Installing Raid 0 on a Sony Vaio

Hello I am perplexed, honestly I'm not 100% RAID savy but here what I want to accomplish. I have a Sony Vaio Laptop, Model # VGN-AR830E. This latop came prequiped with two SATA hard drives, which I want to RAID together. In my attempts to install RAID I have formatted both drives wiping clean the partions and all. Then went into my Phoenix BIOS to find the most stripped down version of a BIOS I have ever since, my only configurable options in this BIOS are change time, set a password, or change the boot order. Is it safe for me to assume that this motherboard mobile intel PM956 chipset does not include a RAID Controller or I am missing something here?


Sony Vaio Laptop
Windows Vista Home Premium
Model # VGN-AR830E
Phoenix BIOS
Version # R2090JB

Hard Drives x2
Fujitsu
Model# MHY2200BH
Driver installed = Intel(R) ICH8M SATA AHCI Controller

DxDiag.txt
http://www.savefile.com/files/2078258

Intel Storage Manager Report
http://www.savefile.com/files/2078259


Thanks for any suggestions,
-Jon

I doubt a sony vaio laptop can do raid. For one the controller is a mobile version ICH8M, not ICH8R which is the raid controller version.

Thanks for the reply, I knew something was wrong when I couldn't find anything about RAID in the BIOS and I did try the ctrl + I with no luck.

Thanks for the conformation that my computer doesn't have a RAID controller.

Thanks for the info on using software to combine drives I'll definately try to remember that. But I was hoping for the speed increase with, I believe RAID 0 offers.

I do have another question, a possible alternative, can anyone tell me if there is another way to add a RAID controller externally to my laptop, like a PCIMIA card or something for a laptop. Then configure it to work with the internal hard drives?



Thanks again,

-Jon

Because I've always wanted to get a Sony 17", now 16 or 18" laptop, I am eager to find the answer to this. Everything I have googled using your model # has shown the laptop to have Raid 0 with 2x200GB 5400rpm drives.

Hi guys, thanks for all the replies.

I am sure my laptop does not support RAID, and I was under the impression that the ICH8M does not support RAID. I found a PDF fact sheet on ICH8 (I/O Controller Hub 8) on Intel.com and the only mention of RAID is with all desktop versions of ICH8 and ICH8M-E. Not ICH8M. So I am pretty sure that this version on my laptop does not have RAID.

As I mentioned before, on the laptop there is no indication of RAID within the BIOS. I can't even configure the HDs. The BIOS is extremely stripped down. My only BIOS configurable options are change the time, set a password, or change the boot order. And when I say that, I don't mean thats all I can select, I mean thats all that is available period.

I have tried ctrl + I and ctrl + h, during boot up. Did not work. I am pretty sure this laptop is not equipped. But if anyone can prove me wrong I'm all ears.

Thanks again for taking to the time to help out,

-Jon

I read somewhere a person was having trouble with this same thing, and somewhere under the boot choice, something to do with enabling network boot options, then he got the "press ctrl-i to enter RAID bios" option during boot.
Wish I could be more specific, but it seems you are not the only person who has had this problem before trying to locate the RAID controller settings on Sony laptops. Suffice to say, it apparently is not in the normal places one would look for it.