I have a basic Inspiron 530 with a 500GB drive.

I added two 1TB drives that I would like to Raid.

I go into BIOS and change the SATA Mode from IDE to RAID.
When I reboot, I get a Raid configuration prompt.

I leave the OS as non-raid.
I create a raid volume with the two 1TB drives.

Windows continually crashes.

If I go back to IDE, Windows boots.

Any ideas? I'm looking for ideas online and haven't seen anything.

I am tempted to just repartition everything and reinstall Windows, but would prefer not do that.

Actually... I think I found something. Unless you're in the mood to flex knowledge, hold on... might have it figured out. We'll see.

Do you crash before windows desktop show up or do you crash IN windows?

If it's the former then install the motherboard raid drivers first then try again.

Note: As a general rule, when adding RAID even for storage use, it's almost always best to reinstall. Windows RAID driver loading has always been shit, ESPECIALLY with XP. Unless you want to dynamic disk it, just rebuild it. Even if you get it to work, you'll find more stability F6'ing it to start with honestly.

Matter of curiosity -- why do you want to RAID these drives anyway?

_________________

World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

Part of this reflects my ignorance of hardware, but I managed to sort through it.

In summary, I have a C: drive that has the OS and I really just wanted a media backup. I have 300+ GB of music, some videos, all pictures, etc. I have an external hard drive that I backup stuff to on occasion. So, what I really wanted is just an extra TB of storage I can dump stuff to that is mirrored in case a drive dies.

As Elessar noted, starting over from scratch is the best approach since the hard drive drivers installed are completely different based on the Sata mode (again, my ignorance coming thru).

So, what I did was switch to RAID in the BIOS, boot off the Windows CD and install the OS to the 1 TB RAID mirror. That got me up and running temporarily. That actually died on the next reboot as well because the default Windows drivers apparently aren't what you need.

Soo... reinstalled again on the 1 TB RAID and installed Intel Matrix Manager (or something like that) before rebooting again. That installed all the proper drivers and monitors the RAID configuration.

So now I have:
1 TB RAID mirror C:
500 GB non-RAID D: with leftovers of previous Windows

I'm copying anything I might want off D: and then going to blast it and fdisk it, using it for program installs and other non-critical stuff that if I lost I wouldn't care.

My advice to you? Pick up an HP MediaSmart server (with Windows Home Server). One of the older models like the EX470 (can probably get for around $250 nowadays) and put the disks in that. That will manage, replicate, and even online backup your data for minimal cost and investment. Plus, it's INSANELY easy to use.

Mark my words, short of Sharepoint, Windows Home Server is the best product Microsoft has released in the last 8-10 years.