Intel ICH9R Raid Question

[kingfetty]

Is it possible with a ICH9R based raid to have (5) drives in a raid 5 and 1 drive outside of the raid on the same controller and boot/install the os on the 1 drive not in the raid? Or do I need to buy another SATA controller and install it for the OS drive?


Abit IP35 pro
(5) 7200.10 500gb
(1) WD Raptor for OS

 

[MichaelD]

Though I'm not familiar with the ICH9R-based RAID, I've used many onboard RAID solutions. Most will let you choose what drives to add to the array. I.E. just b/c you have 6 drives attached to the motherboard doesn't mean that you will have to use all of them in the array.

Hook'em up and find out. I think you'll be fine.

 

[kingfetty]

Yeah,

I figured, it wouldn't be a problem excluding a drive or 2, but I was wondering the os (vista) would have a problem with non-raid and raid drives on the same controller. I read in a forum somewhere (not sure where) that someone was having problems in a similar setup, just seeing if anyone else can confirm/deny this before I buy a 3rd party sata controller.

 

[MichaelD]

I'm not familiar with Vista, but I've used both onboard controllers and PCI/PCI-X controller cards on Windows2000/XP/Server2003 and none of the OSes had a problem with the "mixed" environment.

 

[Cutthroat]

On my P5K Deluxe I cannot enable AHCI and RAID at the same time on the same controller, so I was either stuck with 1 SATA drive that did not have advanced SATA functions so it was slow + a RAID0 array, or all RAID. It's the first time I've encountered this and my only problem with the motherboard.

 

[uhohs]

bump, i've been eyeing the abit ip35 boards as well and wonder if the configuration mentioned by the OP would work.

 

[kingfetty]

Ok,

I have the IP 35 Pro now and am glad to say that you can run AHCI and RAID at the same time. By setting the controller mode to RAID it runs both. Also you can have a RAID and non-RAID drives on the same controller and boot from the non-RAID.

The trick in Vista was to set the controller mode to RAID in the bios, disconnect all the RAID drives before installing the OS, then after the OS is in, connect them up and start setting up your raid. Worked like a charm.

 

[MichaelD]

I'm happy that it worked out well for you. Thanks for posting the details of how you set it all up; that will help someone else down the road when they search for a solution to their RAID problem. :thumbsup:

 

[dbperry]

how about the reverse? My new IP35 Pro has yet to come out of its box, but I am planning on a four disk RAID 5 array containing Windows XP, with a non-RAID drive on the same controller. Is this possible?

[Although kingfetty presents an interesting idea for me....my goal is data integrity (hence my desire for RAID 5), so I could do the same thing he is doing....and keep my data on the array and the OS on the non-RAID.]

Also, do I have to make a floppy for the F6 setup option when installing XP to the RAID array? Or is the floppy only required when working with the JMicron RAID controller?

Dave
___________________________
My current setup (now you see why I am upgrading):
ABIT IS-7
Pentium 4 2.4C
ATI AIW 9600 Pro
Promise FastTrak S150 SX4 (PCI Raid controller)
4x 250 GB Seagate SATA HDD (Raid 5 array)
1x 250 GB Seagate SATA HDD (direct to MB as temp and 'scratch' space)
Antec P160 enclosure
Antec True Control 550

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: dbperry
how about the reverse? My new IP35 Pro has yet to come out of its box, but I am planning on a four disk RAID 5 array containing Windows XP, with a non-RAID drive on the same controller. Is this possible?

You can't boot off a RAID 5 or a RAID 0 partition, AFAIK. Although I can't say I've tried it with mobo RAID - maybe someone will prove me wrong.

 

[dbperry]

Originally posted by: erwos
You can't boot off a RAID 5 or a RAID 0 partition, AFAIK. Although I can't say I've tried it with mobo RAID - maybe someone will prove me wrong.

?? I writing this e-mail on my 'old' computer (built in January 2004) that boots into Windows XP from my RAID 5 array running off a Promise Technology PCI based RAID controller.....so it has been possible on non-mobo RAID controllers for at least 3 years......

 

[neoum]

I am trying to do raid on my IP35 board with ICH9R controller. I had no luck on both Windows Xp and Vista. Here's what I'm doing:
1-Install the OS. (I can not get the OS to be installed with the raid controller on, even with the right driver installed)
2-Install the raid driver.
3-Turn on raid.
4-Build the raid.
Every single time I have the Raid on, I get the BSOD right after the windows logo appears. When I turn the raid off, everything is fine.
That drives me to think there's something wrong with the raid driver. I tried the latest driver posted on Intel's website which is v.7.7xxxx and still no luck.

Please let me know if you think there's something that I'm doing wrong.

 

[Huligan]

Hey neoum and dbperry, I was searching around just trying to see if i should have chosen ahci instead of raid in my ip35 pro setup, and I came across that info here, so I thought i'd register to let yall know what worked for me(you can thank me later). I have a raptor 150 for OS, and 3x400 barracudas in RAID5. I'm building this for my father so its XP at the moment, but we'll get vista soon enough. The key to the install since everything is on the same controller is setting the bios to raid before you ever install the OS. You can build the array before or after the install. Just make sure you have the right floppy driver(i had to slipstream mine, have a floppy drive but no damn floppy disks anywhere...).

 

[neoum]

Well, I did try that right after I failed to get my raid to work. I also have a raptor and I'm trying to instal the OS on the raptor, but, as I said before even with the right driver on floppy(in the XP case) and Vista I get an unwanted reset in instalatin completion part.
So, I got Vista installed with controller on the IDE mode. Then install the ACHI and the Raid driver installed and turn the raid on. Still No LUCK!!! That all sounds like a driver problem to me.

 

[Huligan]

I dunno, I have everything working fine...I have what i thought was the right driver, but its v.7.6xxx, are you sure u have the right one? you can definitely choose ICH9R from the list in the install. Just to be clear, installing the operating system as anything but raid in the bios is not going to work. Before I had anything, I tried to install the os on the non-raid drive with the bios in raid mode, blue screen during install. If it means anything, i hadn't created my array yet, just a bunch of blank disks. So...enable raid in bios(intel chip, not jmicron), installed xp with f6 floppy driver, after installed went and created array, then created disk and volume in windows disk management. If that isn't working, i don't know what to tell you. Is your intel file called f6flpy32.zip? Other than that, you could try slipstreaming like i did. I downloaded nlite, it was incredibly easy. It let me choose the driver right from the floppy file. I never had to touch the installation after that. Like i said, I'm doing good so far, definitely the fastest system i've used.

 

[neoum]

I'm totally confused! I already did that. Turn the raid on, try to install the raid driver, during the installation, on both vista and xp, vista gave me a sudden reset, xp installed fine but woulnd't boot unless I disable raid.
JUST TELL ME THIS: Do you get the message when ure trying to boot up?
"AHCI Bios Not Installed!!"

thx

 

[Wedge1]

Originally posted by: Huligan
[snip]...Just to be clear, installing the operating system as anything but raid in the bios is not going to work. Before I had anything, I tried to install the os on the non-raid drive with the bios in raid mode, blue screen during install. If it means anything, i hadn't created my array yet, just a bunch of blank disks. So...enable raid in bios(intel chip, not jmicron), [/snip]

I'm about to build my DS3R-based system and I want a RAID0 using the ICH9R by intel. I'm assuming your instructions apply to all ICH9R RAID setups?

I haven't build this PC yet. Can anybody tell me if there are any additional special settings that must be configured in the BIOS before installing XP on this motherboard (Gigabyte DS3R)?

*ANY* advice on this particular motherboard is appreciated as I don't know what to expect.

 

[Wedge1]

Also, I would like to try nLite for slipstreaming the RAID drivers.

At the nLite website, I noticed in the FAQs: "Why can't I set RAID cluster other than 4kB?"
Answer: "That's Windows NTFS limitation from XP Service Pack 2, if you find a workaround let me know. Works with FAT32."

Is it true that I can only set the cluster size to 4kB? Surely not....

 

[Wedge1]

Well I had to use the floppy to get my RAID running. I couldn't get nLite to work, though I am sure it's likely user error. I wish there were a good guide for slipstreaming the RAID drivers during the Windows installation process (just before installing Windows).

 

[Q Ball]

I also have a P5K Deluxe, set the BIOS for the ICH9R to Raid, created the Raid 1 with 2x500GB WD, put a ghost image of the OS that I created on the Raid with no problems. . .until I started up windows XP Pro, BSOD. I undid the Raid, changed the BIOS back to IDE, started Windows XP Pro no problem and both the WD's had the same data from the Ghosted image, like they should have (which means the Raid works).

Then, tried to use the drivers from the CD (created a floppy from CD during Boot), set the BIOS again to raid for the ICH9R, tried using the floppy during Windows XP setup, but XP said that the file system on the floppy was not recognized? I undid all of this, went into XP, looked at the floppy, no problem, everything was there.

I then set the BIOS to AHCI for the Sata, tried to do a clean install of XP, BSOD before finishing getting setup for installation. Had to go back to IDE.

I guess a question would be, does XP have to have a clean install when doing Raid 1, or is there another work around for this?

So, here I am, looking for answers.

 

[vailr]

INTEL Matrix Storage Manager drivers 8.0.0.1039
http://www.station-drivers.com/page/intel%20raid.htm
Direct download link:
http://www.station-drivers.com...ation-drivers.com).exe