hard drive setup on p6t <ich10r> <raid+non raid> HELP!

c-note

HEY fellars

i recently completed my first build (on asus p6t (non deluxe)).
the whole thing has gone fine so far but i'm stuck configuring hard drives.

the system was set up with a single 320gb sata drive. (on ich10r)
i installed 3 os's (7x64 7x86 and xp x86)
again all going fine so far.
slight hitch getting xp to show on available os's. but sorted.

once i had all my important data transferred from my old computer i was going to include the two old sata hdd's from it in the new machine.

i had hoped to install thees drives in a raid configuration on the ich10r controller.

my set up was to be as follows:
1x320gb for os's

2x500gbs in raid
350 in raid 1 as a storage volume for pictures important stuff
300 in raid 0 for games/ fast access/ non critical data

THE PROBLEM:
when first installing the os's on the single hdd the following option was set in the bios
CONFIGURE SATA AS: IDE (Other options: raid / ahci)

if i change this option to raid the computer wont boot from the non raid disc... BSOD on xp... and fail on windows 7,
the only was to get the computer to boot is to reset the SATA AS: IDE.

I have since found on another forum that:
if you want to use raid, you must select this option BEFORE INSTALLING AN OPERATING SYSTEM. (:()

The question
IF i set the CONFIGURE SATA AS: RAID
and do repair installs on the 320hdd without formatting it

1
will this make the os's bootable without loosing data.

2
would this involve loading raid drivers for the ich10r during the os's install .

if ans to q2 is yes:
3
will the mean i need a floppy drive to repair the xp install..


Thanks for taking the time to read this...
if anyone can help it'd be great... i'd rather have some advice before trying as i really dont want to loose the data on the 320gb disc (all my music and pics and docs etc)... backing this data up would be very arkward!

farna_boy

Hey

I had a similar problem before. My OS was on a 250GB hard drive, bought two new 750GBs for RAID 1 and found that I couldn't install them as RAID because the original hard drive was set as IDE.

In the end I ended up having to re-install the OS because it was just easier. A few things to note though.

If your original hard drive is partioned its only the data that is on the the OS partition that will be lost. (This was true for me, but I can't guarantee it will work for you.)

One option I was considering before I re-installed my OS was to use Acronis true image to backup all my data onto a dvd, do a fresh install and then use this disk to recover your data. The reason I didn't do this in the end was I wasn't 100% sure that this would work.

The best option and what worked for me is to buy a USB to SATA cable. They are fairly cheap and can be very useful! So before you reinstall the OS, connect one of your new drives to the PC using this cable. Back up all your data from your original hard drive onto the new hard drive and then do a fresh install on the original hard drive, with it configured as RAID in the list, but a NON-RAID disk.

Once your OS is then working, transfer all your data back from the new hard drive onto the OS disk and connect the two new drives to the PC and set up your RAID.

Hope this helps!

c-note

thanks farna boy

yeah i figured i'd have to re-install the os's

You made a good suggestion that i hadnt considered... i can back up all my data to one (or both) of the future raid drives and use them as normal drives untill i have the os's reinstalled on the first drive set as Raid.

Its a pain in the ass i wish i had realised this before i installed the os's, theres 4 days of tweaking my computer down the drain!! and theres no mention of it in the mobo manual! i'll know for next time!


TWO MORE QUESTIONS
when re-installing WINDOWS 7, do you need to install the ICH10R drivers during the windows installation...

when re-instaling WINDOWS XP, do you need A FLOPPY DRIVE to install drivers during xp installation


thanks!