Search
Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in

Using onboard raid without reinstalling windows

Last response: in Storage
Share

Let me start by saying I read the raid faq sticky, and the changing raid controller faq sticky, and I don't believe either help me with my situation.

My system previously had a 640GB HDD with windows 7 and a 1TB HDD connected to my motherboard controller, using the ICH10R chipset (p6t). In BIOS Storage Configuration I had it set to SATA Configuration: Enhanced and Configure SATA as: IDE (the defaults). I installed a second 1TB HDD, and changed the Configure SATA as to RAID. I used the motherboards RAID utility to make the 2 1TB HDDs into a RAID 1 and left the 640GB all by itself. I reset the boot order to put the 640GB at top, it starts to boot windows, gets a little bit in, and crash's and restarts. On restart, the repair utility says it can't do anything. Well, I've since gone back to the default settings just so I can boot windows normally (no raid). I think the sticky doesn't apply to me because I'm still using the same controller, and at step 8 my situation would be different from the guide.

My question is can I go from no raid to raid using the same controller without reinstalling windows? I want to change the settings on my single controller from no raid to raid. I've tried messing with a few things in BIOS, and have not been able to mash it to work yet. All help and ideas appreciated.

Edit: I currently have all the data on the 1TB backed up on an external, and I do not have the room to back up the 640GB to an external. I would rather avoid having to get more storage just to make this transition.

More about : onboard raid reinstalling windows

Register or log in to remove

You may want to check and make sure that your SATA connections are in the correct SATA ports since some might not be assigned to the right chip for RAID. It sounds like it might be trying to access the disks from the wrong ports.

But to be more specific, yes you can go from no raid to raid without reinstalling windows.

This is how I would go about doing it. I would number one check the manual and see which ports are assigned to which chip and make sure that the 1TB drives are connected to the ICH10R. You probably will have to connect the windows drive to the non-RAID ports. Then, configure your BIOS so that the RAID setting is set for the right chip. After that you might have a RAID configuration tool pop up during POST or it might be in your BIOS. It just depends on your board. Tell what RAID type you want, which drives and the amount of space dedicated to the drives. After returning to windows, it will ask you to initialize the disk. Go ahead and do that. Make sure, if you're wanting to use more than 2TB of space that you do a GPT option because windows can not use more than 2TB as a MBR drive. Once that is done. You should probably do a full format just to be sure. Then you'll be using the Intel Matrix Storage Manager to create the Raid volume in there and control it from there. See how that works. There might be some variation to this but that is more or less what I would try doing.
 
Ask the community
Read discussions in other Storage categories
!