Moving a RAID setup to a different mobo possible?

[booyaah]

I have two older IDE/ATA Western Digital HDDs in a JBOD (yes I know) configuration. My older mobo did not have a onboard RAID chip so I bought a PCI raid card for it. I am having to replace the mobo and processor due to failure and I wanted to know if the new mobo (that has onboard raid) will recognize the JBOD array already setup on the drives.

Basically I have my Windows Boot, personal data, and multimedia on these drives. I really do not want to have to continue to use the pci raid card anymore as it boots really slow. I have not even hooked this card and the drives up to the new system, so I do not even know if it will work. Is it possible to somehow save and flash the raid settings from the card to the new mobo? Is a Foxconn with Phoenix BIOS. Thanks in advance.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

No, moving the drives to the new motherboard's on-board RAID will probably not work. Most RAID cards set up the RAID structures on the disk in their own proprietary format that other controllers can't read.

How large is the JBOD volume? If you have another hard disk that can hold it, you can follow the procedure at the top of the forum called "Switching Storage Controllers without Reinstalling Windows".

 

[booyaah]

its a 420gb JBOD volume. It is a 100gb 120gb and 200gb put together. I think I still have 250 gb or so left on the volume. I actually bought 2 new SATA HDDs, they are each 160gb a piece, so I will have 320gb in my new comp. I just wanted to move all the stuff from my old drives onto the new ones.

 

[booyaah]

No, moving the drives to the new motherboard's on-board RAID will probably not work. Most RAID cards set up the RAID structures on the disk in their own proprietary format that other controllers can't read.

How large is the JBOD volume? If you have another hard disk that can hold it, you can follow the procedure at the top of the forum called "Switching Storage Controllers without Reinstalling Windows".

I actually just looked at that sticky you said, I had looked at it before but I guess I was tired and didnt understand it at first So I am thinking I can get the old partition from the old hdds using the pci raid controller onto a new raid partition on the new hdds with the new mobo raid controller I will have by doing the following:
1) install the pci raid card and hook up the old hard drives
2) Set that as the primary boot, boot up to that windows partition, then install the new raid controller for my mobo onto it, and then shutdown.
3) Hookup the new drives to the mobo raid controller, restart, go into the mobo RAID BIOS, and set up a new raid array (maybe RAID-0 instead).
4) Boot to the Partition Magic disk utility from the floppy, then use it to copy the partition on the old drives to the new drives.
5) Restart, and switch the boot order to the new drives and be able to boot into Windows
6) Wipe the old drives and just use them for general multimedia storage, and I guess I could plug them from the pci raid card into the mobo IDE instead and get rid of the pci card.

Do you think this would work??

 

[pscowboy]

Your old primary won't boot to the new mobo. Too radical a hardware change. You would have to do something inside the old rig. Transfer stuff on the old drives, that you need to have, to a single storage drive - which can then be transferred to the new system.

On the new rig, you'll have to clean install after your new array is setup.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

1) install the pci raid card and hook up the old hard drives
2) Set that as the primary boot, boot up to that windows partition, then install the new raid controller for my mobo onto it, and then shutdown.
3) Hookup the new drives to the mobo raid controller, restart, go into the mobo RAID BIOS, and set up a new raid array (maybe RAID-0 instead).
4) Boot to the Partition Magic disk utility from the floppy, then use it to copy the partition on the old drives to the new drives.
5) Restart, and switch the boot order to the new drives and be able to boot into Windows
6) Wipe the old drives and just use them for general multimedia storage, and I guess I could plug them from the pci raid card into the mobo IDE instead and get rid of the pci card.

Do you think this would work??

It may work. Like pscowboy said, there is a lot of hardware change associated with the new motherboard. However, I think it will boot, since initially you'll be using the PCI RAID card that it's currently booting from.

If it initially boots up and lets you get into Windows, you should be able to go from there and make all the necesary changes. Once it boots up on the new motherboard with the old PCI RAID card and drivers, I would go ahead and perform your steps above, copying your installation to the new drives and new motherboard controller before you do any other driver installations. This way, you have a copy of your partition on the new drives as early as possible in the procedure. That way if anything goes wrong later, you can go back to your old system, old PCI RAID card, and the only thing done to the original installation is that the new motherboard RAID driver was installed.

Once you're up and running on the new drives on the motherboard RAID controller, then you can install drivers for the new video card, sound card, network, chipset drivers, etc. If you had old drivers that offer an uninstall (NVidia & ATI video drivers typically offer an uninstall in Add/Remove Programs, a lot of sound cards do as well), then uninstall them before trying to install the drivers for the new hardware.

I would also then clean up device manager by doing the following:

1. Open a command prompt on the system, and type:

devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1

and hit enter. Close the command prompt.

2. Open device manager. Go to the View menu, select "Display Hidden Devices".

3. Now, all devices that this installation of Windows has ever seen will be shown. Go through each category, find any greyed-out device that is no longer installed in the computer, right-click it, and select "Uninstall".

One exception: Do not remove any device under the "Non-Plug and Play Drivers". Leave that category alone.

After that, your system will be cleanly running on the new motherboard.

 

[booyaah]

I would also then clean up device manager by doing the following:

1. Open a command prompt on the system, and type:

devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1

and hit enter. Close the command prompt.

2. Open device manager. Go to the View menu, select "Display Hidden Devices".

3. Now, all devices that this installation of Windows has ever seen will be shown. Go through each category, find any greyed-out device that is no longer installed in the computer, right-click it, and select "Uninstall".

One exception: Do not remove any device under the "Non-Plug and Play Drivers". Leave that category alone.

After that, your system will be cleanly running on the new motherboard.

devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1

This doesnt work for me. I did manage to get the old pci raid to boot the old harddrives. I just want to clean up the devices before I copy the partition to my new SATA HDDs

 

[SomeJoe7777]

Sorry, I did that from memory instead of looking up the actual procedure. I missed a few things.

1. Open a command prompt on the system. Type:

set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1

2. Type the following in that same command prompt window:

start devmgmt.msc

3. Device manager will open. Go to the View menu, select "Display Hidden Devices".

Now you should see all the greyed-out devices.

4. Now, all devices that this installation of Windows has ever seen will be shown. Go through each category, find any greyed-out device that is no longer installed in the computer, right-click it, and select "Uninstall".

One exception: Do not remove any device under the "Non-Plug and Play Drivers". Leave that category alone.

This procedure comes from Microsoft KB Article 315539.

 

[valis]

that's the advantage of using an add on card. you're not tied down by any particular motherboard, just move the card and be done with it.

valis

 

[booyaah]

that's the advantage of using an add on card. you're not tied down by any particular motherboard, just move the card and be done with it.

valis

Yes it is. I will keep this card around if I ever want to upgrade to a new system. I'll just have to add the pci raid drivers to the new sata hard-drives. The main disadvantage to a addon RAID card: you will not be posting into windows within 20 seconds. With onboard or nvRaid chipset, it detects the raid array in 2-3 seconds. It probably takes every bit of 15-20 seconds using the pci card. Plus the bus is a ton slower than SATA.