Got RAID? could use some help

[jw214]

i tried setting up a RAID 1 last night. i got all the way through windows install properly.RAID drivers were installed. when it booted into windows i tried loading nvraidman which is a nvidia raid tool, i guess. well that wouldn't open so i went to "disk management" under control panel bc my guide said i had to format the other HD. it showed both drives but one was unallocated so i formatted.i did a full format as a "primary" drive. i wasn't sure whether to make it "primary" or "extended". so now i have two primary drives. the one shows about 5gb of used space and the other about 82mb but if you try to access the drive it shows nothing. i cant get anything to do with raid to popup in nvraidman so im wondering if i messed up or if this sounds normal.

 

[SirKenin]

You haven't configured the RAID array properly. Go into the configuration tool right after your BIOS screen on power up.

 

[jw214]

i did define the array in the controller menu before installing windows. do i need to go back in after windows install? have i already messed up to where i will need to start over? or did i set it up right?

 

[SirKenin]

It doesn't sound like you defined it correctly. Go back and take a second look.

 

[Geoff]

If you configured it in the BIOS, then theres no need to be messing with a Windows based RAID utility.

 

[jw214]

that makes sense do i still have to format the second hard drive? do i do that in "disk management" under control panel? as a primary or extended?

after installing windows numerous times i gave up and installed to a single 500gb hard drive. if i do it again im going with a raid 0. im not sure if its even worth it for me. does read/write time actually improve that much? i was under the impression it would give me better disk performance overall. am i mistaken? is raid more of an office type setup or will it help all around(desktop,games,virus scans,update downloads,opening apps etc) ?
setting up a raid was the whole reason i bought a second 500gb hard drive

 

[Geoff]

There should only be one disk thats in disk manager, if you have two then RAID isn't configured properly.

As for performance, it does decrease loading times of large applications, and also increases read/write speeds of large files, but don't expect a huge improvement.

 

[SirKenin]

You don't configure RAID in the BIOS. You configure it in the RAID utility that is accessed after the post screen disappears.

And yeah, if two drives show up in Windows, you didn't configure it right.

 

[jw214]

i enabled the raid controller as well as my sata ports in my bios. then, entered the raid utility where i did everything i was told to and i did see a post after exiting that i had a healthy array. so, i started installing windows(hit f6 to make sure i got to install raid drivers) installed once,reboot when prompted,installed drivers again and continued to install windows. when i was inside windows a few minutes later i went to "my computer" and there was only 1 drive. then when i went to "disk management" there were two-one was system,the other unallocated. from there i formatted the unallocated drive which made a second inaccessable hd popup in "my computer". i think the mistake has something to do with this...ive also tried installing the nvidia drivers & rebooting once inside windows before formatting with no luck... i have taken my time and exhausted alot of possibilities and came to the conclusion that im still doing something wrong. does anyone have their raid setup with nvidia mediashield? thats my controller.i could get the version # if it would help. thanks for trying to help me though,guys.

this just crossed my mind. my hdd's are brand new and my mobo is older so could it be firmware or something like that? the hdd's are 7200.11's with the perpendicular recording.

 

[Geoff]

You don't configure RAID in the BIOS. You configure it in the RAID utility that is accessed after the post screen disappears.

And yeah, if two drives show up in Windows, you didn't configure it right.

You would need to change the SATA mode from IDE/AHCI to RAID, which is configured in the BIOS

But you are right for the most part, the RAID utility itself is not actually part of the BIOS.