Win Xp, GA K8N Pro SLI, Raptor 74s, raid issues.

(I checked the other raid post, but it did not seem to apply.)

Base System

new GA K8N pro Sli mb
new AMD 3000+ (for now)
2 x 512 400 ddr 3200 Ram in dual channel mode
nVidia based 6600 PCI-e 16
memorex 52x CDRW (hey its what they had)

Drives:
I had planned to use my Raptor 36.7 which upon trying to use, turned out to be dead from the previous mb/cpu meltdown, I ended up buying a small IDE WD800JD locally to get up and running. Win XP Pro installed just fine.

Since I'd lost so much with the previous machines meltdown... I also decided to add in a ATA33 6 gig WD I had around here formatted to fat32 to copy critical data to that an old Win98SE backup machine will be able to see them. Slow as Molasses in Jan... but for what its for it'll be fine.


OK...

IDE Primary has the WD800JD (ata 100) as master and the WD 6 gig (ata33) as slave.

Ide secondary has only the CDRW (master)

All seems good.

After researching the compaitbility of the Raptor 74s withthis mb... I ordered two of them. The intent is to set them up in Raid Mirror and install win XP on them and let the pair act as the main drive (2 raided 74s).

After that was stable I intend to clean out the original 80g reformat it to fat32 in the old machine to whatever gig win98SE can do. Install a backup installation of XP, Office, and a couple other work programs (retaining the fat32) as a backup.

BUT, I haven't gotten that far. having issues with the Raptor 74s I think.

Cmos is seeing them... one is on channel 3, the other on channel 5... ok cool. But they were still raw. Knowing that win xp install will format if needed... went ahead and set up the raid. All cool as far as Cmos goes.

Then I pulled the IDE boot drive (actually both IDE drives) and proceeded to do a new install of Windows XP. Setup saw the raid array (I think... only showed one possible drive to install to...which is what I expected it to see the raid array as. It is possible I guess that it only saw one... but what about the array?) and proceeded to format and install... I did do the f6 driver load thing and all seemed right until it went to reboot. Can't reboot (no valid OS or something like that) and the raid array was reporting as "disrupted ".

Upon reconneting the IDE drives and booting from that XP... the CMOS came up with same error on the array... turned off the raid in cmos and tried again.

Raptors came up as they are installed (Channel 3 and 5) but only one had the 28gig and 42 gig partions created and formated. The other was not. Windows install evidently did not format both.

OK.... now what to do?. Well... lets preformat them...

Did that. Each has a 28gig and 42 gig partitions. Set them as raid without clearing the data. The RAID controller seemed to like this and was correct on the next boot. Oh I do have Nortons Sytems works (not Goast) and the only files on them are the NTProtect.

But I got chicken and haven't proceeded further. Thats all I need to do is somehow kill these Raptors... they WERE an extravegance for me!

So if this was your system and you wanted dual boot capability of Win XP and raptors raid as your primary workhorses...what would you do or should I have done?.

Any good links...?

Not all that impressed with XPs handling of SATA or GB's driver install or manual on new drives/new OS... about as intuative as a Rat's maze!

Thanks in advance for any and all advice.

Dave
Hillsboro, Oh

 

No Takers?

Maybe I asked too much. Gave the history and intent so that it was known.

Once through that, its the base questions on setting up and booting from a Raid array on this Gigabyte board (SATA 3g) using the raptor 74s SATA 150s but board is SUPPOSED to be backward compatible...

Any help or advice?

Thanks

Dave

 

All I know about RAID is what I have read so I won't have any specific answers. It looks like the people here that use RAID have not come across your problem/s.

Maybe the best place to look for information on the setup would be at the RAID controller manufacturer's website (probably Promise or High-Point). They will also have FAQs on problems and maybe even a support forum.

You should not be able to "damage" the drives, but the RAID system could be a problem if it was not set up correctly.

If you have your data backed up and are not afraid to lose what is currently on the disks then now is the time to experiment a little and make sure that the RAID system is completely stable. You don't want to be shy about getting a good system to begin with, it's a lot better than having to reinstall a large system when a bug appears later.

When you think you have the system setup correct, try checking it with the WD utilities (or maybe the RAID controller utilities if WD cannot read through the RAID drivers), that should confirm the stability.

You may feel a little tentative, but now is the time to rid the system of any bugs.

Describe the "meltdown" in case someone can help avoid another one.

Matt