Windows Vista RAID question

[Telgroc]

I have three hard drives in my computer, a 500GB that has my Vista Ultimate Edition installed on it, and then two hard drives of 250GB each. I want to raid the 250GB drives without reformatting the computer, any way to do that? I do not have a CD of drivers or anything like that. The drives used to be raided, but after upgrading to Vista among numerous virus problems on XP, the RAID was erased. Thanks for the help. Oh, and RAID 0 is preferred.

 

[kemical]

How does your system create array's? On my system I can create RAID array's (mirrored or striped) in a bios utility (I press F9 on boot). If you could do that it would just be a question of boot orders as the os could remain on the 500GB. Once you reboot back into vista your RAID array should be seen and you can use computer management to create partitions ect..

 

[Telgroc]

How does your system create array's? On my system I can create RAID array's (mirrored or striped) in a bios utility (I press F9 on boot). If you could do that it would just be a question of boot orders as the os could remain on the 500GB. Once you reboot back into vista your RAID array should be seen and you can use computer management to create partitions ect..

Ok, I gave that a shot but I was prompted for a disc of drivers which I do not have, is there somewhere I can get the drivers or a way to get around this?

 

[kemical]

Do you know the manufacturer of the RAID device? Or the make of your mobo?

If you have an nforce board then this will help you out, especially the PDF listed on the right:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/feature_raid.html

 

[Telgroc]

Do you know the manufacturer of the RAID device? Or the make of your mobo?

If you have an nforce board then this will help you out, especially the PDF listed on the right:
NVIDIA® MediaShield™ Storage

sorry, i'm good with computers except when it comes to hardware. is there an easy way to find out my mobo brand without opening up the case? i'm looking into the RAID device manufacturer and will update the post when i find it

 

[kemical]

Ok, I'm pretty sure this is your board/system:
Dell XPS 600 – SLI Gaming PC - TrustedReviews

If it is then your in luck as the link I gave above is for you. It also has links for the drivers that you need although as long as you put on the chipset drivers they should be included.
Please read the PDF which is provided on that page as it will tell you how to create a 'non bootable array'.

Just to save you time, here's a link for your drivers:
http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/nforce_winvista32_15.01_uk.html

This is for the UK version . As I'm unsure where Gotham city actually is you may need to change versions to whichever suits your location.

 

[Telgroc]

yup, that's it, thanks a ton dude i've been trying to figure this out for months

 

[kemical]

Great! Well good luck with the array set-up. I'll check back later in case you got any problems..

 

[Telgroc]

Great! Well good luck with the array set-up. I'll check back later in case you got any problems..

yeah, unfortunately i've hit a snag. I successfully downloaded the MediaShield, got that installed and restored the RAID, but now the computer won't boot up. It keeps saying that it can't find an OS to boot from, and even when I specify my non-RAID drive where the OS installation is, it gives me back the error and goes into endless reboot cycles. My file backup is a week old and I've made a lot of changes in the last week, so I was thinking that I install the OS onto the RAID drive and then access the other drive, backup the files, and then go from there? Or is there a way to fix this without wiping my primary drive?

 

[kemical]

Did you change the boot order? I know you say you 'specified' your non-RAID drive but how exactly did you do that?

If that won't work. Then as you say install the os onto the RAID and then you can access the other drive to get whatever files you need from it. Once you've done that, format the spare drive and use it as a back up.

 

[Telgroc]

I went into system setup by pressing F2 during boot up and put the drive with the OS (Drive C I'll call it for simplicity) as the first place for the computer to look to boot from. When that failed, I booted up pressing F12 until I got the various boot options. I then chose Drive C and it still couldn't boot from the drive. So I will install on my RAID drive and copy things off of Drive C.

 

[kemical]

Hmm... did you read the pdf guide found here:
NVIDIA® MediaShield™ Storage
It has a section on creating non bootable arrays.

 

[Telgroc]

in the line-up of potentially bootable devices in the BIOS, i places Drive C at the top of the list, with CD-ROM after that and then my RAID drive. I checked off all three to be searchable for booting, but due to the order Drive C would be looked at first. When that failed, I unchecked my RAID drive from the lineup so that the computer could only look in Drive C for the OS but that still didn't work. I just completed the install of the OS onto the RAID drive and will start copying files over shortly. Thanks for the help

EDIT: I'm hitting some permission problems accessing Drive C now that I'm running Vista off of the RAID drive. Any way to get around this?
2nd EDIT: Yeah, I read through that pdf, unfortunately (and for whatever reason) my nVidia control panel "broke" when installing MediaShield and I couldn't open it. So my only option was what I ended up doing

 

[kemical]

Ok, well at least your up and running with the RAID (which will be better and faster at running the os).
If your having problems accessing your old drive try using the 'easy transfer' utility found in the start menu under system tools...

I'm not sure why it wouldn't find your old drive as the default for booting.. I'll do some research and see if I can at least find out why..