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Setup raid 0 after install
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New #12
The OP asked for RAID 0, not RAID 1.
Can you add disks to a soft RAID 0 array? (That's not a rhetorical question.)
Software RAID is apparently only available in Win7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate, though.
If you are using the motherboard chipset's RAID capabilities rather than software RAID, you have to create the RAID array first, which effectively wipes the drives, and install Windows on the array. That's the only sort of RAID I've ever tried.
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New #13
Hey, i just spent around 4 or 5 days non stop trying to change my system from being installed on a single 240gb ssd to raid 0 on 2 ssds totaling around 480gps, now i didnt want to start from scartch (reinstalling windows, programs, etc) so initially i had windows 7 ultimate 64 bit installed with native ide on 1 ssd, now the problem was that i ran out of that 240gb, so i read into it that instead of buying a ssd thats 480gps it would be more beneficial to buy the same ssd and turn it on raid 0, performance boost and cheaper, so i brought another one, backedup the ssd drive into an image on another hdd, setup the raid array, recovered the image onto the new raid array, but from there on i had problems, anyway, after researching and going through 100s of pages on the new about reg tweaks, raid setups, windows settups, installing programs and so on, since everywhere i read each guide still had so much stuff left out, i wrote out the perfect guide on it, so that i know exactly whats what so i dont get stuck again, anyway, i thought its only right that i share this knowledge to the world to save people time and know how to go about this, so here is the guide, just a tip, read every single thing to educate yourself the most and know exactly what is what:
first of all disconnect all sata ports, connect the drive that we will backup, and the drive that we will backup to, to port 4, 5, because we will later enable ports 0, 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 to raid and if the drives were connected those ports, windows wouldve rebooted on "windows starting", by default with this system raid is disabled, if it isnt disable it then start the pc, keep pressing del to get into the bios, go to integrated peripherals, go to onchip sata controller, enable, onchip sata type, native ide, onchip sata3.0 support, enable, onboard gsata/ide ctrl, enable, onboard sata/ide ctrl mode, ide, press f10, press enter, reboot to windows, go to start, in the search box type regedit, press enter, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\, for the following list, click on the folder of the same name from the list, then within the folder on the right, double click on start and change the paremeter to the information from the list:
atapi Start = 3 (THIS IS IDE, HAVE IT ON 3 SINCE 3 MEANS OFF)
iaStor = 3 (THIS IS INTEL RAID, HAVE IT ON 3 SINCE 3 MEANS OFF)
iastorV Start = 0 (THIS IS WINDOWS RAID, HAVE IT ON 0 SINCE 0 MEANS ON)
intelide Start = 3 (THIS IS IDE, HAVE IT ON 3 SINCE 3 MEANS OFF)
msahci Start = 3 (THIS IS AHCI, HAVE IT ON 3 SINCE 3 MEANS OFF)
pciide = 3 (THIS IS IDE, HAVE IT ON 3 SINCE 3 MEANS OFF)
once done go to file, exit, shut down the pc without force rebooting, so the software raid is now manually configured, installed and all ports will read the drives if set to raid, reboot, keep pressing del to get into the bios, go to integrated peripherals, onchip sata, raid (THIS ENABLES RAID ON PORTS 0, 1, 2, 3, BUT WINDOWS WONT BOOT WITHOUT THE NEXT CONFIGURATIONs SO DO IT TOO), onchip sata port4/5 type, sata as sata, (THIS ENABLES RAID ON PORTS 4, 5), onchip sata raid5 support, disable (THIS IS NECESSARY OTHERWISE WINDOWS WONT BOOT), onboard sata/ide ctrl mode, raid/ide, (THIS ENABLES RAID ON PORTS 6 AND 7, AND MAKES THE ONCHIP SATA BOOT UP, IT IS VERY NECESARY WE ENABLE THIS RAID, BECAUSE IF WE DONT TURN THIS ON THEN PLUG THE SATA CABLE INTO PORT 0, 1, 2, 3 WINDOWS WILL REBOOT, BUT WITH THE ONBOARD SATA/IDE CTRL MODE ON RAID/IDE, YOU CAN CONNECT IT TO PORTS 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 AND WINDOWS WILL BOOT UP, now that the raid is setup through software and hardware you wont get errors like say you connect cd dvd drive to a raid configured port, that drive will encounter errors like when installing windows you will get an error saying: "a required cd dvd drive device driver is missing..." or when your recovering a backup using acronis "failed to read from sector 0 of hard disk 1", and other hard drives wont even be viewable), press f10, press enter, reboot to windows, once rebooted into windows, at the bottom right you can see a little green dot spinning, this is windows installing drivers for the raid controllers, once its done it will ask you to restart, so click on restart now, once back in windows, give it 5 minutes to see if windows will install more drivers automatically, if not turn of the pc, disconnect all the sata cables from the ports, and connect the drive we are going to back up to the blue port 0, the new ssd drive to port 1, the drive we are going to back up to to port 2 and a cd dvd drive to port 3, once again very necessary that we connect to the blue port as its sata 3 which means its 6gps rather then the white port which is sata 2 3gps, once done, turn the pc on, again check if windows installs drivers, if it does and asks you to reboot, do so, repeat until it doesnt install any more, once thats done, go to start > all programs > acronis > acronis true image home > acronis true image home, back up system, at the top right click on multiple systems selected, then at further top right, click on click on switch to disk mode, check the source drive, in destination select the destination drive you want to write to, in the backup scheme, click on the blue hyperlink, in the backup method select full, at the bottom left check save the settings as default, click on the performance tab, in compression level click and drag to none, click on ok, click on backup now at the bottom right, this may take an hour or more, once done, click on the backup and recovery tab at the top, click on create bootable media, click on next, check everything, click on next twice, select your disc writer, click on next, put a compact disc into your disc writer, click on proceed, click on ok when done, make a note of the name, drive letter, model number, data size, of the source drive and the destination drive, close the program and shut down the pc, start the pc, now there will be a boot bios screen, then raid setup utility, on that screen, and only then (dont tap as it wont work) ctrl + f, press 2 to enter ld view / ld define menu, press ctrl + c, to scroll through the selection press up or down, to change the parameter space, change raid mode to raid 0, for stripe block, the higher the number the faster performance for larger files, for example video games, videos, and so on, whilst smaller the number is for smaller files like text files, word and so on, but since im a media person, video games, media, the best would be larger for me so choose 128 kb, now go down to the drive selection, press space to change the parameter to y, change to y to the drives you want in the array, press ctrl + y to save settings, then again, and change the name to programs, press enter, press ctrl + y again to erase the master boot record of those disks, press any key to use maximum capacity of the array, now you are done and can press esc to exit the setup, press esc then y to reboot, now to restore the image to the new hdd, disconnect all usb drives expect the mouse and keyboard, boot the pc and keep pressing 12 to enter boot menu, insert the compact disc in the disc writer, select cdrom, press enter, select acronis true image home, press enter, in recover click on my disks, navigate to the recovery file, click on next, make sure recover whole disks and partitions are checked, click on next, check everything, check the drive we are going to recover to (the raid array), click on next, click on proceed, the programs drive should have increase the capacity to max and the active partition should be the system reserved one, check restart the computer when recovery is completed, once done and back in windows, eject the disk, windows may install drivers again, once its done it will ask you to restart, so click on restart now, once back in windows, give it 5 minutes to see if windows will install more drivers automatically, if not turn off the pc, connect the rest of the drives to the sata ports, now turn on the pc and keep pressing del to enter the bios, advanced bios features, hard disk boot priority, change the new raid array to the top, press f10, press y, press enter to reboot, now that your back in windows, windows may install drivers again, once its done it will ask you to restart, so click on restart now, once back in windows, give it 5 minutes to see if windows will install more drivers automatically, if it doesnt, check that all the drives appear in my computer and are assigned the correct drive letter, if they are not, go to start, search, disk management, press enter, right click on each disk one by one at the bottom where the blue rows are, (excluding the raid array), change drive letter and path, click on remove, click on yes twice, repeat but this time add and assing the letter to the list above, including the cd dvd drive, once done, reboot the pc.
hope this helps you
Tomas Mascinskas
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