PCA Forums

Raid 0 - i want it - i need it - so... i got 2 WD 40 GB harddrives. yes, they are the same I got a Gigabyte mobo with onboard raid, and the drivers here on a cd.
a quesitons since this is me first raid array

can i : partition the harddrives to say 20/20/20/20gb and just use the two master partitions for the raid array and use the other two fro storage, cuz, if this goes bad or dies, i have Important files that i prefer not to lose, so someone told me that if i partition the two drives evenly, raid will still work and that i wont lose any of the data in the two non striped arrays if something goes rong and i gotta reformat.

second, when setting up a raid array, can i use the drivers off the CD ROM or do i gotta get them onta a floppy... and put a floppy drive in me computer.??

thanks for the hlep all

The drives have to remain unpartitioned as far as I know. I currently have two 40GB WD's in RAID0 but I'm no RAID expert.

With hardware raid BOTH drives will be entirely one large RAID0 array. You can partition the array any way you want (DOS and Windows will treat the array as if it was one drive, and you'll be able to have multiple partitions on the drive array).

If you want a partition that's not part of the RAID array you'll need to install a 3rd drive.

Yes be very aware that you're DOUBLING the chance of a fatal drive failure by using RAID0. If either drive fails, you'll lose everything on the array.

I stopped using RAID0 myself for that reason.

I assume this is a new install? Unless you have a utility from the manufacturer that will allow you to upgrade to RAID0 without a clean install, you'll almost certainly be doing a clean install.

If it's XP you MIGHT be able to do a REPAIR after booting from the XP install CD. You'll need to have the controller driver on a floppy (see below). This will be tricky. You'll need to copy the old installation to the array using Norton Ghost from DOS, then run the XP repair utility. May or may not work.

Assuming you're doing a new install, if you're using Win2K or XP you'll need to have the RAID controller driver on a floppy. When you boot with the XP or 2K CD first thing Windows installer asks is to press F6 if you have a SCSI or other controller to install. Press F6 and it'll eventually ask you to put the controller driver floppy in drive A.

Thanks FP, and yes this will be a fresh install (XP), guess i gotta find me floppy drive .....>.<