installing raid 0 on windows 7

[siggyphoo]

Hi all, I have a problem, I am trying to put 2 500 gig sata hdds on my pc. My pc already has a maxtor 160 gig hdd which is IDE/ATA ( i think ). I am running windows 7 ultimate x64 on a 2003 tiny pc, 2 gig of ram, 64 3400 processor.

Thanks

[siggyphoo]

Ps. I have found 2 sata connections at bottom right of my motherboard and have connected to these, i can hear both drives spinning but im in windows and it cant see them.

[Dalo Harkin]

If you are planning on running RAID through the MOBO then its hardware RAID which is good, but needs setting up through the BIOS normally.

 

If you are trying to see the drives from within windows you need to activate them first from control panel>admin settings>computer management>disk managament (left hand side) the drives should be visible there and then you need to set them to dynamic or active

[siggyphoo]

Hi, thanks for the reply, the problem is , they dont show up there. I can hear the drives spinning but thats it.

[siggyphoo]

Ok, maybe I never put enough information. My pc currently has a 160 gig IDE drive inside. Im trying toi add 2 500 gig sata hdds. I have found the only 2 sata connections on my mobo in bottom right hand corner. I can hear the disks firing up but pc does not recognise them. I went into bios and enabled the SATA controller, it doesnt show drives there either. When the controller is enables it shows a screen on bootup that says something like raid setup and then says no devices found. When i log in to windows , under disk management there is nothing just C and D on 160 gig ide drive. Please can u help me.

Thanks siggy.

[seedy21]

does the RAID card support the HDD that you are trying to add on? Some hardware may not support the device or the size of them? have a look in your user manual

 

 

Seedy21

[Dalo Harkin]

Seedy, I doubt its that older MOBOs would still recognise up to a 1TB RAID.

 

So just to be clear, you have enabled the SATA controller in the BIOS and then SAVE & EXIT BIOS.

an additional screen comes up after the post asking you to press F4 to configure RAID or along those lines. If the drives are not detected at this point then either there is a problem with the RAID controller or the disks themselves.

Are the disks new and a identical?

have you rechecked that the power and data cables are secure at both ends, SATA 2 have latch cables that 'clip' and lock into place whereas SATA 1 dont.

 

If the BIOS cannot see the drives then windows wont either.

[siggyphoo]

hi thanks, I purchased the 2 drives from amazon, they are western digital caviar blue 500gig OEM. I just connected them straight out of box

Also I cant see a raid card ( keeping in mind I have no idea what a raid card looks like lol ) all my slots under my graphics card is empty. My mother board is a MS - 6741 ver 1. I have a AMD 64 3400+ processer and sapphire HD 3850 graphics card installed. In the 1st IDE slot I have the maxtor 160 gig hdd that has my windows on it. In the second IDE slot I have a IDE to SATA converter that has a new samsung SATA RW - Drive installed which works fine. Then I put the 2 SATA hdds into the only 2 onboard sata connections ( lower right hand side of board and coloured orange ) and started up. Yes I have all power and data cables fully connected. I hope this helps a bit .

Thanks Siggy

[Dalo Harkin]

Have you been into the BIOS? as you may have to configure the controller from there, on some MOBOs you have to do it all from within the BIOS and on some others you get an additional screen after it POSTs.

[siggyphoo]

How to get rid of old HDD

 

Hi , ok first off thanks to everybody that replyed to my last post. I just purchased a 4 port PCI adapterand connected it to my MOBO, then i connected my 2 new 500 gog sata drives and when I ran windows 7 it recognised the controller and installed drivers. I then went to disk management and I can now see my new drives as disk 1 and disk 2. So, my operating system is running on my 160 gig maxter IDE drive and what I want to do is run the 2 500 gig hdds in raid 0 but get rid of the 160 gig drive, a bit of a catch 22 cus the controller runs in windows and when i take out the 160 gig hdd the other 2 drives are not recognised wen i power up. So can i somehow move my operating system over to my 500 gig drives without turnin off pc then get rid of the 160 gig drive, lol my heads battered with it all but i really want to run raid 0 in windows 7 but with just those 2 disks. any help would be much appreciated. Thanks Siggy

[Dalo Harkin]

In short, NO

 

you need to do a complete reinstall of the OS.

Not all add in SATA cards are bootable, when the PC starts and you get the POST screen (the black one with the system info on) there is normally a second screen which lists the add in SATA controller and allows you to enter its own firmware (a bit like a BIOS) from there you can configure the drives for RAID.

 

You have SATA ports on your MOBO so use those initially just do the below*

 

*If there are any jumpers on your new SATA HDDs to set them to 1.5GB per second and not 3.0GB per second you need to do that as thats an old MOBO and does not support SATA 2

 

If you need drivers go here MSI UK - Computers, Laptops, Notebooks, Desktops, Mainboards, Graphics and more

[siggyphoo]

Thanks !!