Basic RAID 1 install question

[John Prophet]

OK, I know WGAT RIAD is and the various levels etc..but Ive never actually worked with it before.

Say I have a standard 1 drive system. I want to go to RAID 1 for redundancy purposes.

I buy a RAID pci card....I have a second drive just like the first.

Ok..now what?. lol

Is it just a matter of installing the card firrst of all...then moving the system hard drive over to boot off of the raid card..and THEN doing "whatever" to mirro rthe drive?

The actual "building the array" part..is that done in windows or are we talking about a reboot with a floppy into DOS?

WHats the nitty gritty?

What about if I want to install windows on one of the dust gathering RAID motherboards I have laying around...do I build the RAID DURING the windows install...as in with the f6 button with w2000 or XP...or is it better to just install windows and THEN setup the RAID part of it??

I have an Abit KG7R and a KR7A-133R to work with. I see in the manual for the KG7 it is showing the RAID bios but it is also showing windows drivers etc.

Thanks, JP

[Xaotic]

Since you are doing hardware RAID, the order of installation is different than software RAID versions and will involve a reinstall.

Attach the new, or ready to be formatted HDDs as Master on different channels. Boot up and there will be a prompt to enter the RAID BIOS. Hit the appropriate keys to do this. Set up the RAID-1 in the BIOS, then reboot to install windows. You'll need to have the mass storage drivers on FDD for the RAID controller and hit F6 to install them during windows installation. When you hit F6, the system will not respond, but the prompt to install drivers will come up later in the installation. Partitioning and formatting can be done in the normal windows installation and the rest of the installation process is the standard windows install.

Hope this helps.

[John Prophet]

So there is a mini "raid install" first from the raid bios..ok.

What about when you already have windows installed on one drive..but you want to go to a pci raid 1 card....?

Thanks, JP

[Xaotic]

If you are changing configuration and not going to use software RAID, the only safe way is to backup and reinstall. The reason for this lies in the hardware array having to be set up before the OS loads. The setup process will normally overwrite drive configuration information and some will synchronize the drives. Some controllers may allow dynamic expansion and creation of arrays, but it's not a standar feature and usually only on the more expensive controllers. Anytime I start playing with this kind of data, the first thing I do is a full backup.