SATA RAID questions

[standin wave]

I have two PCs. One has a fairly cheap ASUS mobo with an IDE drive running WINXP SP2 and two 160GB SATA drives in RAID 0 config 16k stripes. I have around 200GB of video on them. I also have an IC7 MAX3 mobo with two IDE drives, a Plextor IDE CDROM, three 200GB SATA drives RAID 0 (over 70% full) and a Plextor 712 DVD SATA, again on WinXP SP2. I have another two spare SATA plugs on Southbridge on the IC7MAX3 and I was wanting to move the two SATA drives first mentioned onto the second machine. There's no PSU issue (got 480W Tagan), but when I pressed CTRL I to set the array up on the second machine it thought the drives were 'new' and I wasn't about to wipe them, so I exited the setup and moved drives back (all OK).
Question is - can I just move these drives? If so, how? Obviously, I don't want to lose any of the data!

[ski]

Go into BIOS, select Integrated Peripherals/Onchip IDE Device, select Enhanced for 'Onchip Serial ATA, select RAID for 'Onchip Serial ATA Mode', select Disabled for 'SATA RAID ROM'(only if the SATA drives are used for storage), and save the changes.

[standin wave]

Originally Posted by ski Go into BIOS, select Integrated Peripherals/Onchip IDE Device, select Enhanced for 'Onchip Serial ATA, select RAID for 'Onchip Serial ATA Mode', select Disabled for 'SATA RAID ROM'(only if the SATA drives are used for storage), and save the changes.

Is that BEFORE I actually physically connect up the two SATA drives, also should I back up all the data 'just in case'? And how will the second PC figure out that it is striped with 16k stripes?

sw

[ski]

200 GB of data is a lot to back up if, for instance, it's going onto DVD's, and not onto another HD. But it's always a good idea to back up any data you do not want to lose.

You can connect the SATA drives, and then make the changes in BIOS.

The 2nd PC should work ok as long as the system did not boot up from the SATA drives. If it does have problems, then go into its BIOS, and disable the SATA controller.

[DoomLord]

Originally Posted by standin wave I have two PCs. One has a fairly cheap ASUS mobo with an IDE drive running WINXP SP2 and two 160GB SATA drives in RAID 0 config 16k stripes. I have around 200GB of video on them. I also have an IC7 MAX3 mobo with two IDE drives, a Plextor IDE CDROM, three 200GB SATA drives RAID 0 (over 70% full) and a Plextor 712 DVD SATA, again on WinXP SP2. I have another two spare SATA plugs on Southbridge on the IC7MAX3 and I was wanting to move the two SATA drives first mentioned onto the second machine. There's no PSU issue (got 480W Tagan), but when I pressed CTRL I to set the array up on the second machine it thought the drives were 'new' and I wasn't about to wipe them, so I exited the setup and moved drives back (all OK). Question is - can I just move these drives? If so, how? Obviously, I don't want to lose any of the data!

SW, be REAL careful and back up all your data before you attempt moving those drives to another machine. Your drives were linked together as a RAID 0 array, and can only be read
the same way. You cannot split the drives and get data off of either one separately. Since
there are different types of RAID controllers and they use different drivers and offer different
features and options, movng an array from one motherboard to another may not work (the
new RAID controller may not be able to read the array due to differences in hardware and/or
drivers/software/options). Back up all of your data, and then try it. See if you can duplicate the settings you had from the original controller on the new one. Hopefully, the new controller will see it as ARRAY 0, with the total correct drive space indicated. If it does,
my friend,you are indeed DOWNTOWN. If it doesn't, the array is probably not compatible with the controller's options. Hope this helps....and GOOD LUCK!!

DoomLord

[standin wave]

Thanks for the advice, DoomLord - better safe than sorry!

sw