Windows Vista Raid 0 , Vista won't stripe across disks

R

RTK

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Jun 30, 2008
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I am trying to do a simple setup as hardware Raid 0 to get the best performance out of my existing system but continue running into problems.

Components
K9A2 Platinum/ Bios 1.4
Vista Ultimate 64
Apevia case with gauges, 1- 120mm and 3-80mm fans
1- WD 10k raptor
2-15k Fujitsu MAX3147RC
2-2GB GSkill pc8500 1066mhz
AMD Phenom 9600BE
ATI FireGL 5600
1- DVD/CD with litescribe
1- floppy drive
1- multi card reader
OCZ 700watt ps


I have been setup Promise Raid 0 on the K9A2 Platinum and I am not able to get Vista to stripe across the raid disks like it is supposed to.

One setup was using the Fujitsu drives on the Promise 5 & 6. Both disk were setup on LD1, Raid 0 stripe. Under Disk Management this shows up as one disk(C Drive), but the OS or any other info only goes on one disk and does not stripe across both disks because the second disk is only an extension of the first. Anything installed on the C Drive goes to the first disk and nothing will go on the second disk(at least until the first disk is full). Because both disk are the C Drive(one extending or spanning to the other) software striping is not an option.

The second setup using the Fujitsu drives on the Promise 5 & 6. This time I set the disks up on LD1 and LD2 Raid 0 stripe. During the install, Vista only lets you select one of the drives to install the OS on. Under Disk Management this shows up as 2 different disk, but Vista is not striped across both disk. Why isn't Vista striped across both harddrives? You can however use any unallocated space on these drives to do a software stripe with Vista Ultimate. This seems to only be good for storage.

The last time I checked hardware Raid 0 meant striping info across the disks for faster performance. This system is slow for the components it has. It all points to a crappy motherboard.
 
As I'm sure your aware your RAID configuration must first be set up via the bios of your mobo. I run a RAID 0 system and have never found any problems setting it up. If vista (or any os for that matter) is only loading to one disk then for some reason the RAID 0 set up has not been achieved. Check your mobo manual on how to set up the RAID utility or the mobo's website. On my board for example I have to press F10 when booting to reach the disk management section in the bios, maybe yours has something similar? Vista is fully compliant with RAID systems and unlike XP you don't have keep pressing F6 when first running the os install. Just make sure your boot order is correct (HDD first) and then when you arrive at the install screen you can follow the prompts to install any drivers needed for the RAID (although as I said above you can get away without doing this).
Whatever you do you must set up that RAID utility first as going into disk management later will not get you what you want.
Post back if you need more help.
 
Thanks for the reply. Both setups listed above were setup prior to installing Vista. They were setup using the Promise Fastrack 42819 which is an onboard controller. In the bios, the boot order for the first setup lists it as one drive. the second setup is listed as two seperate drives.

I also tried installing Vista to the WD HDD first during the second setup so that I could stripe the 2 Fujitsu's under Disk Management. Then I was going to do a re-install and put Vista on the striped Fujitsu's. Vista would not allow this during the install because both Fujitsu's were unallocated. I had to install on one or the other.
 
I downloaded the manual for your mobo and for RAID it says this:

Creating and deleting RAID set and performing other RAID setting up operations are
done in the RAID BIOS. During bootup, a screen similar to the one below will appear​
for about few seconds. Press <Ctrl-F> to enter FastBuild utility.

So like me, you must press this key during booting. This will get you into the RAID set up utility where you can create the array for either striping or mirror RAID. I really don't think you can do it any other way and once the RAID has been set up then you can go about installing vista..
You can dowload the manual yourself from here:
Link Removed - Invalid URL
 
Both of the setups I have listed were done using the FastBuild Utility. They both listed as functional in the FastBuil Utility. I read the manual before setting those up.

I tried quite a few different ways of setting up the Raid 0 array and different ways of installing Vista on those arrays. None of them would stripe across the info across the disks or allow a selection of both disk during the install.
 
Hmmm......weird. Have you tried taking the Rapter out and just using the Fujitsu's?
I'd try that in case you haven't as i seem to remember something similar happening once to me. I set up the RAID and also had a drive for a backup but for some reason it would keep installing on the single drive... Either that or something is kaput?
 
Yes, I tried that also. I have tried about 25 times and different ways. I finally got a return call after 2-3 weeks from an MSI tech. He says to RMA the MB back because the Raid controller doesn't seem to be working (as in setup on LD1 above). He also thinks this could be the reason the MB keeps locking up with 8gb. of ram.
 
Yup thats what I was thinking as you were doing everything correctly.. Hopefully your replacement should arrive quickly (fingers crossed)
 
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