help with setting up RAID

[DrSatan316]

I have an Asus p4c800e deluxe
and 2 Maxtor 300GB SATA drives I want to setup as raid 0.
what connecters do I use in the board? there's 2 SATA connecters, and 2 RAID connecters.

Also, do I need to install xp fresh after I setup the Raid? or is there someway I can just setup the raid from an existing set of partitions--I had one of the drives before with xp and all my music and stuff on it, then I bought the other one just a few days ago.

thanks for any help, I've never done this before

 

[4Ryan6]

Asuming you're talking 2 SATA RAID connectors, then those will be the ones dedicated to a RAID configuration, RAID 0 is a stripped setup which means if you loose one HDD you loose everything.

Obviously you've already accepted that as being a possibility so to continue setting up would require enabling the SATA RAID connectors in the CMOS setup, then entering the RAID configuration setup screen by whatever means your M/B Manual tells you to, or just start the boot process and look for references as what to press to enter the RAID setup, all M/Bs have different buttons to press during boot to enter the setup.

Once in the RAID setup choose a Striped RAID array, use the default setup if you want to be able to defrag your array, using larger stripes will knock out WinXP or any other defrag program from being able to defrag your HDD.

Once the RAID array has been created exit the RAID setup.

You will have to now install WinXP from scratch, make sure you've already created your SATA RAID driver disk a 3 1/2" Floppy that will be required to supply on WinXPs bootup load by pressing F6 when prompted to do so when XP first starts to load, loading the disk you created from your M/B CD installation disk into the Floppy drive and hopefully for you, you have a Floppy drive.

If you don't load the drivers at the F6 prompt when Windows gets to the HDD recognition screens it will not be able to see the SATA HDDs.

Note: 1 The installation will not ask for the SATA drivers immediately after you press F6 but further into the setup, but if you fail to press F6 at the prompt it will not ask for the drivers later on, resulting in starting the installation over.

Note: 2 Set your boot sequence to;
1st boot = CDROM
2nd boot = HDD 0

Note: 3 You don't have to worry about setting jumpers on SATA HDDs, they're already masters.

Thats pretty much it, any problems PM Me! Ryan