Raid n00b question: on GA-7N400 Pro2

[ant80]

I have a GA-7N400 Pro2 mobo with an athlonxp2600+ proc.

Ide3: WD120GB Master, WD160GB Slave
Ide4: WD250GB Single

I need to set up raid so that I retain data on 160GB and 250GB. I dont need to retain data on the 120GB primary master drive. I plan to create 2 partitions on 120GB drive, 20GB boot partition (for WinXP) and rest for data.

I tried to install WinXP without setting up the raid but got an error when I was loading raid driver using F6. (I thought I should use "Setup Array for Normal.") My question is how to set up the raid so that I dont lose data on the 250 and 160GB drives.

I thought I should "Define Raid" and assign one hard drive for each array. That is,
Array 0: WD120GB
Array 1: WD160GB
Array 2: WD250GB

My question is, will that retain the data on each hard drive when I save the configuration? I am going to use stripe (Raid 0) and I assume that I should clear the boot sector for the newly created array on Array 0, but not on Array 1 or on Array 2. Will this do the trick? Thanks.
- ant80

PS: I posted this in the Tech Support section, but no response as yet, so I thought I'd post it here as well.

 

[calaverasgrandes]

I have a very similar board, the N400 pro (not pro 2). I migrated a raid 1 array from a fried board, the ga-7vaxp. It was no problem, but I had a matched pair of drives, and they were already formatted as raid.

Are the 160 and 250 already formatted as an array? If not they will have to be before you can use them as such. Also you will lose whatever data is on them when you format them! Also the resultant array will only be as large as the smaller drive. I would reccomend using teh 120 and teh 160 as a raid array and the 250 for your docs drive or whatever. That way you throw away less space!
You can not change the size of a currently used partition unless it is a dynamic partition. And you cant do that at all to an active partition with the system on it. In windows at least. unless you are planning on running your system from the raid, there is no need to F6. You can setup the raid entirely from within the raid utility, you can see it's prompt right after POST. After wards windows just sees one drive.

 

[ant80]

Originally posted by: calaverasgrandes
I have a very similar board, the N400 pro (not pro 2). I migrated a raid 1 array from a fried board, the ga-7vaxp. It was no problem, but I had a matched pair of drives, and they were already formatted as raid.

Are the 160 and 250 already formatted as an array? If not they will have to be before you can use them as such. Also you will lose whatever data is on them when you format them! Also the resultant array will only be as large as the smaller drive. I would reccomend using teh 120 and teh 160 as a raid array and the 250 for your docs drive or whatever. That way you throw away less space!
You can not change the size of a currently used partition unless it is a dynamic partition. And you cant do that at all to an active partition with the system on it. In windows at least. unless you are planning on running your system from the raid, there is no need to F6. You can setup the raid entirely from within the raid utility, you can see it's prompt right after POST. After wards windows just sees one drive.

Thanks for the reply. I think u misunderstood my situation. I need to retain the data on 160 and 250. I can't transfer them and I can't burn them onto dvds because there is 2 much data, around 200GB total. I dont need data on the 120GB drive, I transfered to the other two drives. None of the drives are formatted as raid, but I dont need mirroring. I just need raid 0.

I need to reinstall the OS. But when I try to load the raid driver, there is an error that says the following:
File win2k_XP\iteraid.sys caused an unexpected error (1024) at line 2108 in d:\xpclient\base\boot\setup\oemdisk.c

But then again, I haven't set up the raid system at all. All drives are independent at this stage.

I have two questions. How can I set it up so that I have all 120+160+250=530GB available to me? I dont need mirroring. I also need to retain data on two drives. Secondly, I have never installed windows on raid before. How can I do that when I get the abovementioned error? Any assistance would help tremendously. Thanks.
- ant80

 

[calaverasgrandes]

I understood your post perfectly. I am just trying to tell you that it really isnt possible to make what you want to happen, happen.

Ok much easier, dont setup raid if you dont need it which it doesnt sound like you do. Go into the bios and make sure it reads raid controller enabled. Then that raid contoller reads "base" or "ide" instead of raid. Just get all your drives online as regular drives. Then you can move your data around amongst the drives.

good luck!