Use Current Image for RAID on P7805uFX

Wondering if anyone can help me on this. I have a P7805uFX ready to go into a RAID 0 array - I am wondering if I can load the image of my current setup onto the RAID array after it is set up, or if I would have to start from scratch? Thanks in advance for any help.

I am new to the forum and a bit of a NOOB - (know just enough to be dangerous, so seeking help to avoid damage) - THANKS !!!!

Gateway P7805uFX - P8400 2.27ghz - 8GB DDR3 - 2 x 320GB 7200RPM HDD (about to be in RAID 0) - NVIDIA 9800M GTS - 64bit Windows 7 Ultimate - 9c.17 BIOS

 

you will probably have to back up your data on a different hard drive.

 

Thanks for the response pizzahutmaster - yea, I know to backup everything - that's always the first step.....But I am hoping someone who has put machines in a RAID before can tell me whether or not I will be able to re-load an image of my current system after everything gets wiped for the RAID - - I really don't want to start from scratch with a clean install, so I'm hoping the old image will load. Also whether there is a certain way to do it so I don't screw it up.

Absolutely LOVE Jakamo5's guide - I've been hunting through the comments to see if anyone else has faced this issue, but so far no luck.

 

Yes, a RAID setup acts just like a single hard drive.

 

Sorry but you have to install OS from scratch.

 

yes you can do exactly what you want but youll have to use some sort of disc imaging software. i personally use acronis true image home but i dunno if you want to pay for it but it costs $50. totally worth it in my opinion. there may be a free alternative but ive never had to look for one so i dunno what it would be called.

with this program though you could read your current HDD into an image and burn it onto a disc (or discs depending on how full you have it) after that you format the hdd run a boot disc of the acronis from there you load the image you made and select a hdd to restore it to (your raid setup). the beauty of this program is that it will restore it to exactly how it was when you made the image. (everything from programs to that image you saved from google to the desktop )

 

The free alternative is called EASEUS Todo Backup.

 

Thank you guys for the help - I was kinda thinking that way, but not sure since I've never done it. Very much appreciated.

I've been reading on the forum here for quite a while, but only now signed up, so I'm wondering also how to give you guys props for the help (I haven't finished reading the info for new members yet) - so if you can tell me how to do that, I'll be glad to give credit where it's due - -EDIT: figured it out, sorry - set you guys up ryokowashu and Ultimate Destruction - THANKS AGAIN !!

Looking forward to RAIDing this thing in the next few days!!! Fun Fun !!

Oh, one more thing - most posts have the system specs listed on the bottom. Do you guys copy and paste those every time or is there a way to have them show up automatically? Kudo's again

P7805u-FX (love it)

 

Use the " UserCP "(control panel) on top and add your config or whatever in the " edit signature " thing.

 

Curious as to how this worked out??????

 

I will let you know how it goes. Just haven't had the time to sit down and do it. I'm hoping for tonight, but might be Thursday. Can't wait though. I run a lot of Adobe applications, sometimes simultaneously, along with all my regular apps, so performance is key, just like gaming. Thanks for asking - check back in a couple days. Peace.

 

Hey Maverick thanks for the info on the usercp - andy A, this went so much better than expected - I NEVER HAD TO RELOAD AN IMAGE :laugh: - as I read up on the Intel Matrix Storage Controller it has an option to go to RAID 0 through Windows without ever losing anything. I never would have believed it, but it worked - took about 3 hours, but all the while I was able to use my machine. Then I simply rebooted, extended the partition to include the entire area of both drives, rebooted again and it works Totally blown away! This is what it looked like:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=49139&stc=1&d=1271962918

Thanks again for everyones help - I hope to return the favor sometime. Peace.

 

Whoa, sounds great , I will have to give this a try, been wanting to raid but was dreading a clean install. Is this method different than setting up raid in the bios? What is your bios showing?

 

First make sure the Intel Matrix Storage Manager is loaded on your machine.
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Sea...t=Intel®+Rapid+Storage+Technology+(Intel®+RST)
Then I enabled RAID in the BIOS - booted into Windows - opened Intel Matrix Storage Console - Chose create RAID volume - Then I got the screen I showed in my last post - When it was done, I rebooted - went into computer management and extended the partition to include the entire amount of space available (by default it only sets up Raid on half the available size) - rebooted and it's done - (oh, also after that went back into Intel Matrix Storage Console and in advanced view - right-clicked the new volume and enabled write-back cache) - That's it!

Hope it helps! Wasn't nearly as scary as I thought it would be. Peace.

 

Hey andy A -
First thing I thought of ( and terribly sorry I forgot to put this in before)was: When you boot into Windows after setting RAID in the BIOS watch the screen carefully - don't let it boot all the way into Windows - you'll see a screen that says 'configuration' press CTRL-I - when you press CTRL-I it should list both your drives as Non-Raid or something like that - select each one and change it to RAID Volume - then reboot into windows - it scared me to do that because it says all info will be lost, but it doesn't actually happen right there as long as you have the Intel Matrix Storage Console installed. After that, go into Intel Matrix Storage Console and proceed to do a migration. This will set up half of each drive in RAID and leave your original stuff alone UNTIL the migration is done, at which time you reboot and extend the volume (if you need help with that just let me know.) - Hope this helps!! I will post it to the original forum thread, too, in case anyone else needs that info....and I will check back throughout the night (for a while) to see if you post there with more questions (I'm glad to help) - let me know how all goes!!

 

This is pretty cool, I never knew you could set up a raid before hand. Wish I'd known that before setting up my raid0.

Have you tried benchmarking your drive with HDtune yet? What drives are you using?

 

Hey NateFlick !! - - Yea, that was a VERY cool surprise... when I first read it in the Intel Matrix Storage Console User Manual I thought NO WAY.... worked like a charm, though....
The drives are Hitachi 7200rpm 320G each (that's what the original was, so I just matched it for the 2nd)
As for HStune, I've never tried something like that - recommend that one?
Thanks for the reply! Peace!

BTW - are we allowed to place units for sale on here? I found another Lappy I just gotta have, so I will have to sell one of my current ones - but I know some forums don't allow that, so I don't want to break any rules) Thanks.

 

Yes, HDtune is a great drive benchmarking tool. If you want, there is a thread about raid0 performance on our laptops, add your benchmark scores to it if you like.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/gateway-emachines/471224-p-series-raid-0-worth.html

 

Hopefully the steps you listed here will do the trick. In one of my attempts I did get to the point of creating the array, but when it said "all data will be erased" I stopped at that point, was way to paranoid. Did you leave your stripe size at default? I at least did make a clone of the OS so I have that to fall back on if something goes wrong. Thanks for the help.

 

Well that didn't work out to well. Restoring back to clone now. Unfortunately when I hit yes to create volume it said bye bye data for real. It did not allow me to select the individual drives.
ITWannabe what BIOS are you running?

 

Hi andy A - whoa that sucks - can you possibly list the steps you took? I will try to help diagnose for you (based only on my experience, but...) - As far as the BIOS I am running 9c.17 - haven't had a chance to update to 9c.20 as I got the same error as everybody else so far - I'm really surprised your's did not go - thinking on it - 1)In your post from last night,when you said you got to the point of creating the array previously, are you referring to the section after you press CTRL-I or was that in the Matrix Console? - 2)In your post from this morning, what point were you at when you selected 'create volume'? - BTW, yes I left the stripe size at default - please let me know the answers so I can try to find you a solution - I never want to leave someone hanging with a problem - meanwhile, I will contact another friend who did the same thing and make sure I remember everything correctly - Peace!

 

PS - Thank God for backup's and images...lol...

 

Yes after I press Ctrl + I

After entering RAID management console (Ctrl + I)

I have not been able to get back into Windows as of yet after changing to RAID and Ctrl + I, to use the Intel matrix storage manager.

Yes sir, thanks for backups.............................this is all a good learning experience anyhow.

Starting from scratch...

p7811
factory install Vista 64
.08 BIOS
Intel Matrix storage manager installed. I believe 8.0.0.1039

Starting steps:
Power On
Enter BIOS
Choose Advanced tab
Set to RAID
F10 to save and exit
Reboots
Enter RAID management console (CTRL + I )
I have 5 options (cannot remember them all right now and cannot check because machine is still cloning)
1) create volume
2) Cannot remember right now
3) delete volume
4) recovery options
5) exit

If I do nothing in the RAID management console (Ctrl + I) the machine reboots, trys to load OS, then BSOD's and reboots getting stuck in a loop

If I choose to create a volume it will create the RAID volume with both drives and all data becomes lost.

This part kind of stumps me as there is no option to "select each drive" in the RAID management console (Ctrl + I)

 

andy A--Go HERE: http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-020670.htm--and choose THIS:User's Manual
User's Manual [PDF]

File Name: 8_x_RAID_AHCI_Users_Manual.pdf
Size: 1.25MB
Date: 01/19/2009
This pretty much walks you through the steps EXCEPT PLEASE NOTE: DO NOT CREATE VOLUME AS SHOWN ON PAGE 21 (I fear that may be what happened) - See, if you do it there, it creates the array the standard way (wipes all and starts over) - if you simply set the drives to RAID, but not create a volume, Windows will still boot - then you do the MIGRATION version through the Intel Matrix Storage Console as shown on page 33 - this creates the RAID volume across the drives in only one section of the drive (so you must have at least half of each drive available for this) - when it is done migrating, then you reboot once or twice as it shows. What you have at this point is: Your drives have 2 volumes now - 1 is your regular image from before and 1 is the RAID volume. You should be booted into the RAID volume now and can simply go to Computer Management and drag the line that is dividing the two (extending the volume) so that the RAID now encompasses the entire space on both hard drives. You may need to reboot once more, but you are now there!! Your computer will only show ONE drive now instead of two, because they are seen by the computer as one, but you'll notice the size of the drive is twice as big as before. REALLY REALLY hope this helps!!

 

Thanks ITWannabee, Was able to read through the manual awhile back, good info. My problem it seems as I have no option in the RAID management console (Ctrl + I) to set the drives to raid mode, I only have the 5 options listed prior.

What version of Intel Matrix Storage manager are you using?

I might try to flash the BIOS to a newer version and see if there is any difference there.

I'll post more info a little later when I get back up and running.

 

Hi andy A - my Intel Matrix Storage Console says VersionMajor=8 and VersionMinor=9 - - - whatever that means, I don't know - - Still unable to reach my other buddy who did this, too, but I will keep trying....Peace!!

 

Hi andy A - - My buddy got back to me, and I believe has an answer - he ran into this same problem (I was unaware of these steps) - so once your machine is back up and running from the old image - follow these steps directly from the master himself:

Exit all Windows-based programs.
Click Start, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.
If you receive the User Account Control dialog box, click Continue.
Locate and then click one of the following registry subkeys:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\IastorV
In the right pane, right-click Start in the Name column, and then right click and go to Modify.
In the Value data box, type 0, and then click OK.
Do this for both registry subkeys.
On the File menu, click Exit to close Registry Editor.

Then REBOOT and change your Bios to raid Exit bios save changes

Then go into raid control panel and set your drives to whatever you would like stripe or mirrored. Then windows should come up. There he will have to do whatever you did with the intel matrix storage manger to finish the raid.

But that will fix the boot in a loop we had going on there.

Any questions beyond that, just hit me up - I'm here to help!! Good luck!!

 

Will give it a try, thanks. Just got back up and into windows.

 

Yeah!!!!!!!! I'm migrating. I did have to download a more recent version of the Intel Matrix Storage Manager than the one I was using. The one I was using kept giving me errors when trying to create the migration volume.
Will see what it looks & acts like when the migration is complete, approx 2 hrs.

 

Absolutely Fantastic !!! Woot Woot - - - Let us know how it all goes!!

 

So far everything is looking good!! Thanks for your help ITWannabee.

What I did this time was to....

1) change the registry entries you mentioned

A) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci
B) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\IastorV

In the right pane, right-click "Start" entry in the Name column, and then right click and go to Modify.
In the Value data box, type 0 (default was 4 on my system)

2) Shut down
3) Enter BIOS
4) Change from AHCI to RAID
5) F10 to save and exit
6) Did nothing in RAID management console (Ctrl +I)
7) It booted into windows successfully
8) Entered Intel Matrix Storage Manager (I ran into problems here with version 8.0.0.1039, It kept erroring on me, so I downloaded version 8.9.0.1023, installed it then rebooted.
9) Booted successfully into windows again.
10) Entered Intel Matrix Storage Manager
11) Entered "advanced mode"
12) Entered "Actions"
13) Entered "Create volume from existing hard drive wizard"
14) Followed thru with selecting source drive and member drive, etc
15) It then proceeds to create the volume and start migration.
16) Once migration is complete, machine needs to shut down and reboot a couple of times.
17) Enter "Disk Managment"
18) Extended the volume