P6T SE ICH10R RAID Question

[Curtis]

Hi all,

I have a quick question on my current raid setup.

I have 2 separate storage controllers on the go. I have the on-board ICH10 and a crap startech raid controller.

The ICH10R has 2 drives connected in no raid setup and the startech has raid0 with 2 drives.

My question is, If i were to remove the startech raid controller and attach all drives to the on-board controller, would my raid set still be in tact and would i be able to access the data on my other drives.

I only ask as i need the room for a 8800GTX as a physx card ( Definitely another post on how to do that!)

Please help as this is driving me nuts!

Thanks ppl

 

[tinytomlogan]

Im almost positive you will loose the data dude. you need to back the data up before moving.

 

[Curtis]

Im almost positive you will loose the data dude. you need to back the data up before moving.

Thanks for the reply

Doesn't Sound too bad but will the excess of 2 non-raid HDD's on the ICH10R chipset cause the raid set to malfunction and will the bios be able to detect and boot the raid set if the additon of 2 non-raid hdd's are attached?

 

[thestepster]

the raid will boot with non raids no bother mate i have 2 raptors in raid0 and 2 non members for storage and runs without a problem and i have the ICH9R chipset

 

[Curtis]

Thanks for the reply m8

That's what i was hoping to hear! Thanks

Just another quick one then,

Will all drives have to be present including the non-raid drives before the raid set is created or will i be able to add the drives in after i have created the raid set.

I only ask as i fear accidental fomentation or my data backup drives that will be present.

Thank's again!

 

[thestepster]

right im not sure with that mate TTL will be able to confirm it but i cant see it being an issue as they will be non member and have nowt to do with the actual raid

 

[Curtis]

Right, Well i did try this about a week ago. I attached 2 drives, crated a raid set, installed win7, shutdown, installed the 2 drives and it failed to boot. I can't figure this out and it's so frustrating!

The main reason i am wanting to do this is i am not gaining any performance boost using RAID0 on this Sh**y StarTech raid card!

I think the on-board Intel controller will perform much better.( I hope)

 

[thestepster]

thats maybe the problem there man having the raid running off a pci raid controller and ur non members off the onboard controller

now sure if adding in drives after u have used the raid but i dont think it should be a problem

 

[Curtis]

So if i do the followiung steps below it should all work?

Where i get stuck is when i configure the bios to raid. i think it sees all drives attached as raid.

remove the raid card, attach my raid drives to the onboard controller, configure BIOS to raid, boot to onboard raid bios, configure drives, boot to win7 install cd and install driver for raid.

 

[thestepster]

it will only see the drives as a member or non memeber's

did you make a back up of your previous OS install?

take out the old raid card, then when ur pluggin the drives into the sata ports there might be 2 different coloured sata ports, use the 2 same coloured with the drives u wanna raid (just looked at pics of your motherboard and it looks like your raid satas are the ones that are pointing out and not the ones pointing off the side) then when u go into the bios it should be on the first screen 'configure sata as' and it will automatically be set as IDE and you want to change it to raid, exit and save the settings in the bios, you will more than likely need to install the raid drivers im not sure if i did on mines? just boot from the cd, get to the win 7 install menu and install the drivers from a flash drive i think is how u do it or the m/b driver disc that should work also, then when u start up you will need to press CTRL+I (not sure if thats the correct buttons for ICH10R) after it posts to get into the raid set up, select the discs in there and make them memeber discs (best to name it something i have mines as raid os) once its set up go back into your bios and go into where you select the boot device and select the raid drive to boot from

im stuck if you backed up your previous install of how to get that on the drivers personally i always do a fresh install of windows, but if you need to you can just go about installing your OS normally and after that installs that should be you sorted

sorry if this isnt the best guide mate ive only recently been using raid on my pc so im no expert in it yet experienced members will be able to point you in the direction if i have got it incorrect

good luck mate hope ya get on with it fine

 

[Curtis]

That sounds great.

I've prepared a usb drive with the drivers and i think i get it now.

I'm gonna remove the raid controller, attach my raid set to the onboard. Configure my bios to RAID. Boot into onboard RAID bios and crate a new raid0 set.

My only concern is once i get to the part where all my drives are connected and i'm in the onboard raid bios, once i create a raid set with the 2 drives, will it do anything to my other drives?

Thanks for all you help on this m8

 

[thestepster]

you dont boot into the raid bios its a bit that comes up tellin you the drives you have there and what are in raid and what arent then you press CTRL+I, you will have to install the raid drivers b4 you can configure your raid drive im more than sure of that, it wont do anything to your other drives just make sure you have your raid set up set to boot from in the bios or you will just get a boot error lol

no probs mate i was in the same situation as you a wee while back when i bought 3x74gb raptors to do a raid array with and didnt have a clue but once u do it a couple of times (i had problems with the win 7 install corrupting on me after a few days of use) but ive got it pretty much sorted out now and have this one running for about 9 weeks flawlessly

if you have msn or skype pm me your addys for either and ill talk to you on there if you need any other help

 

[Curtis]

Ahh i see. I think i get the gist of it now. I'll give that a try now. I'll be doing a clean install (just hope i can redeem my games from steam :/ ) as i've only got the one comp i'll pm later on 2nite with detailsof success or failure (hopefully success!)

I hope all this raid business is worthit!

Have you noticed a substantial performance gain in your raid set? (not that you need to with them amazing raptors!)

Thanks again m8 Really appreciate it!

 

[thestepster]

mate they are fantastic, limited capacity but it more than makes up for in speed installin games and stuff is super fast same with windows 7

you should get on fine mate its just gettin the drives configured into a raid and ull be off, good luck with it mate and u should even if your using just standard 7200k drives ull notice a difference, its just raid0 isnt the most reliable and can kill drives and if one fails the raid fails so thats one down side but the pros make up for it

im not sure how steam really works ive only bought 1 game from them GTA IV on this install so dont know how to go about gettin it back again so id be in the same boat as u

and dont worry about the help mate everyone starts somewhere

 

[Curtis]

Success!

It was a ball ache configuring the drives but i finaly got it. I changed the bios setting from ide to raid, rebooted, Pressed CTRL+I, Entered the Intel bios, (I Got kinda stuck here) deleted old raid set, managed to create another raid set without formatting my data drives rebooted, installed win7 (you were right, i didn't need the drivers! ) ALL PERFECT.

Oh, and steam let me redeem my games (Phew!)

I have noticed a performance boost but not as much as i would of hoped for but then again, i dont exactly have state of the art hard drives! windows still rates the disk performance @ 5.9 which is a bit annoying. everything else is @ 7.7.

Thanks again for all your help on this m8. really appreciate it

 

[thestepster]

no probs mate, you will definitely notice a difference when playin games and installing things it will go a lot faster than with just one drive, my drives arent state of the art just 2x74gb raptors but the performance between them and a standard 7200 is massive games load so fast, os starts fast and everything installs really fast i would love to get my hands on some bad ass SSD's to raid would be awsome

i wouldnt worry about the scores in win 7, use things like 3dmark06, pcmark vantage and programs like that to give u a good idea of performance