Installing a Driver for RAID

[mel grande]

sorry if u already got a message from me about this i culdnt tell whether it sent or not... im new to this webiste...
anyways,
my computer randomly shut down and went to BlueScreen, and it says i need a driver for my RAID controller. i know nothing about this and you seemed to know a lot, so if you could help me that'd be soo super amazing cuz i'm totally freaking out right now cuz if my computer gets messed up again my mom'll kill me cuz she can't afford to fix it again... and plus i don't want to lose all my files and documents and pictures, those are like my life...
soo is there anything i should know or do before i follow the instructions my computer is giving me to install a driver?? do i NEED to install a driver??
its not gonna delete everything saved on my computer is it????
and is RAID automatically on, or how do i find out??
if you can help, thank you soooo so much!!!
and if not, i guess thanks for trying!!

 

[Don Phillipson]

my computer randomly shut down and went to BlueScreen, and it says i need
a driver for my RAID
controller. i know nothing about this . . .
i don't want to lose all my files and documents and pictures, those are
like my life...
soo is there anything i should know or do before i follow the instructions
my
computer is giving me to install a driver?? do i NEED to install a
driver??

Why should any home user need RA = Redundant Arrays (duplicated hard
drives)? The market for RAID was business and public-service computers
which could not afford to lose any data under any circumstances (and could
pay for the extra hardware) and could never shut down to back up data (your
files and pictures).

RAID is documented in Wikipedia etc. and in motherboard manuals.
Supplying the requested RAID driver (from the motherboard hardware
CD or else a download) ought not to delete any existing data.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

On Mon, 11 Oct 2010 15:57:57 -0700, "Don Schmidt" <Don

The need to have RAID or not would depend on how you value your data. I
have a RAID setup for I value my data very highly; I also backup monthly to
a RAID network drive. The only extra costs for having RAID is the cost of a
second hard drive and these days, pennies compared to the '80's. My first
hard drive was a SCSI drive with an Atari computer; the 20mb drive retailed
for $900! I was very fortunate for I got it at a discount price of $750!!
How times have changed.

RAID 1 (mirroring) is *not* a backup solution. RAID 1 uses two or
more drives, each a duplicate of the others, to provide redundancy,
not backup. It's used in situations (almost always within
corporations, not in homes) where any downtown can't be tolerated,
because the way it works is that if one drive fails the other takes
over seamlessly. Although some people thing of RAID 1 as a backup
technique, that is *not* what it is, since it's subject to
simultaneous loss of the original and the mirror to many of the most
common dangers threatening your data--severe power glitches, nearby
lightning strikes, virus attacks, theft of the computer, etc. Most
companies that use RAID 1 also have a strong external backup plan in
place.

"Why RAID is (usually) a Terrible Idea"
http://www.pugetsystems.com/articles?&id=29

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

On Wed, 13 Oct 2010 08:07:37 -0700, "Don Schmidt" <Don

I agree with you Ken.

Thanks, Don.

A UPS carries a higher necessity (to me); as you mentioned, power spikes,
brown outs, surges are a more of a threat to your data and equipment.

Yes, but it's important to realize that a UPS is unlikely to be of any
help if a surge is caused by a nearby lightning strike. The only real
protection against that is disconnection of the power and internet
connections when thunderstorms are around.