Bios flash, what will happen to raid?

snowdog · 2 Mar 2007 at 14:15

Hello,

I have an Asus p5ld2 with a 500 gig 7200.10 raid array on it, what will happen if i flash the bios from the ages old 603 version to 1206 or something.

Need a flash to support a pentium d 925 (dont tell me to go core 2 duo, the pentium d is 3 times as cheap as a new 4300 due to friend prices, with proper cooling it'll do 4 ghz and it will be as fast as a stock c2d e6300, plus i dont have the money for a c2d board as my rev 1.0 doesnt support core 2 duo, need a rev 2.01 for it. )

The Asgard · 2 Mar 2007 at 14:42

Is it mirror or stripe?

Stripe is usually the only issue and only really becomes a problem if you change the raid controller hardware. Never had any issues with raid when performing a bios update. Look at the readme's this sort of thing would be identified in the unlikely event

snowdog · 2 Mar 2007 at 14:44

The Asgard said:
Is it mirror or stripe?

Stripe is usually the only issue and only really becomes a problem if you change the raid controller hardware. Never had any issues with raid when performing a bios update. Look at the readme's this sort of thing would be identified in the unlikely event

Stripe yes, raid 0, so flashing the bios wont overwrite the raid bios data and keep the array active?

The Asgard · 2 Mar 2007 at 15:04

snowdog said:
Stripe yes, raid 0, so flashing the bios wont overwrite the raid bios data and keep the array active?

Never had any issues. Like I said above read the Bios rev info. Possibly worth noting any parameters setup in the Raid Bios screen and checking before launching into windows.

snowdog · 2 Mar 2007 at 15:11

The Asgard said:
Never had any issues. Like I said above read the Bios rev info. Possibly worth noting any parameters setup in the Raid Bios screen and checking before launching into windows.

Thing is, a bios flash will reset to defaults in main bios, and in default mode the raid controller is in ide mode, not in raid mode, hence my worries...

Will read bios info now on asus site...

Buffalo2102 · 3 Mar 2007 at 09:37

It should be fine. I flashed my BIOS in the past and it did indeed reset the settings to IDE. All I did was change it back to RAID and the array appeared as healthy and booted fine.

However, that is just my experience and I wouldn't advise doing it without first doing a backup of anything that you don't want to lose.

snowdog · 3 Mar 2007 at 14:17

Buffalo2102 said:
It should be fine. I flashed my BIOS in the past and it did indeed reset the settings to IDE. All I did was change it back to RAID and the array appeared as healthy and booted fine.

However, that is just my experience and I wouldn't advise doing it without first doing a backup of anything that you don't want to lose.

Problem is i dont have any hdd's to backup (clone) 500 gb of installed games on. (the raid array has ALL my instealled games on it).

Has anyone got experience with this on asus boards when having a raid on a ich7r what happens with a flash??

Johnny Girth · 3 Mar 2007 at 14:57

Flash on my Asus P5N-E SLI was absolutely fine, completely up and running again afterwards. I did have to clear the cmos though but that was a problem with that particular BIOS.

However, I'm now more concerned about the stupid board dying and having to be replaced...

Buffalo2102 · 3 Mar 2007 at 18:05

snowdog said:
Problem is i dont have any hdd's to backup (clone) 500 gb of installed games on. (the raid array has ALL my instealled games on it).

Has anyone got experience with this on asus boards when having a raid on a ich7r what happens with a flash??

With things like this it doesn't really matter about other people's experience - if you can't afford to lose the data, don't do it!

snowdog · 3 Mar 2007 at 21:27

Buffalo2102 said:
With things like this it doesn't really matter about other people's experience - if you can't afford to lose the data, don't do it!

I must, otherwise it wont boot with my new cpu... :mad:

Buffalo2102 · 3 Mar 2007 at 23:08

In that case, spend some more on an external backup drive (a good investment for the future anyway), or just take the risk.

snowdog · 4 Mar 2007 at 09:39

Buffalo2102 said:
In that case, spend some more on an external backup drive (a good investment for the future anyway), or just take the risk.

Going to test it on a similair mobo ( on a p5pl2, i have a p5ld2) with 2x80 gb's seagates, if it fails there ill leave it till i can borrow enough hdd's from dad to backup junk on, if it wont kill The array on the other mobo ill just flash mine...

As a 500 gb drive is somethign i can't afford, also backup is a bunch is **** imo, never had a hdd's dieing in last 10 years while owned over 20 and on avrg they're on 40% of their life... To say in short, never backed stuff, up, and never had to...

jbloggs · 4 Mar 2007 at 18:32

snowdog said:
Problem is i dont have any hdd's to backup (clone) 500 gb of installed games on. (the raid array has ALL my instealled games on it).

Has anyone got experience with this on asus boards when having a raid on a ich7r what happens with a flash??

I have flashed my BIOS on a number occassions, after updating it, all the BIOS settings will be at defaults; as already said, all you do reset them to what you want, including resetting HDD to RAID in the IDE Configuration section.

I would use a Floppy to flash in DOS or the Asus Ez Flash utility, to update you BIOS.

The Asgard · 4 Mar 2007 at 18:43

snowdog said:
Going to test it on a similair mobo ( on a p5pl2, i have a p5ld2) with 2x80 gb's seagates, if it fails there ill leave it till i can borrow enough hdd's from dad to backup junk on, if it wont kill The array on the other mobo ill just flash mine......

Can't always guarantee that will work the same but your thinking is sound. You could try doing it on yours if you have a couple of old drives. I think you won't have any issues but saying that you should always have a backup of any important data such as Photo's etc......

snowdog · 4 Mar 2007 at 20:15

jbloggs said:
I have flashed my BIOS on a number occassions, after updating it, all the BIOS settings will be at defaults; as already said, all you do reset them to what you want, including resetting HDD to RAID in the IDE Configuration section.

I would use a Floppy to flash in DOS or the Asus Ez Flash utility, to update you BIOS.

Going to either use windows flash or bios flash with cd, i dont have a floppy...

jbloggs · 4 Mar 2007 at 22:57

snowdog:

You can use Asus Ez Flash utility with a USB Flash drive (this is how I have updated the BIOS on my motherboard).

snowdog · 7 Mar 2007 at 19:48

Decided to take a risk without testing on other mobo (was too lazy) and used asus update tool to flash in windows, and: Verivication failed, i reboot to find my p5ld2 bios-less, this happened because i was usign an old version of update tool from my asus p4c800 deluxe mainboard.

Only 2 things i got @ screen were VGA bios and a checkign for floppy followed by a checking for cd-rom message, both repeating itself...
Burned latest bios on cd, put into dvdrw and it flashed it fine, at latest 1702 (from jan 2007) bios now wich supports all cpu's, unlike my ages old 0603 from 2005.

Raid array still there after resetting the controller to raid mode (was defaulted into sata/ide mode)...

oli collett · 7 Mar 2007 at 23:02

quick question, if i move my RAID array from one motherboard to another (ASUS->ASUS) will it no longer be any good and will it mean reformatting?

Buffalo2102 · 8 Mar 2007 at 08:31

oli collett said:
quick question, if i move my RAID array from one motherboard to another (ASUS->ASUS) will it no longer be any good and will it mean reformatting?

If both boards use the same RAID controller you might get away with it. However, there are no guarantees when doing things like that.

oli collett · 8 Mar 2007 at 10:14

Buffalo2102 said:
If both boards use the same RAID controller you might get away with it. However, there are no guarantees when doing things like that.

oh great. I've got about 100gig of music i need to backup, I was going to buy a pair of 500gig WD drives for my new build, but my current board only has 2 SATA sockets to connect to, so I need to figure out how to get the data over to one drive, then reformat the original array, move it back, reformat the new array, then shift everything around again!