RAID TROUBLE- Houston we have a problem!

Hi guys.

I recently purchased another 3 Sammy F1's 1TB and already had another 2 so I tried to set up a RAID on my EX38-DS4.

I am aware that for RAID 5 I should get a RAID Controller however finances are down, for now.

I had thought of doing 2 RAID setups (3HDD's on RAID 5 and 2 on RAID 0).

After hearing some opinions and pondering over them I thought of doing a 5 x F1 1TB on RAID 5 using the onboard controller to run Win 7 Ultimate and getting a separate Raptor (IDE) to have my fun on XP.

The reason to get an IDE drive is because all my 6 SATA Ports are currently being used by 5HDD's and 1 Optical.

However, because I have a Crossfire on 3870X2's, the IDE Port is out of comission since that whole area is PACKED!

Proceeded to set up the RAID 5 with 5 drives and upon reaching the intallation screen Windows said that it wasn't possible to install on the current setup.

I then began the long winded elimination process and after attempting with 4 drives and getting the same result I tried with 3 and VOILA!

This leads me to believe that it is not possible to run a RAID with my onboard controller with more that 3 HDD's.

So I have setup a RAID 5 on 3 HDD's with 7 and 2 HDD's with no OS!!!!
THIS IS WHERE THE PROBLEM IS.

I have tried almost everything to try and boot up from the DVD so that I may launch the XP installation but to no avail.

From F12 and selecting the DVD RW to setting the BIOS boot priority but with no success.

This leads me to think that because I have RAID enable, it takes priority over anything else I would command it to do.

I then did some Googling and came across acouple of ideas such as connecting the optical to the JMicron Port which I don't know where it is and my brother suggested that I shoud unplug the SATA Power from the HDD's to force it to boot from DVD.

Any suggestions would be welcome from some of you veterans.

Cheers

 

Windows does not like to install on partitions about 2TB. It's not the RAID controler's fault, it is microsoft's fault.

You souldn't be trying to boot from onboard RAID5 anyway, as it is very slow. Also, onboard RAID5 is far less reliable than a single drive, or even RAID-0. Onboard RAID5 sacrifices speed, capacity, and reliability...and gives you nothing in return.

As for the XP install, this needs to be the first install, and the first array. In your RAID bios, you should have the option to select what array starts first.

I remember that XP & 2003 were a big pain in the *** to get to work with RAID...even worse than vista (and vista had the most annoying error messages ever). This is why you have to install it first.

Still, I don't think you need XP. I know you have had some issues with Flash, but I am sure they are easy enough to fix...use firefox if IE8 is giving you too much trouble.

 

So would that mean that if I install XP first I would be able to install 7 on the next array without having RAID giving me trouble when I wish to boot from DVD?

Even if you say I should blank the XP installation, what would I do with the other 2 drives until I get a decent controller?

Furthermore, if Windows doesn't like anything over 2TB, are we saying that anything over that mark would prevent us to use Windows on a larger array?

 

Yes, you can install windows 7 after windows xp and have both (but you will have to tweek the boot menu).

If you dump the XP install, then you can use 2 drives for the WIN7 install (in RAID0) and 3 drives for a RAID5 storage area. You could even use one by itself for windows 7, and use 4 of them for RAID5...or you could use 4 of them in RAID-10 to get better reliability and performance, as the cost of space. (4 1TB drives in raid 10 = 2GB useable space).

Windows Vista and 7 both support arrays over 2TB...this is just another limitation of XP...it can support arrays over 2TB, but it cannot boot from them.

 

Thanks KillerBug.

Is there a Quality RAID Controller that is not PCI Express?

Having to sacrifice Crossfire is a bit too much for me.

Until I get a mobo with more usable ports that is.