Creating a RAID array?

[Mike Toy]

HELP! I'm trying to create a new RAID array and am somewhat lost - I am a photographer, not a techie so bear with me! I currently have a 4.3 GB HDD on IDE channel 1 (ABIT KT7-RAID MB) which stores programs and data. I would like to use a RAID array to store data opnly, and leave the programs themselves on the existing HDD. Neither one of the drivres in the RAID array need to be bootable as far as i am concerned,; they are only there to store data. It is intended tro work like this: Switch on machine, bot from existing HDD, work, store data on RAID (Mirrored) array. I have set up a mirror aray using two IBM 30GB deskstars, one on IDE 3, the other on IDE 4. So far so good. Looking at Hardware Profiles in Windows seetings ( Windows 98 SE) one IBM drive appears as it should - the other is irrored and therefore hidden. HOWEVER when i click on My Computer the drive is not there, only the original 4.3 GB drive appears. WHY IS THIS? Have followed the instructions as far as i can tell, the HPT370 software recognizes the RAID array but not windows. The only thing i have NOT done is format the two IBM's - they are brand new and as yet unused, do i need to format them? If so how do i do this being that Windows canot find them and has assigned no drive letter? Obviously I am doing something wrong, but what? Help would be much appreciated.
Thanks

[Ghost_Hacker]

Check out this link . One solution was to disable PCI#2 Access#1 in the BIOS.

Abit KT7 FAQ (http://www.icrontic.com/faqs/kt7faq/kt7faq.htm)

Choose the "disk" section.
Good luck http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

------------------
"It's just a whisper in my Ghost"



[This message has been edited by Ghost_Hacker (edited 01-31-2001).]

[walleyeten]

You need 4 drives for a stripe & mirror array just to have a mirror array. If you only have two drives ( that would be striping ); you set both drives to master using IDE3 & IDE 4. Yes after raid creates the array; they must be fdisked and reformated.

[kenja]

The BIOS settings for the Highpoint chip-based IDE RAID allow the choice of either striping (aka mode 0) (for increased performance) or mirroring (aka mode 1) (for data redundancy) when using two drives attached to the controller. (At least my Iwill SIDE-RAID66 does.) If four drives are involved, then both mirroring and striping is done. I believe the Promise BIOS behaves the same way.

As walleyeten says, your drive(s) must be partitioned and formatted in order for Windows 9x to recognize it (them).

[This message has been edited by kenja (edited 02-07-2001).]