I just got a second 80GB SATA HDD and I plugged it up. I never had two before so I never installed the RAID drivers. I tried installing the drivers and everything was fine until I restarted my PC. I got blue screen before windows even loaded so I restarted my PC and restored it. Were can I find RAID drivers that won't mess up my PC? P.S. I have a Soltek SL-K8AN2E-GR motherboard. I tried there drivers from the website but the same thing happened. AMD Athlon 64 3300+ 512 MB DDR SDRAM ATI RADEON 9700 Pro Samsung 160GB HDD Windows XP Home Edition

Are you trying to install RAID 0 or RAID 1? RAID 0 makes your 2 disks look like one big one. It is NOT recommended, as a failure of either disk will result in total loss of data on both. It has no noticeable benefit on speed. RAID 1 is mirroring the disks - only one drive is seen, and data is written to both in parallel, making the second a "mirror" of the first. This is great for avoiding down time or loss of data if a disk fails, but still requires regular external backups, as other errors can result in corrupted data. Personally, I think RAID 5 is the only one worth bothering with, but that runs pricey!. Are you sure you really want to run RAID?

I agree will oldfogey. Don't use RAID unless you have an overwhelming reason to do so, like mission critical data storage. You don't have to run RAID. There seems to be a misconception that two SATA drives must be configured as a RAID array as the drivers for both SATA and RAID are loaded at the same point during the installation procedure. Two SATA drives can be configured independently just like PATA drives. Stuart

Well I just wanted to try a RAID because I am always trying new things. I was going to try to do a RAID 0, but if its not that great then I guess I won't. So how do I configure it to run seperatly? Also, how do I remove the password on my setup? I tried taking out the lithium battery then putting it back in but that didn't clear the CMOS I guess. AMD Athlon 64 3300+ 512 MB DDR SDRAM ATI RADEON 9700 Pro Samsung 160GB HDD Windows XP Home Edition

There is nothing wrong with trying new things at all..As a matter of fact I encourage it.. Raid set-ups are nothing to be scared off if configured correctly..... I have run a raid 0 array since the very first mother boards came out with the IDE raid controllers, with no trouble at all..Wel except the ones that I caused. The only way you can lose anything is if the drive fails altogether, but no diff to having a single drive do the same thing on a standard set-up. On most controllers you will need 2 or more drives before you can build a raid array, there are some which will accept a single drive and still create a raid array. Tho whole point of raid is for system and file read and write perfomance...Raid 0 in particular..Most common use is for video editing...as you can format the drive in 64 K cluster size for optimum performance, against the normal default of 4K for XP. You support CD will have a raid array manager tool on it, if you install it and configure the tool it will warn you far in advance of impending disk fail...And it will also tell you how to install a new drive and rebuild the array with no data loss... You can even change boards, providing the new board has the same raid controller and you don't delete the raid array, and also remember which drive was connected to which port.. Installation of the OS is a little diff than normal, special drivers are needed and they are supplied ether on floppy or on the CD with a floppy drive creator. Unlike normal drivers raid driver needs to be installed before the windows installer event starts to copy the folder to the drive.. Note the very first blue screen of the XP install. At the bottom it says press PF6 to install additional drivers etc...Other wise the installer will not even recognise the hard d rives. This is a SCSI interface used on large servers for many many years.... So if you want have a play with raid GO DO IT, all its going to cost you is a bit of time, but a darn good learning exercise I say..... IF IT AINT BROKE, DONT FIX IT A8N-SLI Deluxe AMD X64 3500+ Wnchst Corsair 2x512 DDR400 Dual Channel GV-NX6600128D PCIX Graphics Card Ggbyte GT Pro CPU Cooler Zalman VF700-CU VGA Cool

>> The only way you can lose anything is if the drive fails altogether, but no diff to having a single drive do the same thing on a standard set-up. << Not true. If you have a software error that prevents the OS from loading and have to reinstall the OS you have lost your RAID array although the disks my be in perfect working order. Recovering data from a broken RAID O array is nigh on impossible >> Tho whole point of raid is for system and file read and write perfomance...Raid 0 in particular..<< Not true. The whole point of RAID is redundancy. (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) Only RAID 0 promises a performance increase at the expense of redundancy and even then it is minimal. Most RAID configurations cause a performance hit because data has to written twice. There are configurations that will bring the performance up to normal using a combination of stripped and mirrored drives, but that usually requires fours drives. Stuart

Not true. If you have a software error that prevents the OS from loading and have to reinstall the OS you have lost your RAID array although the disks my be in perfect working order. Recovering data from a broken RAID O array is nigh on impossible Aboe statement is not coorect !!!!!!!!! A faultu program can only prevent the OS from booting but will NOT I repeat WILL NOT delete the array !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The only way to actualy delete the stripe or any other array is to do it YOURSELF MANUALY !!!!!!! first you need to delete the partitons, than you neet to delete the arraythrough the raid controller BIOS.... recovery of an os on raid setupis not diff to normal setups, you can infact delete the C partition altogether and reinstate it, and as long as you dont delete any of the other partiitons all data will stay there. Ben there done this a number of times, just to rey what can or can not be done !!!!!!! It is a known fact that raid arrays have a much faster file read and write times that has been proven time and time again, i particular if you use the high speed drives like the Raptor 10K units... Dont forget that in a stripe o array data is not written twice !!! But once only and in a random order, over a number of drives not just a particular one !!!!!!!!! I say again as long as YOU dont delete the array you can recover........ I suggest you have a bit more of aread and study into this !!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have ued and still do use Raid 0 with 100% stability and absltly no data loss at any time !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am also unfortunate to be part of the team at work who look afater a Raid 5 corporate setup with about 2 tbts of corpporate data storage etc, so i sort of think that gives me slight edge... But mind you if you would like to swap by all means, the whole system is old and its driving us nuts !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nothign wrong with raid , set it up correctly it it works a treat !!!!!!!!!!!!!! IF IT AINT BROKE, DONT FIX IT A8N-SLI Deluxe AMD X64 3500+ Wnchst Corsair 2x512 DDR400 Dual Channel GV-NX6600128D PCIX Graphics Card Ggbyte GT Pro CPU Cooler Zalman VF700-CU VGA Cool