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Upgrading from Intel Matrix Storage Manager 32 bit to 64 bit

idata
Employee
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I currently have a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R mobo and have the following raid 5 setup:

Port 0: 150 GB Non-Raid drive, Operating System

Port 1: 80 GB Non Raid Drive, Scratch Disk for Photoshop

Port 2: 500 GB Raid 5

Port 3: 500 GB Raid 5

Port 4: 500 GB Raid 5

I am currently using XP 32 bit operating system but want to go to Windows 7. My question is since my operating system is on a separate drive, can I just install windows 7 and my raid system will remain intack? Or do I need to install the latest storage manager in the 64 bit version? Or will Windows 7 do that for me? Also I am thinking about installing the Windows 7 on my scratch drive, and make that my boot drive.

Thanks,

Jimmy

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idata
Employee
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Hi Jimmy,

Well to be honest, i will assume that Intel boards and Gigabyte boards behave similarly due to same chipsets used.

Anyway, everything that i will comment are based on the Intel Boards, so use the same theory and principle possibly.

Okay on Intel Desktop boards, some of them comes with the Intel Matrix Onboard RAID Controller.

Here are the tests which i did last time: 

=============================

 

I had 4 sata drives and 1 sata optical drive.

 

I connected the 4 sata drives to first four sata ports (Sata0, sata1, sata2, sata3)

 

Then i connected the optical drive on the last sata port (sata5)

I went into the BIOS, i configured SATA as RAID. So all the onboard sata controller is configured as RAID not IDE.

This means that if you are installing Windows XP, you will need to install F6 driver (raid driver for the onboard raid) as XP does not have this driver.

My aim was to install:

Install an OS on a single drive SATA0. 

Create a RAID 5 on the three other sata drives (sata1, sata2, sata3)

 

Use the raid5 drives as data backup

This whole procedure is known as RAID READY, which means that you are preparing the system for RAID in the future, and during this procedure, the drive on which the OS is installed CAN NEVER BE PART OF THE RAID FAMILY.

Next procedure was to install the Windows XP on the SATA0 drive. 

Once OS is installed, i installed all the drivers from the website and the latest Intel Matrix Storage Manager.

 

I went into the RAID BIOS Ctrl+I, i created the RAID5 on the 3 sata drives. Save and Exit I can check the raid5 on Intel Matrix Storage Manager.

Everything works fine. 

========================

 

Tests:

Now i decided to make a DUAL boot. I installed Windows 7 - new OS installation on the SATA0 drive (partition), note - there is no need for the F6 drivers as Vista/7/2008 has the driver embedded in the OS. It worked fine.

Note: If you have installed Windows 7, then you want to install Windows XP as dual boot, the Windows 7 menu will disappear, you can use some other software like multibootvistapro to edit the bcd or boot menu.

I also tried to install an OS to an additional drive, it worked fine again, nothing happen to my data on the raid5 drives.

Note: if you have very important data, make a complete separate verified backup. As a precaution, you can disconnect the RAID drives, leave only the non-raid on the system, after OS installation complete, you can reconnect the raid5 drives to the exactly same sata ports, it should be fine as long as the sata controller is still configured as raid in the bios. You dont need to reconfigure the raid. It should be fine.

In theory, if you connect the raid5 drives on another similar motherboard with exact same firmware, the raid5 drives should still be accessible.

Hope this helps a bit.

All the best,

Regards,

 

Aryan
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idata
Employee
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Hi Aryan,

Thanks for the info.

A couple of more questions.

1. If I unplug my three sata drives being used for my Raid 5, won't the bios show an error? And will I be able to install windows 7?

2. I have XP installed now and wanted to try a dual boot system now also. That is why I was thinking of just using the sata drive that I was using for a photoshop scratch disk. If I do a dual boot system, will it give me a choice when booting? I know this is a microsoft question but since you set one up thought it would be easier to ask you.

Thanks,

Jimmy

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idata
Employee
595 Views

Hi Jimmy,

No problem we are here to help.

1. If I unplug my three sata drives being used for my Raid 5, won't the bios show an error? And will I be able to install windows 7?

Answer: No, i dont know for Gigabyte board, for Intel boards, you dont get any error message. 

Simple scenario i did last time.

 

- I created a raid 1 on two drives on the Intel Entry Level Server Board S3200SH using the Intel Storage Matrix.

 

- I took out the drives and connected it onto another desktop board like DP45SG, it recognised the raid array and you can see the raid online. (in theory it must work, sometimes in practice it doesnot because firmware and hardware issues.)

2. I have XP installed now and wanted to try a dual boot system now also. That is why I was thinking of just using the sata drive that I was using for a photoshop scratch disk. If I do a dual boot system, will it give me a choice when booting? I know this is a microsoft question but since you set one up thought it would be easier to ask you.

Answer: Well in my scenario, once the XP is installed, i made a partition thru disk management or Partition Magic. Then i installed the Windows 7 on the second partition. There are many ways to edit the boot entries.

I have used this software: try to read more on this.

 

http://www.vistabootpro.org/ http://www.vistabootpro.org/

 

http://www.osloader.com/ http://www.osloader.com/

Note: When i installed Windows 7 and then after this i installed windows XP, i did not get dual boot. I had to use some software to edit the bcd and boot entries.

Now i cannot see any reason why it should not give you dual boot on a separate drive.

Anyway, let us know how it goes. If i have sometime today, i will try the dual boot again for you. No promise. 🙂

All the best,

Regards,

 

Aryan
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