re-stripe raid or run as seperate drives?

djshowdowndjshowdown London
edited July 2005 in Hardware
i basically have two drives

running as raid

but i am considering un-raiding them to use them as seperate drives because it tells me that an error has occurred on one of them

they are seagate drives and when i run seatools it says that there is no problems

my computer vendor has thus far been very helpful and has suggested that i either re-stripe my raid or i format the drives themselves and run them seperate

can anyone give me instructions on how to do each of these tasks?

i will probably do whatever is easier as im lazy lol

Comments

  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited July 2005
    djshowdown wrote:
    ...suggested that i either re-stripe my raid or i format the drives themselves and run them seperate

    can anyone give me instructions on how to do each of these tasks?
    We'll need a little information first.

    1) Is your OS currently on the RAID array?
    2) Are you using built-in raid on your MB, or an add-on RAID card?
    3) Give us your hardware specs, especially MB brand & model and what type of add-on RAID card (if any).

    Once we know these things it will be easier to advise you. Neither task is particularly difficult, but running them separate is easier (safer for your data, too). :)


    i will probably do whatever is easier as im lazy lol
    That's alright - we lazy people have to stick together. :mullet:
  • djshowdowndjshowdown London
    edited July 2005
    profdlp wrote:
    We'll need a little information first.

    1) Is your OS currently on the RAID array?
    2) Are you using built-in raid on your MB, or an add-on RAID card?
    3) Give us your hardware specs, especially MB brand & model and what type of add-on RAID card (if any).

    Once we know these things it will be easier to advise you. Neither task is particularly difficult, but running them separate is easier (safer for your data, too). :)

    1) my operating system is not on the raid
    2) my raid, as far as i know, is built into my motherboard
    3) hardware as follows:-

    mother board is an intel d875pbz

    the raid consists of 2x 120gb sata seagate drives

    i have a 3.00 ghz pentium 4

    there is also an 80 gb ide drive which has 2 partitions, one of 20 gb (c drive) where my os lives and one of about 55gb (d drive)

    ddr 400 memory 512mb x2

    if any more details are required let me know

    thanks for the reply :thumbsup:
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited July 2005
    When you first start the computer (before Windows begins to load) you will need to enter either the BIOS and look for the setup screen for the Serial ATA IDE interfaces with RAID 0 and RAID 1 support. There should be an option there to rebuild or delete the array, and also to choose the type of RAID to run.

    You'll need to decide whether to stick with the RAID or not, then change the setting accordingly.
  • djshowdowndjshowdown London
    edited July 2005
    firstly is the bios the bit that i get to by hitting f2 on startup?

    secondly what exactly would selecting 're-build' and 'delete array' do

    will rebuild wipe it then create it again?

    will delete array delete it then make me have to choose what to do next?

    im very nervous about this as i have never done it before
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited July 2005
    djshowdown wrote:
    firstly is the bios the bit that i get to by hitting f2 on startup?
    It varies by motherboard, but the answer is most likely "yes". You want the area before Windows loads where you can change the settings of the MB.
    secondly what exactly would selecting 're-build' and 'delete array' do

    will rebuild wipe it then create it again?

    will delete array delete it then make me have to choose what to do next?
    Rebuild: Will possibly re-create the RAID array you had before you got the message "an error has occurred on one of them". It also may erase the data on the drives. This may not even be an available option. I hunted around Intel's site, found lots of drivers, etc, but no manual for your board... :scratch:

    Delete: Just what you'd imagine. Whatever RAID array you have now will be gone, and yes, you will then have to decide what to do next.

    Create: You'll have to choose between RAID-0 (striping) and RAID-1 (mirroring). A third choice would be no RAID at all, with each disc operating independently.

    A nice explanation of the different types of RAID may be found here.
    im very nervous about this as i have never done it before
    Is there data still on the drives? I had assumed that due to the "error has occurred on one of them" business that you had lost the array. If you have data on the drives you need to back it up before doing any of this. RAID-0 can be very unforgiving in the event of a drive failure or data corruption. If there is stuff still on there that you want let us know before taking any action.

    If there is no data on the drives there is not much to worry about, except be careful when you go to rebuild/delete/create/format a new array that you don't accidentally select one of your other drives (like the one with your OS on it!), in which case you will end up having a very bad day. :eek:

    If you still have doubts or questions, it's better to ask before changing anything. :)
  • djshowdowndjshowdown London
    edited July 2005
    ok

    i had disabled the raid so i could go along with my normal computing

    just now i enabled it again

    while loading it used to have 'normal' next to the raid volume 1

    then next to the first hard drive it said 'normal'
    then next to the second it said 'error ocurred'

    now it says 'failed' next to the raid volume 1

    then next to the first hard drive it said 'normal'
    then next to the second it said 'error ocurred'

    i have the option within 'intel application accelerator raid edition' to delete raid volume 1

    if i do this how do i tell windows to run the two drives seperately afterwards?
  • djshowdowndjshowdown London
    edited July 2005
    just in case it helps my raid is a raid 0 array

    i just realised that i failed to mention that
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited July 2005
    djshowdown wrote:
    ...i have the option within 'intel application accelerator raid edition' to delete raid volume 1

    if i do this how do i tell windows to run the two drives seperately afterwards?
    See the attached picture. You want to disable the RAID (underlined), then go to the sub-menu for each SATA channel (marked with a red dot) and check the settings there.

    When you boot into Windows (assuming you are running WinXP) you can go to Computer Management>>Disk Management and format the drives from there.

    Once again, if you have any data on the array it will be gone. :cool:
  • djshowdowndjshowdown London
    edited July 2005
    what i have looks nothing like that

    it looks something like this
    raidscreenshot.jpg
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited July 2005
    The picture I posted is for the BIOS settings. I would delete the array with the program in the picture you posted, then restart the computer and go immediately into the BIOS and change the settings to match what I marked in my pic.
  • djshowdowndjshowdown London
    edited July 2005
    well i decided to un raid my drives

    i went into my drive configuration window by pressing ctrl and I on startup

    i then chose the option 'delete raid and use drives single' or something to that effect

    then using disk management in administrative tools i re-partitioned the seperate drives

    i dont really feel i need that extra speed that the raid provided and i feel alot safer with two seperate drives

    thanks so much for you're help though

    through trying to solve this problem i have learnt how to unraid my drives, create a new raid, delete a raid and re-partition

    also just in case this may be of interest

    when i went into drive configuration, it asked me if the following drives (it then displayed the drive numbers) where in the raid

    when i typed y for yes, the part that said 'failed' changed to 'normal'. also there was a column that said 'bootable' which changed from no to yes when i confirmed which drives were in the raid.

    this let me access the raid upon my next boot and i got some recent data that i didnt back up from last time off the drive

    result!
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited July 2005
    Sounds like everything turned out great. :)
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