How do I get RAID to work?

manoz · 25 Oct 2006 at 20:46

I'm trying to get 2 HDDs into RAID on my Tyan S2915 mobo but the manual isn't very helpful when it comes to installing it. It only outlines that you have to make a driver diskette using the mobo driver CD and then install it when prompted to press f6.

I did that aswell as enabling RAID in the Bios but when it comes to selecting the HDD to install windows on it says "No harddrives are connected, power them on or connect them etc"

Anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Thanks

I'm using xp64 btw

rpstewart · 25 Oct 2006 at 21:54

As well as enabling RAID in the BIOS you'll have to actually create the RAID array before installing Windows. Normally this will be in either the main BIOS or usually a second BIOS which loads after the main one, you'll need to check the splash screen to get the right key combo to get into it.

Once you've created the array in there follow the steps you've been doing with the Windows install - F6 at the start and the floppy when asked.

manoz · 25 Oct 2006 at 22:50

I did that sorry, set it as striping and enabled boot for it, it appears as healthy. It's still not working

. The nvidia stripe array appears in the boot sequence in the BIOS(3rd priority).When I press enter to install windows it still says, connect HDDs. The mobo CD has lots of drivers for Promise, LSI, nvidia etc. I went to nvidia then it showed 2 options "nvidia CK8D4" and "nvidia MCP55", only CK8d4 shows xp64 drivers but the chipset is MCP55 which is showing 32bit xp, 32bit win 2003 and 64bit win 2003. It's a bit confusing.

EDIT: It went through with win 2003 64 drivers

but what the hell that's confusing!!!!!! I'll see if windows installs

On another note, I have hitachi drives and to enable sata2 I had to use feature tools through DOS, does anyone know if this will work with hitachis in RAID array, how would I enable sata 2 if not?

Grr it seems as though the win 2003 64 drivers didn't work, not surprised. I went onto my flatmates computer and explored the mobo cd and it turns out that the xp64 drivers are on there but the diskette maker didn't want to recognise it. I put the drivers on there manually and all is dandy so far in installing windows.

rpstewart · 26 Oct 2006 at 08:25

manoz said:
On another note, I have hitachi drives and to enable sata2 I had to use feature tools through DOS, does anyone know if this will work with hitachis in RAID array, how would I enable sata 2 if not?

I'm going to guess that it won't detect the drives in the RAID array, I've got a bunch of Hitachis, some RAID some not and the drive fitness tool can only see the non RAID ones. I would guess that the feature tool would be the same - which is a real pain because my RAID drives are still set at SATA-I

manoz · 26 Oct 2006 at 17:09

rpstewart said:
I'm going to guess that it won't detect the drives in the RAID array, I've got a bunch of Hitachis, some RAID some not and the drive fitness tool can only see the non RAID ones. I would guess that the feature tool would be the same - which is a real pain because my RAID drives are still set at SATA-I

Well I tried it out and it seems that Feature Tools is recognising the HDDs but I don't know if this is to do with the fact that I installed win64 on a non RAID array to see the performance difference and I set it to sata 2 then. When I installed it on the RAID array I went back to feature tools and it shows them up in feature tools as seperate drives and they are set to sata2