Have a raid 0....dual boot xp and vista...raid failure, get the little window that says raid disk failure...and in nvidia monitor says one of the drives is failing. Can boot to Vista, but not to xp. They are 2 hitachi 120gb. Have 6 partitions....xp, vista, programs, personal stuff (pics etc), junk (swap file) and games....just got 2 WD 160 gb want to start over. Raid 1 this time. question....are all these partitions necessary, eg...best way to set up, and....how do I tell which of HD failed....and can I do a raid 5 with 3 disks (the good hitachi).....whew!! appreciate any help thanks Joe
I'll talk about what I know: if you make a RAID 1, you will have 160Gb but they will be redundant. If one disk fails, you still have the same data on the other disk. As for the partitions, if you use two operative systems you need at least two partitions, one for each. If you want to make more than two is up to you, but not necessary at all. And to find out which of the disks failed, run the Hitachi Drive Fitness Test, which you can download from here. Good luck!
Yeh I'm about to go raid zero myself and as far as partitions I'll make one partition on each drive in raid 0 for the os, one on each drive in raid zero for games and separate os and leave the rest of the drives?? not sure about that yet but I'll use other drives to store important info as I already do. My outlook folder is not on os drive, about all I have on os drive is my documents which only a few programs use and I always save whatever I need to from there before reinstall. System is set up where if I need to reinstall I will not lose any info, only programs and with systems now it's fairly easy to install on need basis.
natesuniverse: keep in mind that in RAID 0 if one disk fails you lose the whole data because it is distributed on both disks. That's what happened to bklyn1028. If this is acceptable to you or you have good backup practices, then go ahead! :thumbup:
Ideally, you'll want RAID0 with your Operating Systems, 2 partitions, one for XP, one for Vista. On a Separate controller, you should have RAID1 for your important Data. Operating Systems are easy to loose, providing your data is always on the other hard drives. Of course, you need 4 hard drives for that, so might be out of the question. RAID5 is a good option.
Yeh I've got pretty bad backup practices but there is nothing that I keep on os partition that I need to save. It's not like I haven't had to use knoppix to transfer data xp couldn't find already. I've got two western digital 160GB(WD1600AAJS) drives on the way and can't wait to play!!!! Saved games are about all that resides on os partition and can back those up easily enough, the rest of my data is kept on other partitions and or drives. As for outlokk I have learned with that as well to keep it on a different partition along with leaving a copy on the mail server and have it delete messages I delete. I've heard of a few problems with raid and nvivdia boards though, not sure what you have bklyn but you may see if you can update the sata bios or make sure you have the latest drivers. Also are you overclocking?? Do a google search on "nvidia 680i raid fail" and you'll find more info as to how people have gotten it to run stable. Anything from ht setting to upping voltage on sbb and sbb-mch by .2. Do a little research and see which way you want to go. I'm sure you probably have another raid controller on that board, maybe try that one.
