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Problem Creating RAID 1

idata
Employee
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I have an Intel(R) ICH7R/DH SATA RAID Controller on an HP box running Vista Ultimate. The PC has three hard drives; Two (2) 320 GB Seagate drives (with the first of the two being the system drive), plus a 700 GB drive used for backups. I have made sure that the controller is set for "RAID" in BIOS (versus IDE or AHCI). The non-system 320 GB drive (which is the one I want to use when mirroring the system drive) currently has some backup data. Both 320 GB drives are marked as Basic drives in Disk Manager. I have downloaded and installed Intel Matrix Storage Console version 8.8.

The Problem. When I try to Create RAID volume From Existing Hard Drive (pointing to the first 320 GB drive as the source, and to the second 320 GB drive as the destination), the "Specify Volume Size" screen is always disabled, and I always get a "Volume creation failed" message after a delay of about 30 seconds. In addition, the second 320 GB destination drive is no longer visible in Windows Explorer after attempting to do this (but shows up again after a reboot).

Does anyone have any idea where I am going wrong here? Please let me know if additional info is needed.

Thanks!

Dan

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idata
Employee
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Hi, Dan.

Two questions ..

a) You said that the non-system drive currently has some backup data on it. Are you ok with wiping that out? (The volume creation act will copy the entire 320GB source drive onto the 320GB mirror drive.) Or is it on some type of hidden partition (I've seen drives where there is recovery info on a hidden partition so the drive shows up as smaller than it is - because it's hiding part of it)?

b) What size/capacity is shown for each of the drives in the console?

thanks!

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idata
Employee
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Yes, I'm OK with erasing the data on the destination drive.

The console (meaing the Intel Matrix...), shows both drives at exactly 298 GB, although I know that the system drive has a small (8 MB??) recovery partition).

Thanks Elizabeth!

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idata
Employee
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Ah, sorry. I mis-read. It doesn't really matter what data is on the recovery drive - but when you said recovery data, I was thinking of recovery data that's hidden on the drive somewhere.

Can you shrink the size of the partition on your source drive by 4MB or so? If yes, do that and then try to migrate again. If the drives are the same size, that usually works (described @ http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-029494.htm http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-029494.htm

Let me know if that works for you.

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idata
Employee
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Shrink the size of the SOURCE drive, not the DESTINATION drive??? Just making sure...I wouldn't think you could shrink the system drive like that.

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idata
Employee
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yes, source partition. Unless the partition is totally full of data - in which case you wouldn't want to do this regardless - you can usually reduce the size of the partition by a bit. (Cannot remember off-hand if this requires third-party software or can be done in the OS)

When a drive is mirrored, not only do you have to copy one drive to the other, but you have to add data to both drives that marks them as a RAID volume and gives the volume info. If the partition on the source drive takes up the entire drive so there's no space left to add the RAID info without overwriting some of the partition, you'll get that error [might be more reasons, but that's the most common one we've seen] - hence the reason that reducing the partition size slightly on the source drive should resolve the issue.

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idata
Employee
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OK. The source drive is about 40% free space according to Computer Manager. The destination drive is about the same in terms of free space. After shrinking the source, computer manger now show its size = 289 GB. The destination drive (before I tried creating the RAID drive again) had a size of 298 GB. So it's larger that the source.

Tried again, same result (after rebooting so I could see the destination again).

Any other thoughts? Thanks, Elizabeth.

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idata
Employee
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Hi,

I have the exact same problem as DanJr. In this case two WD 250GB SATA drives that I want to migrate to RAID 0. I also get the message "Volume creation failed".

Like DanJr, shrinking partition on source drive (by 200 MB) did not help.

Any thoughts what else could be causing this problem?

Regards,

Robert

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idata
Employee
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Robert/Dan ..

Can you let me know what version of the driver you're each using?

I haven't found anything else that helps (it resolves the main reason for the error) .. so need to figure out why you're running into this.

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idata
Employee
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I assume you mean for the iaStor.sys file, Elizabeth. The version I am showing is 8.8.0.1009

Thanks!

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idata
Employee
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Hi Elizabeth,

I am using version 8.7.0.1007, the one available for download on the downloadcenter.intel.com site for my board (D945GPM).

Edit: just now deinstalled 8.7.0.1007 and installed 8.8.0.1009. Didn't help, still having the same problem (as I guess was to be expected).

Regards,

Robert

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idata
Employee
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thanks, both. I'm playing around with a system - maybe I can get it to happen here.

and maybe someone else will see this and chime in if they've had a similar issue and gotten it to work.

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idata
Employee
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Hi,

I was just reading through this thread.

I just wanted to make sure that you have configured SATA as RAID in the BIOS prior to OS installation.

If this is not the case, then I assume this may be the cause of the error.

Cheers

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RPrus2
Beginner
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I had the same problem. I broke the raid 1 apart then removed one of the two 300 gb drives and replaced it with a 1TB drive. Used Seagate disk wizard to close the 300 to the 1 TB. Took the 300 drive out and put the 1 TB in Port0 and then added another 1TB to port 1. When I try to Create RAID volume From Existing Hard Drive (pointing to the first 1 TB drive as the source, and to the second 1 TB drive as the destination), the "Specify Volume Size" screen is always disabled, and I always get a "Volume creation failed" message after a delay of about 30 seconds. In addition, the second 1 TB destination drive is no longer visible in Windows Explorer after attempting to do this (but shows up again after a reboot). Details of my system: D975BX motherboard, Matrix Storage concole 8.8.

What can I do? Please help.

Rudy

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RPrus2
Beginner
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DanJR,

I am having the same problem as you. Any advice? Did you find an answer?

Rudy

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idata
Employee
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Hi Rudy,

Unfortunately, I can't help you. Never have gotten anyone to tell me why I can't get RAID working. Be nice, but...

Dan

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idata
Employee
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Belated, yes (I have configured as RAID in BIOS).

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RPrus2
Beginner
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DanJr

How does that work configuring it in BIOS? I have 4 drives on my computer. Two right now are in Raid 1 and are 500 GB. Can I go into Bios and set the two TB drives in a raid 1? If so how do I so it?

Also, the original 300GB drives are all messed up since I tried to put them back into the computer and they don't work now so I don't have any back up if I mess up the 1TB one I have with all the system knowledge on it.

Rudy

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idata
Employee
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I have the same problem as DAN Jr. creating RAID 0. My source drive has 71 Mb unallocated space. I am running 8.9 Everything is exactly the same as DanJr (not the drive size I have two 500 Mb drives) except I am going for RAID 0 instead. I am creating a raid volume from an existing drive. I have same symptoms as Dan Jr. This is a x58 Ich10R chipset.

Configured by our IT department the source drive has a unallocated space, a recovery partition, and it is the boot (system) drive. We have symantec enterprise AV and Symantec Backup product. The BIOS is set to RAID. This is Windows XP Professional 64 bit sp2. The system is a DELL

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idata
Employee
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I'm having this same problem. Intel Matrix Storage Console is 8.9.

I am trying to create a RAID 1 volume from my existing boot drive. The second hard drive is identical model # , identical firmware version.

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idata
Employee
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Back-up all your data to anything else besides the two 1TB drives, create the RAID1 array from scratch and then move back your data.

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