Switch from IDE Controller to RAID Controller after Vista Install?

[Guest]

Hi All.

I was having trouble getting Vista to load, and trying different things, I
switch the controller in the Bios from RAID to IDE, even though I want to set
my two drives up as a RAID 1. Once I did this and popped out 2GB of the 4GB
of RAM I had in the system, the install went fine.

I have both of my 500GB Seagate drives now installed, one with Vista and the
other as a separate formatted drive.

My question, is there any way to change the BIOS now to RAID and have these
two drives become a RAID 1? I was hoping to be able to change the controller
to the RAID controller, and then just have the one drive build the RAID 1 on
the other drive. Obviously this doesn't work.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can accomplish this task? Like I said,
Vista would not load for me when the controller was set to the RAID
controller, even though I loaded the driver when asked during the install.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

-Sully

 

[Curious]

SATA is an interface standard. PATA otherwise known as IDE is also an
interface standard. RAID options are for different methods of configuring
the drives on a system regardless of the interface IDE 100(PATA 100), IDE
133(PATA 133), SATA 150, SATA 300 or SCSCI, However AFAIK all RAID drive
configurations require that each of the drives is using the same interface
standard.

 

[DL]

Dont quite follow this statement;
"However AFAIK all RAID drive configurations require that each of the drives
is using the same interface standard"
If you are saying all drives, where raid is used for some, must use the same
interface that is incorrect.
My sys is happily running raid on one controler, other sata drives on an
other sata controler, and ide drives on an ide controler.
But then I may have missunderstood you.

 

[DL]

Read the mobo manual, or on line at Dell help for your PC as to how to
utilise the extra drives in raid mode, whilst booting from your origonal
drive, or post to Dell forums
The implimentation of raid can vary from PC to PC and can involve various
bios settings and connecting drives to specific ports, particularly if you
wish to boot from the origonal drive setup

 

[Curious]

No I did not know that what you are doing was possible. I thought that if
you were running a 4 drive RAID5 configuration that all 4 of the drives had
to be using the same interface.
If you are saying that you have a RAID configuration running on one
controller and non RAID drives on other controllers of course that that
would be possible.

 

[Tom Ferguson]

I do not know how you have the HDs configured for the RAID vs. non-Raid. I
am going to assume that the configuration is correct on the
controller(s) and the BIOS setting are correct for the RAID/non-RAID. If
so, this might be a boot order setting problem.

Enter the BIOS upon startup and assure that the HD with your OS is set as
the first HD in the boot order - that is is listed _before_ the RAID
array.

Save settings and exit.