SATA RAID1 on XP x64 - can't do it!

[M0nkeyb0Y]

Howdy!

I've just installed a couple of SATA Maxtor 7200.9 250Gb disks; Disk Manager picks them up fine, and I've initialised them; but I cannot 'mirror' them - the option simply isn't there (just 'simple', spanned, and 'stripped' - mirrored and RAID5 aren't showing).

Am I doing something daftly wrong?!

Please help.
MB

[arthurleung]

RAID0 and RAID5 is only available on Windows 2000/2003 server.

Although, you can do some hack to the disk manager
http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/11/...raid_5_happen/

Not sure if it works on XP64 though.

TBH Windows RAID5 is not terribly fast. Give it a try, if you like it, keep it, if you don't like it, drop back to RAID1 (I assume you have 4 drives?)

[M0nkeyb0Y]

Thanks for the reply
I'm not sure I made myself clear in my original thread (either that or I'm being a total 'noob' and misunderstood your reply): I want RAID1 (mirrored), but am unable to bring up this option. Disks were initialised as dynamic - but the option to mirror them isn't there - and I specifically bought them for RAID1.

[M0nkeyb0Y]

PLEASE GUYS! this is driving me nuts - surely someone outthere has RAID1 on x64 or even XP - and can maybe suggest where I'm going wrong?

[d3fiant]

surely it would be better to do this on the onboard RAID controller rather than in the OS or am I missing the point

[M0nkeyb0Y]

surely it would be better to do this on the onboard RAID controller rather than in the OS or am I missing the point

No you're not - would this be better? I naively assumed Disk Manager would be the easiest and best way to do it .

I did try to access my onboard RAID controller on start up (ctrl+s), but couldn't get in... will try again when I get home.

[d3fiant]

I would do it using the onboard controller, however I have only done this from a clean build. If you want to introduce an identicle hard drive and create a RAID1 set from the exisitng build you may need to take extra care but Im sure it can be done. You may even be able to do this from within the OS by installing the apprpriate software to access the onboard controller, for example with your Nvidia based mobo you should try the Nvidia Mediashield Storage software, it can create the raid array for you but make sure you read the extensive instruction manual to better understand the risks to ur data while setting it up

[M0nkeyb0Y]

Thanks for the reply,

These are two identical drives, I'm adding to my existing setup for extra storage, to make one mirrored volume - I'm guessing this should be safe enough?

[arthurleung]

Really sorry, I meant RAID1 and RAID5 not RAID0 and RAID5...

Still, if you want to run it on windows xp you'll need to hack the disk manager.

Personally I feel that running windows' software raid is a lot safer than using the nvidia raid if you ever change motherboard.