RAID help on Asus P5LD2 motherboard
 

I just finished trying to install RAID on 2 x identical S-ATA hard drives. I configured everything in "intel matrix storage manager rom utility" according to the motherboard manual. For some reason, anytime I set IDE Configuration to RAID instead of Standard IDE in BIOS my computer will restart right before loading windows. In Disk Management, I am showing disk1 and disk2 (the drivers I set for raid) as seperate drives with seperate unallocated capacities. Disk 0, is a seperate S-ATA drive where winxp is installed and is not configured for RAID.

I hope someone who might be experienced with this can give me a hint as to what I did wrong or need to do. I have never played with RAID before.

I want to know too, bump!

bump again

Are you saying that you have:

- disk O : sata setup as as a normal drive ( for boot )

- disk 1: sata in raid
- disk 2: sata in raid


Total 3 disks ?

Ok, whoa there! First, are you trying to set this array up as RAID 0 or RAID 1?

I have the same board. Put your standalone SATA drive on the SIS controller (single red socket to the left of the CPU), and your two RAID drives on the Intel controller (2 red, 2 black near the front of the board). Make sure that drivers for both controllers are installed into doze. (If it's still crashing then try disconnecting the drives, installing the drivers, then reconnecting them...)

Actually I have the P5LD2 deluxe, not sure if that's diff?

I can confirm that RAID5 recovery works on that board btw. :winkwink:

http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?t=564646

This is the second time that I've had to rebuild my array due to drive failure.

Yes total 3 disks, setting up RAID 0

- disk O : sata setup as as a normal drive ( for boot )

- disk 1: sata in raid
- disk 2: sata in raid

trying to find that single red socket now

http://www.nfgx.com/motherboard.jpg
I can't seem to find the 5th S-ATA socket near the CPU, right now the main drive is in the red and the 2 'raid' drives are in the black

This is the deluxe board:

http://www.phoronix.com/images/pictu...p5ld2_mobo_lrg

We see the two red connectors ( ide ) as well as the red SATA connectors.

Trying to find the not deluxe pic...

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...&sku=A455-1068


You see at the bottom of the page the two red SATA connectors for raid ...

mkx, seems your board is different to mine... the layout around the CPU isn't the same and obviously the SATA connector I was referring to is missing. Does your manual say there are two SATA controllers? My (deluxe) board has two SATA and one standard IDE controller.

Can I plug the boot drive in the black sata connecter and the raid drives into the red ones? Or does the boot drive need to be in the red SATA connectors?

I am showing 4 sata connectors, 2 red and 2 black

Yeah, that would be off the one controller. It looks like your board only has the single SATA controller, which means that you *probably* can't do both RAID and standalone, unless the standalone is IDE...

Are all 3 drives identical? You could set up a RAID5 array.

The o/s is 250gb and the 2 other ones are 320gb so not identical but same manufacture. I tried getting winxp installed on an IDE drive but it will not show up as an installation drive option.

If i install winxp on the 2 raid drives, they will only show up as 127 gb each even after I install SP2 from a seperate CD, it might get too confusing.

Yeah, I wouldn't advise using different capacity (or model) drives for RAID5.

Is the IDE drive detected by the BIOS? It's possible you've disabled it, the options for HDs in the BIOS can be quite confusing, at least on my board. I suggest you read your manual to try to figure it out. :)

Check that you don't need an interim driver during setup, I *think* that one of the IDE controllers on my board needed a 'doze driver before it was recognised. Does your board have one or two IDE controllers?

Jeez my board has a lot of confusing shit on it...

2 different brand IDE controllers
- 1 port
- 2 port
2 different brand SATA controllers
- 1 internal port + 1 external port
- 4 port

2 x 320Gb in RAID1 will equal 320Gb capacity (or close enough, once it's formatted)

Start by installing your " boot " hd in the black sata connector. Don't install the other ones yet.

Install XP . Remember, for the sysytem to recognize the SATA, you need , at the install screen, to select F6 toinstall the sata drivers for it to be recognized. You should have a floppy that came with the MB. Otherwise, go on Asus site to dl it.

Once your system is on, add the the " raid " drives to the red sata connector.

At boot, you should have an option to configure the drives ( Raid 0, 1, 0+1, ... ) ... Follow the steps.

Look at my second link for the connectors.

My PCs haven't had a (permanent) floppy drive in them for years so it's a pain to try to find both a working drive AND a floppy when I need to do something like that. :winkwink: It would be handy if you could just momentarily swap CDs instead.

Thanks, I will give those methods a try.

With SATA, you NEED a floppy , for setup. You cannot put the drivers on a CD or a USB storage or even a USB floppy ...

I know, remember I've done RAID5 with this board. I'm just saying that it's 2006; some PCs don't even ship with a floppy drive.

Finally got it done. Had to reinstall windows with RAID mode in IDE configuration. I just installed the RAID 0 on the O/S to make things easier. Am I supposed to notice a big difference in speed?

RAID0 should be noticeably faster since it's spreading the reads and writes over two drives. However, the intel controller uses software RAID so that may very well negate that benefit.

You do realise that RAID0 has no redundancy? If one drive fails, you lost *all* of your data on the array...

I am using the pentium d 3.0ghz yes I understand about the double risk, i am going to do backups every week or so before bed :) thanks for all your help btw

So what is the point to buy a hardware raid enabled MB with SATA if you are using a software solution on an IDE interface ???

The Intel RAID controller is also software based.