Upgrading to a newer motherboard while keeping the older RAID 5 array

[oshogg]

Hi,

I currently have a Pentium 4 system with Asus P5LD2 as the motherboard. I am planning to upgrade to a Core i7 platform with X58 based motherboard.

I currently have a RAID 5 array of 4 disks on the Asus P5LD2 motherboard (ICH7R southbridge). If I upgrade to a X58 based motherboard with ICH10R southbridge, is there any way that I can transfer the RAID 5 array intactly? Will the new motheboard recognize the RAID 5 array? Or, will I have to rebuild the array with formatting the array?


thanks,
Osho

 

[imported_wired247]

chances are it won't work... this is among the many reasons for hardware raid

 

[Madwand1]

It should work. Start by enabling RAID in the BIOS, but not defining a new array. Not even connecting the old drives. Install the OS on a new drive in this manner, and then install the Intel RAID utility and drivers.

Then shut down, connect the RAID'd drives, and let the BIOS and OS auto-recognize the array. Do not attempt to re-create the array -- that should not be needed, and if you do that, you risk losing all the existing data. All of these operations should be done as if "read only" on the old array until you have it fully set up. If you can't get it recognized, then as long as you haven't written on the drives, you should have a fallback of re-attaching them to the old computer and copying all the data to another drive or array.

 

[oshogg]

Thanks for the input everyone. I will try what Madwand1 suggested. I really wish there was more thought put into this motherboard based RAID.

 

[oshogg]

Just wanted to let everyone know that following Madwand1's advise worked like a charm. I was able to move RAID array from ICH7R to ICH10R without any major issues.

Thanks a lot.

 

[Madwand1]

Congratulations, and thanks for reporting your results.