Some advice please for setting up a Raid 0

Sneaky Peaky

Sneaky Peaky

Sneaky Peaky

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Hi all - been some time since I played with Raid so am going to have a go again this weekend and could do with some advice.. :)

Mobo is an Asus P5KE Deluxe Wifi and am currently running it with a 250gb single sata drive. However I've picked up 2 750GB Samsung F1's and would like to run these in Raid 0 as the main boot drive and keep the 250gb for back up of essential data.

What I was planning to do is set up the raid 0 on the 2 'slave' sata connectors on the mobo, then use Acronis to copy over the disk image to the new Raid disks. Then swap the sata connectors over so that the Raid array becomes the boot drive and the 250gb becomes the slave..

Will this work ? Presume Windows 7 though will need the raid drivers installed in order to use the raid array ?

Or am I making this too complicated and there is an easier way !

Thanks in advance
Pete
 
It's probably a bit more complicated ;)

Your board has two HD controllers, an Intel and a JMicron ("Slave").

Before you image you need to make sure you have the drivers installed for RAID or your Windows install will crash when you try and boot from the restored image.

As the Intel controller is probably better than the JMicron controller I would move your current drive to the "slave" and make sure it is set to the same settings i.e. IDE or AHCI that it is now. Check it boots to Windows ok.

Go back to your BIOS and set the Intel controller to RAID and attach your two new drives and set them up as a RAID0. Boot back to Windows and it should have loaded the Intel RAID drivers (assuming Vista or 7 - if XP then you'll need to download and install them when asked).

Now you should be able to make the image, swap over the boot priority in your BIOS (might be an idea to disable/remove the 250gb drive so that drive letters don't get messed up) and restore your image.

Once done you should be able to move your 250gb drive back to the Intel controller as a single drive and disable the JMicron controller again.

HTH
 
Thanks for the response :)

I'm not 100% but I'm pretty sure that the JMicron raid controller is only for the eSata external connections on the back plate. According to the manual the 6 sata ports on the mobo are controlled by the Intel controller, 1/2/5/6 are red and for Master / Boot disk and 3/4 are Black and Slave / Data. I fell foul of this when I first set up the system and had the HD plugged into number 3 and wondered why it wouldn't boot straight away :doh:

So if I understand right could I install the Intel windows 7 raid drivers now on my single HD so that when I image it over to the new array it will boot correctly ?

Thanks again
Pete
 
No the JMicron will do both. Just plug your existing drive into one of those ports and boot from it with the Intel controller set to RAID. Windows 7 will then detect the RAID drivers for you.

The problem with keeping your existing drive on the Intel when set to RAID is that it won't boot - as it doesn't have the RAID drivers installed. There is a reg hack and manual install of drivers that you should be able to google if you prefer to do it that way.
 
Can you disconnect the cable from the mobo to the e-sata backplate and just connect a sata cable into the vacated port? This is how they've always worked on mine, but not too familiar with your mobo but I wouldn't have expected the e-sata connectors to be hardwired to your motherboard.
 
ChileanLlama said:
Can you disconnect the cable from the mobo to the e-sata backplate and just connect a sata cable into the vacated port? This is how they've always worked on mine, but not too familiar with your mobo but I wouldn't have expected the e-sata connectors to be hardwired to your motherboard.
Click to expand...

Ok - that's where I confused the situation I think, I should have said io plate instead of backplate. the Jmicron esata ports are hard wired to the IO plate as far as I can see unfortunately..

Makes things a bit more tricky I guess although I see you can get esata to sata cables :confused:

May have to resort to plan B and use file settings and transfer wizard and just do a fresh Windows 7 install and then copy over but was hoping to not have to reinstall all my apps etc :(
 
Oh sugar :( Never seen that before. Check your motherboard accessories - if it came with an e-sata IO/backplate then I'd have expected it to have come with the appropriate cable(s) to connect a SATA drive to it. Then if it's long enough just run it from the backplate back to your internal HD, or temporarily move your HD from the case.

This might be another option to frig it within Windows, and was just the first one I found on Google - there may be better instructions out there, and I must admit I've not tried it.

http://drnathan.teamhackaday.com/20...ntel-ich-raid-after-installing-windows-vista/
 
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