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General discussion

RAID5 Help

Nov 29, 2010 2:53AM PST

Hi,
I've been pulling my hair out trying to set up a RAID5 array with my new hard drives, but so far am having no luck.

For reference, here are some of my system details:
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate
Motherboard: Gigabyte M57SLi-S4 (Running BIOS update FG)
HDD 1: Western Digital 500G (WD5000AADS)
RAID HDDs: 4x Samsung Spinpoint F4 2Tb (HD204UI)


My problem is this. I am trying to set up the 4x Samsung 2Tb drives in a RAID5 configuration and using them as storage space. The OS and programs etc. are all loaded onto the WD 500G drive and this is then used as an access drive.

However, every time I try to set up the RAID5 array one of two things happen:

1. I build the array in the RAID utility. However, once I initialize the disk in Disk manager the capacity of it drops from 5.8Tb to 1.45Tb. If I reboot the system the RAID utility still shows that the array is healthy and all drives are still present.

2. I build the array in the RAID utility. I then initialize the disk in Disk Manager. However, when I reboot the system, the RAID utility shows and error with the array. On closer inspection it shows that all but one of the four disks have been removed from the array.


I have tried to speak with Gigabyte support about this over the last week and a half but they have been next to no help.
If anyone could help me solve this it would be greatly appreciated.

If you need more specific details please let me know.

Many thanks in advance.

Discussion is locked

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Do you have XP or Vista CD?
Nov 29, 2010 11:43AM PST

Try one of those OS's to see if it works. Also try nVidia support to see if W7 supports RAID on that chipset's controller.

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I got to ask.
Nov 29, 2010 12:06PM PST

That Windows 7 Ultimate is a "real" one? Some one brought in a cracked version. So much that didn't work. It was not funny.
bob

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Success
Nov 29, 2010 4:15PM PST

Hooray! Managed to find an update on the nVidia site which seems to have solved the problem (in my limited test this morning anyway).
The old drivers did support RAID but seem to have just been struggling with the size of the disks.

Thank you both for your help.

PS - Yes it is a really real copy of Windows (OEM)