Using RAID on P5B Deluxe

[Payner44]

I would like to use the Intel RAID controller to create a RAID 0 set. However, I did not install the drivers for this during the OS install. Can I add these drivers at this point or do I have to start over with the OS install? Also, I have the OS installed on a drive attached to the IDE controller, not on the SATA II.

 

[markymoo]

no you cant you need to make a ich8r raid driver on floppy first from your asus cd. then you have to enable raid in bios and load the raid driver at the early install stages of xp. so xp sees the drives as one drive.

it can be confusing. ich8r raid controller is the internal raid you be using. jmicron is the external raid. ignore jmicron you wont need that but if you disable micron it disable your cd. so you need to leave that on.

on bootup you have to press ctrl-I when you see the raid screen flash up very quickly. you can easily miss it. you then create a raid array. make it the full size of the drives combined and make 64k stripe size for best xp performance. this is faster over 128k. this will wipe your exisitng xp. so backup your stuff before you do it.

when you install your xp. press F6 and insert your raid floppy when you see the message and s to load the right the first driver in the list. when the xp installs and reboots. change the boot priority to boot from raid first.

I use 2 raptors which are very fast in raid 0. If you have 4 hard drives you can create raid 10 which gives the performance of raid 0 with raid 1 combined. so you have performance and backup.

 

[Corrie]

Thanks Markymoo info helped as P5B manual not a lot of help but it's driving me crazy where on the motherboard do i plug my 2 maxtor 250 gbyte disks in , i have sata raid and also sata 1,2,3,and 4 plugs and want to configure for raid 0.

any help would be greatly apresiated.

Regards

John

 

[markymoo]

look at this pic
http://usa.asus.com/100/images/products/1179/1179_l.jpg

plug the 2 sata drives into the 2 red sata sockets directly opposite the 2 black sockets. they labelled on the board sata0 and sata1

you can intergrate your raid drivers into a xp cd easily with nlite so no floppy or f6 is needed as its annoying to forget to press f6 and miss it but if you leave the floppy in it finds it auto.

 

[Corrie]

Many thanks

Regards

John

 

[ginfest]

Although I used the "F6" method I noticed this thread over at Xtreme forums which is an alternative method

Enabling AHCI after Windows install

Do a search in those forums, there was another post there about the same thing but I canna find it right now.