Need advice adding new hardrives

[videocheez]

My computer has two 80GB hardrives with RAID 0 Striped configuration. This has been cool but I was thinking about upgrading my system with the typical master slave relationship and using a couple of fat drives maybe 160 GB apiece or fatter.
I was reading in maximum PC recently in an article where they provide instructions on loading Windows onto a fresh brandnew hardrive. They suggest that you remove the existing drives first and then put your new drive or drives in and install the OS on a fresh drive. After that they tell you to put your old drives back in and you can move your data on to the new drive.
I'm wondering if I could try this approach but then install my old RAID 0 drives and be able to view them as one drive again. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

VC

[redwudz]

If I understand you correctly, you want to have both a RAID 0 and a boot drive on the RAID controller? Seems it would work better to loose your CDROM and use the space on your primary controller for your boot drive. (Move cables around till you have your boot on IDE 1 master. Arrange the other three drives accordingly.)

But, if your RAID controller has two separate channels and it will allow you to have both a RAID 0 on one channel and a single HD (or 2) on the second channel, that would probably work. I would back up my important data before I tried it though. The RAID controller should be able to set up the array again when you plug the drives back in.

[ViRaL1]

Are your running Hardware RAID or Software RAID?

[videocheez]

Are your running Hardware RAID or Software RAID?

I have an Intel RAID ready motherboard. I bought this computer 2 years from Best Buy. Its called a vpr Matrix 253R. Is there an easy way to determine get the model of # of my motherboard. I need to get some mother board specs.

But, if your RAID controller has two separate channels and it will allow you to have both a RAID 0 on one channel and a single HD (or 2) on the second channel, that would probably work.

This sounds like a good idea. I think there are two channels. Each hardriive has its own ribbon cable connected to the motherboard. I remember sombody telling me that I could connect four hardrives to the sytem. A while back I was consiering doing a RAID configuration with four drives. After awhile i figured that this was lame.

Unfortunately I can no longer get any phone technical support on this product since I didnt pay for the extended warranty.

Thanks for the time,

VC

[redwudz]

From your info, this appears to be your system. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,431378,00.asp or similar.

The MB may be a Intel D845EBT . You can check the MB for model and serial numbers to get better info. Sometimes the serial number is below the last PCI slot. If you find the exact model and serial, do a Google search for the motherboard and you should be able to get more info.

It's a good system from the specs there. If you need to add more drives, you can always add another PCI IDE controller. I use a PCI controller for my optical drives and use the MB IDE controller for hardrives.

For the PCI RAID 0 controller I used in the past, I set both drives as primary on 2 different channels. I never used the slave positions. But, depending on the controller, you may be able to use primary and slave on channel one for RAID 0 and use channel two for both a primary and slave drive without RAID.

Make sure you backup your important files and give it a try. You really have to find out more about your RAID controller, though.

[ViRaL1]

I'm not sure I understand exactly what it is you want to do. Give us a basic layout of how you'd LIKE to have your drives setup.

[videocheez]

I'm not sure I understand exactly what it is you want to do. Give us a basic layout of how you'd LIKE to have your drives setup.

I would like to configure the system like:

1. Add one more hardrive that is 300GB
2. create a partion on that drive
3. Install windows on that partition.
4 erase the two existing 80 GB drives and re-install them as RAID 0

Thx,

VC[/list]

[bazooka]

If I understand you correctly, you want to have both a RAID 0 and a boot drive on the RAID controller? Seems it would work better to loose your CDROM and use the space on your primary controller for your boot drive. (Move cables around till you have your boot on IDE 1 master. Arrange the other three drives accordingly.)

That was going to be my suggestion as well.

Lose the dvd-rom drive and then you could put the master drive on the 1st ide channel.

You could then put the other two drives on the motherboards secondary ide channel and you would not need the raid at all.

[ViRaL1]

From the looks of the board you MAY NOT have to do any physical rearranging of drives. This really depends on whether onboard IDE controller supports large drives.

If the onboard controller DOES support large drives then do this...

ATA0 - 300GB ATA drive
ATA1 - None
ATA2 - DVD-RW
ATA3 - DVD-ROM

RAID0 - 80GB ATA drive
RAID2 - 80GB ATA drive
(Assuming you still want RAID).
Then set your system to boot to the onboard ATA controller first instead of the RAID controller.

If your onboard controller DOES NOT support large drives, then do this...

ATA0 - None
ATA1 - None
ATA2 - DVD-RW
ATA3 - DVD-ROM

RAID0 - 300GB ATA drive
RAID1 - None
RAID2 - 80GB ATA drive
RAID3 - 80GB ATA drive
(Assuming you still want RAID).

If you don't want raid you can move the 80GB drives back up to the primary ATA controller and set the BIOS to boot from the RAID controller.