I had somebody build me a custom PC about 2 years ago which I'm still using (Win XP Home).

It's a RAID setup and the guy set up a second hard drive to 'mirror' the main drive.

The thing is, it seems to have only mirrored the original installation. He told me every single thing would be mirrored and that I shouldn't do anything with the second drive. Since I've had the PC, nothing else has been mirrored to this second drive except MAYBE a couple of Windows Updates as far as I can tell.

The whole idea of having a back-up drive that is supposed to take over if the primary drive fails is almost useless if the back-up drive is not mirroring the primary drive.

But I don't understand this RAID thing at all in the first place.

Can I manually back up all my programs and stuff to this second drive without messing up the RAID setup? In other words, if I add stuff manually to the drive, will it still kick in if I have a primary drive failure?

And if it's supposed be mirroring the entire contents of the primary drive, how can I get it to do that?

A quick read on RAID, RAID array levels, the good and bad:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

Is the RAID controller on the mainboard or is it on a PCI host controller card and do you know the make/model of the mainboard (or the PC) or the card if that is what is being used?

How many hard drives (not how many partitions) are listed under Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc from the run box) and are they identified as basic or dynamic drives?

If you only have two drives inside your PC then if they are configured as a RAID array only one drive should be apparent, and not two, in Disk Management.

Is there an entry under "SCSI and RAID Controllers" in Device Manager (devmgmt.msc from the run box) and do any devices have bold yellow punctuation marks beside them.

Is the RAID controller on the mainboard or is it on a PCI host controller card and do you know the make/model of the mainboard (or the PC) or the card if that is what is being used?

The mainboard is a Biostar P4M800-M7A and the manual says it "Supports RAID 0 and RAID 1 functions." It's a custom-built PC. I don't know if there is a controller card.

How many hard drives (not how many partitions) are listed under Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc from the run box) and are they identified as basic or dynamic drives?

Two hard drives. Disk 0 ( C: ) and disk 1 ( F: )
Both identified as Basic drives.
Neither drive has been partitioned because I remember discussing that option with the guy who built the PC. There are two identical hard drives in this computer. Roughly 110GB each. It's just that right now, one of them, the C Drive has more stuff on it than the F drive. This can be plainly seen in Windows Explorer.

If you only have two drives inside your PC then if they are configured as a RAID array only one drive should be apparent, and not two, in Disk Management.

Two drives are apparent in Disk Management and also two drives are visible in Windows Explorer. I also have access to both drives in Windows Explorer.

Is there an entry under "SCSI and RAID Controllers" in Device Manager (devmgmt.msc from the run box) and do any devices have bold yellow punctuation marks beside them.

I don't see any SCSI or RAID Controllers and I don't see any bold yellow punctuation marks beside anything.

When the computer boots up, something appears momentarily on the screen and it mentions RAID. But I'd have to reboot and try to read it. It doesn't stay there long, like most boot messages. As a side question here, is there a way to 'pause' the boot screen long enough to read that stuff?

OK - you don't have any RAID setup. What it appears has happened is that a copy of one drive was made onto the second one at some early stage. When you have a RAID array established then the array only shows itself to the user as a single drive - that is all that is needed since both drives should always be identical. What you want is a RAID-1 or Mirrored Array. Before proceeding I would strongly suggest that if you have any important data that you back it up to an external Hard Drive or to DVDs as an image file. Then if you want to establish a mirrored array we can go along step by step.

Note that you can only create a RAID array on that board if you have two SATA drives. If you have two PATA/EIDE drives then you cannot create a RAID array with them without an add-on card.

The two most basic options are to start over and create a mirror from scratch and do a clean installation of windows or to attempt to add both drives to an array as is and to then rebuild the mirror from one drive to the other.

The options about RAID that you are seeing fleetingly are to do with the RAID controllers' own BIOS and is where you would enter with an appropriate hotkey to manipulate, create and delete arrays. You can usually pause boot screens with the pause key and restart them with the ESC key but the various options should also be in the manual. The only manual I have been able to download is very cursory and not of much use in the area of RAID configuration.

The fact that no RAID/SCSI devices show in Device Manager implies that either there are no SATA drives in the system or that they have not been enabled/configured-as-RAID in the MAIN BIOS or the RAID BIOS.

So do you you have SATAs or PATAs is the next most relevant question and then how would you like to proceed?

OK - you don't have any RAID setup. What it appears has happened is that a copy of one drive was made onto the second one at some early stage.

That would be when the guy built the computer, according to the dates in Windows Explorer. Obviously, the guy didn't do what he said he was going to do. So what do I have, a Master/Slave setup?

And by the way, I've never been able to get any power management scheme to work as far as getting the drives to shut down. The monitor will go dark but the drives just keep running non-stop no matter what power scheme I use. I'm not real happy about that but I figured it was all part of the "RAID" setup. Ha ha.

So do you you have SATAs or PATAs is the next most relevant question...

I don't know. How can I determine that?

They have different cables as shown at http://www.directron.com/patasata.html or we can look the model up from any reference ID.

You have two independent drives whether they are setup as Master/Slave on one IDE cable or both as Masters on two separate cables.

Ok, I'll remove the case tomorrow morning and take a look. I don't even know what make my drives are and I don't see that anywhere in my paper work.

You've been very helpful, Paul. Thanks.

I'll try to post the info tomorrow and in the mean time I can sleep on what I want to do.

You can download PC Wizzard (just google the link, I don't know where it is off the top of my head, sorry.) and it will tell you a lot of information about your computer.

You can download PC Wizzard ...

Thanks. Looks like a great program. I found out what I needed to know this time around but that program will come in real handy in the future. There are a couple of other interesting free programs on that site too.

Here's the link in case others are interested:

http://www.cpuid.com/pcwizard.php

You have two independent drives whether they are setup as Master/Slave on one IDE cable or both as Masters on two separate cables.

Ok, I opened the case this morning and took a look.

They are SATA drives on two separate (narrow red) cables.

Seagate Barracuda 7200.7, 120GB
Model: ST3120026AS

And I think I caught the important line on the boot screen:

Array 0 RAID 1 - which, as I understand it from your previous post, is only informative of the RAID capability rather than the RAID setup.

Now I need to know what my options are.

At this point, I'm not so sure I want to set this up as a RAID system. At least not immediately. I don't think what I've got going here is so 'mission-critical' that I need RAID.

I was reading some of your website yesterday. The Knoppix backup page caught my eye. (that nice stone house is an eye catcher too, by the way - what a great place!)

Anyway, I'm kinda thinking of turning this into a multi-boot system with perhaps several Linux distros on my second drive. Is that feasible?

By the way, if I try to click on either of the drives' Properties in Disk Management, it crashes the program. Any idea why that's happening? Maybe it's a BillGates software issue? Or some kind of faulty setting on my quasi - 'RAID' setup?

Now I need to know what my options are.
To raid or not to raid - well you have the option since you have SATA drives. It's up to you.

To multiboot or not - well why not. Multibooting loads of Linux distros can get a bit "fraught" but if you are only trying them out it cant matter too much if you lose being able to boot one of them. Deciding on whether to boot from the boot sector using GRUB or LILO or from a floppy or by using a boot manager is one consideration.

No idea why that should crash the program.

To raid or not to raid -

I'm still wondering what's going on here.

Here is what it says in my BIOS manual:

OnChip SATA
This option allows you to enable the onchip Serial ATA.
The Choices: Enabled (default), Disabled.
SATA Mode
The Choices: RAID (default)

So I went into the BIOS when I booted up this morning to see what the actual settings are and sure enough, that's what they are.

OnChip SATA: Enabled
SATA Mode: RAID

So the big mystery and the big question here is: Why is this computer NOT functioning in RAID Mode?

If I start using this second disk as a dual-boot Linux disk or whatever, and the computer is supposed to be in RAID Mode, will I take a chance on hosing the whole system? I have manually copied a few files to this 2nd disk but I'm afraid to do much because of my failure to understand this whole RAID issue. (And the technical literature isn't much help either, by the way.) :(

I would think that an enabled chip means that arrays are configurable and accessible - but not necessarily configured. Disabling the chip might do away with the fleeting options you see during boot-up.

What other SATA modes are there apart from RAID?

Also, bear in mind that with a RAID-1 Mirrored array that a single drive removed from the array will still function normally just as a normal drive; the only way it differs from a normal drive is that info is written to an area right at the end of the drive; an area that an array's BIOS reads to make sense of and to identify the various drives that may be added to it. A RAID-0 Striped array won't function outside an array since approx half of each file resides on each of say two drives in a 2-drive RAID-0. The stripes (blocks of data) get written in turn to one and then to the next drive in a striped array.

You need to go into the array BIOS (using the correct hotkey during boot-up) where I suspect that you will see that no arrays have been created. Or, in other words, that neither of the two SATAs have been added to any array or if they were once added have since been removed.

The easiest way to experiment and retain your data safely would be to get an IDE drive and clone the drive you are using onto it. Then boot to the IDE drive via the BIOS settings. You can then experiment with the two SATAs and various RAID configurations to your heart's content.

Installing an OS to an array or adding a non-RAID installation to an array. One caution for later on is that when installing an NT-based OS such as WinXP you will need to have the RAID/SCSI drivers available (on a floppy diskette) for the Windows install using the F6 option presented early during setup. If an installation was created outside the array then adding to an array may make it invisible until it is repaired with an installation CD and the F6 options to add the RAID/SCSI drivers.

What other SATA modes are there apart from RAID?

The only other thing on the 'SATA Mode' menu is 'IDE'

You need to go into the array BIOS (using the correct hotkey during boot-up) where I suspect that you will see that no arrays have been created. Or, in other words, that neither of the two SATAs have been added to any array or if they were once added have since been removed.

It seems as though they must have been added when the guy built the system because it looks like the whole OS is cloned there, but nothing else has been 'mirrored' there since. I can't understand why he would have removed the drives from the array after he built the system, because he told me the second drive would be mirroring the first drive. But obviously that hasn't been the case for the whole time I've had the box.

The easiest way to experiment and retain your data safely would be to get an IDE drive and clone the drive you are using onto it. Then boot to the IDE drive via the BIOS settings. You can then experiment with the two SATAs and various RAID configurations to your heart's content.

Let me get something straight here; Is an 'IDE' drive the same thing as a 'PATA' drive? And I've never cloned a drive and wouldn't know how to do it, but I guess I can ask about that later, if I decide to do that.

Yes - IDE and EIDE are both commonly used to describe ATA devices that connect onto a 40-pin Parallel (PATA) interface.

Don't let the fact that the SATA can be configured in the BIOS setup as IDE confuse you. This setting (de facto IDE-Emulation) is to allow for some drives to be easily configured at the BIOS level so that Windows, for example, can be loaded without the need for special drivers.

A long-shot (theoretically anyway) is that there was initially a RAID-1 setup but that the array was broken or lost by say loss of the CMOS settings due to removal of the CMOS battery or resetting of the CMOS with a jumper.

There are 10 folders (directories), including some sub-folders, on the second drive, the so-called 'mirrored' drive, in this box. Drive F:

Folder = WINDOWS - Date Created: 2/27/2006
Folder = Documents and Settings - Date Created: 2/27/2006
Folder = Program Files - Date Created: 2/27/2006

The above three folders were created (mirrored?) 27 Feb, 2006 when the builder of the computer installed Windows and the various programs that he included with the price.

I took possession of the computer sometime in early March, 2006. Drive F has been visible in Windows Explorer the entire time I've had the computer.

As I think I mentioned somewhere earlier in the thread, there are 5 more folders that got automatically created later. They appear to be Windows Update folders. Why the following 5 folders got created or 'mirrored' when nothing else has been, I have no idea. All I know is I haven't changed any BIOS settings or removed the battery at any time or changed any jumper settings.

Folder = c3774a6b3c008df98d53c7f0 - Date Created: 11/16/2006
Folder = 8435901ca9343554253d7046a8 - Date Created: 12/25/2006
Folder = 80ca2af9e0fa05a8e6 - Date Created: 12/25/2006
Folder = b2f2bd9b37b0fb48bef4f4 - Date Created: 12/25/2006
Folder = 26c546c22073ef5589a250f68c9074 - Date Created: 1/23/2007

And then there are 2 folders that I manually created.

Folder = MyStuff - Date Created: 7/30/2007
Folder = Backup - Date Created: 7/30/2007

Windows update and service pack folders and the like are not necessarily made into the C: drive.

If you have had an F: volume on a separate disk drive all along then you have not had a RAID array for that period.

If is possible with a disk hex editor to view the last cylinder on the drive(s) to see if there are any array database entries there. That however is a very geekish approach but can tell you whether the disks have ever been in an array. Such viewing can only be done while the disks are not part of an array - they are hidden by the array's firmware and are different from one another (the only part along with the disk signarure which is not identical in a RAID-1 array) on both disks while they are part of the array.

You need to go into the array BIOS (using the correct hotkey during boot-up) ...

Yes, that's what I need to do next. Not sure what that hotkey is at the moment but I'll try to find out. Delete gets me into the BIOS but I'm not sure about the RAID BIOS.

Windows update and service pack folders and the like are not necessarily made into the C: drive.

You mean they can just arbitrarily be made on any old drive that exists in the computer???

If you have had an F: volume on a separate disk drive all along then you have not had a RAID array for that period.

I have two separate hard drives. Drive C: and drive F:
I have a DVD writer, drive D:
And a DVD-ROM, drive E:

No drives have been partitioned.

If is possible with a disk hex editor to view the last cylinder on the drive(s) to see if there are any array database entries there. That however is a very geekish approach but can tell you whether the disks have ever been in an array.

Is a disk hex editor different than a plain hex editor? And if so, do you know if I can get a free one somewhere? I'm willing to give it a try but I have no idea what I'd be looking for.

You mean they can just arbitrarily be made on any old drive that exists in the computer???
Folders name with random characters appear after installing a Service Pack or hotfix?
(http://www.winxptutor.com/randomfolders.htm)

Is a disk hex editor different than a plain hex editor? And if so, do you know if I can get a free one somewhere?A plain hex editor just edits files. A disk editor can additionally directly read and edit the hard drive (and sometimes the RAM as well) itself.
WinHex (http://www.winhex.com/winhex/) should be able to do what you want. You only need to pay for it if you want to be able to use it to directly edit/write changes to the drive. Basically you should open the physical (not the logical) drive in question. Scroll right to the end of the drive and then have a look at approx the last 1MB (approx 2000 sectors) of data. If all those sectors contain are zeros then if is most unlikely the drive was ever part of an array. Continuous random characters are probably a file placed near the end of the drive but a repetitive structure of lines of data each separated by many lines of zeros is the best way I can describe the appearance of an array's database.

You need to go into the array BIOS

With the Tab key, I entered the RAID BIOS

VIA Tech. VT8237 Series SATA RAID BIOS version 4.80

The main menu consists of 5 items (one of them is greyed out and not active)

Create Array
Delete Array
Create/Delete Spare
Select Boot Array
Serial Number View

On the right side of the screen it says hit the F1 Key to: View Array/disk Status (so that's what I did)

Array Name: Array 0
Array Mode: Mirror
Block Size(GB): N/A
Size(GB): 111.79

That's all the information that showed in that window.

Basically you should open the physical (not the logical) drive in question.

Thanks for the links.

I downloaded Winhex and will install it here in a few minutes.

I have partitioned a couple of drives in the past but I never did quite understand the difference between physical and logical drive.

Physical is unlikely to be misunderstood but logical is a term that sometimes needs a bit of care. The terms drive, partition and volume can also mean different things in different contexts and are also sometimes used as synonyms.

What WinHex calls a logical drive is any drive or partition with its own drive letter. When partitioning using 3rdParty Tools it is common to refer to the partitions inside an extended partition as logical partitions. Of course the (up to four) primary partitions are not truly unique "physical entities" being just logical areas of the hard drive defined by an addressing system of one sort or another. A RAID array or volume is also a logical container containing two or more physical drives.

I wonder if you removed the F Drive what the RAID BIOS will show and whether there would be any change. Normally removing one drive should "break the array" and give you a warning message. Its not quite clear from what you have posted whether none or one or two drives are included in the mirror. When one breaks an array like that there should be no problem when the drive is reattached as long as an OS was not booted-to since nothing would have yet been written to either drive. A broken array should be capable of being rebuilt using one or the other drives as the source and the other as the copy.

What WinHex calls a logical drive is any drive or partition with its own drive letter.

Ok, let me take your post one step at a time.

I see what you mean. The choice is pretty simple. When I click on the Open Drive button in Winhex, I'm presented with a simple choice of opening Logical Drives or Physical Media. So I'll click on the HD1, which is my second drive.

Scroll right to the end of the drive and then have a look at approx the last 1MB (approx 2000 sectors) of data. If all those sectors contain are zeros then if is most unlikely the drive was ever part of an array. Continuous random characters are probably a file placed near the end of the drive but a repetitive structure of lines of data each separated by many lines of zeros is the best way I can describe the appearance of an array's database.

I've got the drive open in Winhex.

There are two characters (F4) at the very end at offset F.

Then, about 30 lines up from the bottom, there are 4 lines of random characters and zeros.

Other than that, the last 2000 sectors contain nothing but zeros.

I wonder if you removed the F Drive what the RAID BIOS will show and whether there would be any change. Normally removing one drive should "break the array" and give you a warning message. Its not quite clear from what you have posted whether none or one or two drives are included in the mirror.

Well, we both agree on that. It wasn't clear to me either.

I don't know if it will help, but in Serial Number View, this is what shows:

Channel - Array Name- Status
Serial_Ch0 Master - Array 0 - Source
Serial_Ch1 Master - Array 0 - Mirror

When one breaks an array like that there should be no problem when the drive is reattached as long as an OS was not booted-to since nothing would have yet been written to either drive.

I've never booted to the F drive, but of course I have booted to the C drive many times.

A broken array should be capable of being rebuilt using one or the other drives as the source and the other as the copy.

Well of course, drive C would be the source and drive F is (was supposed to be) the copy.

But I'm not sure of what the implications would be if I pulled the second drive out and then put it back in. I sure wouldn't want the whole system to be unbootable, even if I first backed up all my data. I'm not ready for a complete reinstall at this stage of the game.

One of the problems with both SATA drives and RAID arrays is that unless one is familiar with a specific host controller and its BIOS setup then, in the absence of any decent documentation, there is a lot of trial and error since each system will be a bit different and since SATAs are still relatively new on the scene the setups are very non-standard. The time to experiment is obviously right at the start before one installs a functional system. I would always make and break arrays deliberately at this stage with a host controller I was unfamiliar with.

Breaking an array in the context of two mirrors isn't significant here since we already know that the two drives are not identical. When one breaks a RAID-1 array it just means they are no longer identical. Either or both drives removed from such an array should be able to function as independent entities on this or on any board with SATA controllers. Breaking a RAID-1 array dosent break the file system.

The F4 (end of drive) and the 4 lines of characters may or may not be related to an array database; I havent seen a VIA array in a long time. It is worth adding that some RAIDs require software or can be embellished by software installed under Windows and you might check whether you have or need to install the 4-in-1 chipset drivers and/or any Intel Accelerator packages; any such stuff should be on the mobo's CDROM.

I would have expected that the signature section of the RAID BIOS would have shown the disk signature of each drive so that they can specifically be identified there. The disk signature is the four bytes at offsets 0x1B8 thru 0x1BB on the first sector of the physical drive. I would also have expected you to have had a RAID/SCSI entry in Device Management.

I can only add that it looks as if there was an attempt to create a functional RAID-Mirror but something went wrong somewhere. Either an array was not created or enabled or no drives were added to the array, or the array needs software support of some sort or another.

Since having a functional system is paramount to you at this moment reconsider getting an IDE drive and copy one drive to it and use it while you get familiar with your own RAID setup.

It is worth adding that some RAIDs require software or can be embellished by software installed under Windows and you might check whether you have or need to install the 4-in-1 chipset drivers and/or any Intel Accelerator packages; any such stuff should be on the mobo's CDROM.

What are the 4-in-1 chipset drivers used for?

I see that there is some extra stuff on the CDROM.

Under software, there is:

Microsoft DirectX
ITE Hardware Doctor
BIOS Flash Utility for Windows
WarpSpeeder (Over Clock Utility)
Phoenix Core Managed Environment + McAfee
IC card reader driver (Optional)

Under drivers, there is:

VIA 4 in 1 Chipset Driver
VIA On Board Lan Driver
VIA Serial ATA Controller Driver
VIA USB 2.0 Driver
Realtek AC'97 Sound Drivers

I assume that some of this stuff would have to have been installed in the beginning, but I don't think all of it got installed.

It was impossible to learn much about this system from the guy who built it because most of my technical questions got the response, "I don't teach."

Breaking an array in the context of two mirrors isn't significant here since we already know that the two drives are not identical. When one breaks a RAID-1 array it just means they are no longer identical. Either or both drives removed from such an array should be able to function as independent entities on this or on any board with SATA controllers. Breaking a RAID-1 array dosent break the file system.

Since these disks are in fact not identical, is it safe to assume that if I decide not to RAID, that I can just use the second drive for whatever purpose I choose?

And I have a question about your suggesting to clone my system to a third drive in order to test my RAID setup. If I did that, would I run into problems with Microsoft and 'adding new hardware' to my WinXP system? Right now, the OS has been copied, one way or another, to the second drive. This seems to violate MS Billy's license terms. Copying it again to a third drive seems like it might be viewed by MS Billy as a cardinal sin. What I DON'T need is for my computer to all of a sudden be popping up with 'counterfeit WinXP' messages.

If my first drive fails, will I even be able to boot that second copy of WinXP in the F drive without running into MS license issues?

would I run into problems with Microsoft and 'adding new hardware' to my WinXP system?
It's not a cardinal sin in these circumstances. You can multiboot the same OS on the same system as many times as you like. If the new scenario is detected as new hardware and a reactivation is required then its a nuisance but it can be done either on the web or via telephone. I have never known MS default on not activating just because a change from IDE to RAID was consedered a bit enought change to warrant reactivation.

Have bin there and got the T-shirt. A potential nuisance but not a no no.

PS I wonder what options you get if you were to choose the options both to create and to delete an array. The options could be informative.

I wonder what options you get if you were to choose the options both to create and to delete an array. The options could be informative.

Just checked.

Create Array
Auto Setup For Data Security
Array Mode RAID 1 (Mirroring)
Select Disk Drives
Start Create Process

Note: I didn't Enter into any of those options.

At the bottom of the screen, the 2 disks are listed and their Status is shown as CH0 = Source and CH1 = Mirror. Their Array Name is Array 0 for both and both Drive Names are listed as the same - ST3120026AS

Delete Array
The only options here are to Delete either of the disks from the Array in the bottom half of the screen and they are both listed with the same info as above.

Select Boot Array
Same as above.

Here's an interesting thing.

Apparently the guy who built this computer installed the Program Files sub-folders on two different dates - 2/27/2006 and 3/1/2006, according to Windows Explorer.

All the Progam Files sub folders have the same creation dates and times on both drives which would seem to indicate (to me) that drive F was mirroring drive C at the time. How else could the creation times be identical?