About to RAID - What can I expect?

[RDThomas]

Just bought a new rig through NewEgg and spent the past day or so getting it to be stable so now ready to do my first attempt at RAID. Wondering the process and what to expect to my current setup. Here's what I've got:
Asus P4C 800E Deluxe Mobo
2 - WD 740GD Raptors connected to the Intel ICH5R SATA connectors
1 - WD1600GD connected to the onboard Promise SATA connector

I have installed Win XP Pro on one of the raptors with two partitions C: for the OS and apps at 28G and D: at 41G (nothing installed)

The other raptor is E: and has one partition and nothing on the drive.

The 160G is set as a single partition and is for data storage with about 40G of data transferrred over from my other PC.

I want to put the two Raptors into a RAID 0 array with two partitions (the current C: dirve setup) One for the OS and apps and the other for digital imaging work in process. The 160 G will be for completted images and data storage.

What is the process to RAID and will I have to start all over installing XP or will I be able to put the other Raptor into the RAID array and it will set up the partitions?

Thanks

 

[Ice Czar]

Originally posted by RDThomas
will I have to start all over installing XP

for RAID0 (which Id assume you want) yes
first you connect to the RAID ports
build the array, and then inatall the OS
when prompted if you want to install additional SCSI drivers
press F6 and install the RAID driver

 

[RDThomas]

Thanks, Wish I had signed up for this forum before I installed XP and got the system up and running. But I debugged the MOBO Bios settings to get it to finally run stable now I'll just Configure RAID (0) in Bios, install the Intel RAID driver by the F6 method during start of XP intstallation and start over with XP.

Thanks and you have a great forum