exactly WHEN do you hit F6 though? I already have the promise drivers on a floppy. Also, im going to get the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (the chaintech has been RAed), but im getting set up with the chaintech. Is this going to be a problem when i get the new board?

 

[JonnyBlaze]

you format it AFTER you create the raid.


JB

 

[sharkeeper]

If the onboard raid chip is not *identical* then yes it will bluescreen on you when you start up.

You can cancel the format anytime. Once you create your RAID arrays, reboot with the Windows disk in the optical drive and boot off it. As soon as the first blue screen comes up and you hear the floppy seeking, press F6. Press it a bunch of times. After the preloading finishes, it will ask for your RAID drivers so have the floppy with them handy.

Cheers!

 

[ribbon13]

And make sure not to hit F5 or it will ask what kind of PC you have, which will use a differnt HAL.

 

[sharkeeper]

And make sure not to hit F5 or it will ask what kind of PC you have, which will use a differnt HAL.

Yeah there is no way I want my PC calling me "Dave" since that is my name!

Cheers!

 

[homercles337]

Problem. What do i copy from the CD to floppy? I have tried numerous things and setup keeps asking me to instert the manufacturers disc? THis is the structure of the disc:

Raid/Silicon/3112
Raid/Silcon/3114/64bit

The readme says to use 3112 on a fresh install, but setup cant find necessary files on floppy. I also have tried the Promise drivers with no luck, but i want to use Silicon Image because my new mobo has nvRaid and Silicon Image as raid options.

 

[sharkeeper]

Try this.

Cheers!

 

[homercles337]

Yea, thanks shark. Seems that two of the floppys i was trying to use are bad. I have a win98 machine (laptop) and winXP (current). I had the optical ripped outta my current machine so i was doing the copy to floppy on the win98 machine. Seems that win98 doesnt know when a disc is bad.

Thanks for the linky...

 

[ribbon13]

http://greenmachine.msfnhosting.com/READING/addraid.htm

I never have to worry with my custom Windows XP Pro/Server 2k3 DVD. All drivers on disc!

 

[homercles337]

This is WEIRD! I formatted another floppy and extracted the drivers from the linky. On my XP machine all is fine, then i stuck it in my new rig, and i get the same error "Please insert maunfacturers disc ... ". Back to current system "The disc does not have a valid ID ... " or something like that. WTF? Is it possible that ALL the discs i have are bad? Or is my new drive killing them? Odd...

 

[homercles337]

First brand new OEM floppy == bad. RMA a $7 item? WTF?! Even a known working drive is not letting me install the raid drivers. I give up. Currently formatting for a dual 120G drive system.

 

[ribbon13]

on your driver cd, what is inside the 3112 folder?

 

[ohnnyj]

You can't copy the folder you have to copy what is inside the folder to a diskette.

And I am not sure if this is true of your board but for my A8N when you stick the CD in and it Autoplays a menu selection is there to create a RAID diskette. Then again, this was for a pair of SATA drives, it sounds like yours are PATA.

So I would copy the actual driver files from inside the Promise folder and see if that works.

 

[homercles337]

Originally posted by: ribbon13
on your driver cd, what is inside the 3112 folder?

DRIVERLANGUAGEMAP.XML
SI3112R.CAT
SI3112R.INF
SI3112R.MPD
SI3112R.SYS
SIISUPP.VXD
SIWINACC.SYS
TXTSETUP.OEM
README.TXT

@ohnnyj, did that along with about a hundred other things. Setup simply wont read floppy discs. Even with a know functioning drive. No clue why... These are SATA drives, BTW.

 

[Big Lar]

Did you check in the Mobo bios of the board, to configure sata as Raid?

 

[homercles337]

Originally posted by: Big Lar
Did you check in the Mobo bios of the board, to configure sata as Raid?

Yup...

 

[ribbon13]

So are you keeping the chaintech or getting the MSI?

There is no point in installing a RAID unless its off of the nForce4's SATA ports. Then you should be able to install and change motherboards without worry.

 

[ohnnyj]

If these are SATA then they should be connected to the nVidia SATA ports, then you can use the Make RAID disk utility on the CD that came w/your mobo.