How to Run Raid 0 on a Asus P5N32-E SLI nForce 680i SLI

[Tbull]

I just purchased these new components and was wondering how easy it is to set up raid 0 on this board using the 2 raptors

I have heard nothing but problems some say i need 2 3rd party drivers to load under the f6 option
but what drivers? every site i look on seems to say something different....so thats why im asking here
People say this is the place


heres the New Parts
and im running Win XP (32bit) SP2
i also have 2 x 120 gig sataII drives for storage


INTEL Core 2 Duo E6850 3GHz FSB1333MHz 4M LGA775 Retail BX80557E6850 Processor

(2) Western Digital Raptor's WD360ADFD 36GB Serial ATA 10,000RPM Hard Drive w/16MB Buffer

Asus P5N32-E SLI nForce 680i SLI Socket 775 1333MHz DDR2-800 ATX Motherboard

Corsair Dominator Series TWIN2X2048-8500C5D 2GB Kit DDR2-1066 PC2-8500 Memory

EVGA 768-P2-N835-AR e-GeForce 8800 GTX Superclocked 768MB GDDR3 PCI Express Video Card w/Dual DVI, HDTV-out


Any and all help will greatly be appreciated

Peace

 

[moose64]

Ok I just did this with my P5N32-E SLI board. To setup the raid you do need the drivers for it you need nforce winxp raid drivers if you have a friends computer running a 680i chipset you can just copy them for his by going into C drive-NVidia file-Nforce file- open the next file -goto IDE file- Winxp or something like that -sata raid copy the file in it to a cd or floppy. When windows ask for 3rd party drivers put that disk in.If you don't have a computer to copy them off of then google it to find them.(680i chipset).

Now start your computer and press the delete key to enter bios in there you will see you raptors on the on sata1 thur 6 plugs make a note what ones there are on. Now go into the advanced tab- to onboard Device Configuration- in that go into Serial-ata configuration, on Serial-ata Controller set to Enable, under that set RAID Enable to Enable, Then Enable RAID on the 2 raptors drives now exit and save to restart.

On restart you should see press F10 to enter raid setup do it.
Now in there you want to setup a striping in the first box then in the 2nd box creating a raid volume set that at 64k or what you want.
Then in the 3rd box pick your 2 raptors by moving them over one at a time to the box next to it then press F7 to set them up a clear disk data box comes up click yesthen your new raid comes up press the B key to make it boot.
In the window it should say Boot yes -Id whatever -Status Healthy - Vendor NVidia - Array model name stripe.
Exit by pressing Ctrl - X and go back into the bios and make your raid drives the boot drive and exit and save with the windows disk in and Windows will start install it self when it ask press F6 to install 3rd party drivers press it and windows will ask you to put the disk in when it need them.

 

[ausch30]

If you would like you can setup 2 arrays and have the Raptors on the boot array and the other 2 drives on a seperate storage array. It's a little more complicated to do this but I just wanted to throw the option out there.

 

[Tbull]

Thanks Moose for the help
BTW i did find the driver. http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_680i_winxp32_intel_9.53.html

Well i hope it is lol

even though one would think its a simple task, you wouldn't believe all the drivers i found that look to much like this one
thats why i needed some input from someone that went through this already.....again Thanks


AUsch30....i thought about attempting a storage array....but until i put another comp together and use this one strictly for gaming I'm a bit Leary on the raid fizzing out on me and trashing my stored info 🙁

but i will keep that in mind
Thanks for the input

Peace



BTW my parts were delivered today Woot Woot

Man oh man that 8800 is a Frigin BEAST lol i hope it fits in my case.......will find out soon enough

i can tell already if i had two i would need a new case my LianLi PC60 case houses the HD's off the bottom towards the front....conveniently in the path of the second sli slot