important! need help with raid on p5n-e sli

[HondaAP1]

hey guys new to the storage forum part of the site but im having some big problems here.

the situation is like this
1. guy brings his computer in and wants to be able to hot swap his raid array every week to have a new backup of his stuff

2. the setup is 2 sata HD's on sata 1 and 2 and just 1 other HD that is the swapping one (i labeled the HD's 1, 2, 3 so its much easier for me since the HD's are identical in everyway)

3. i've installed windows pressing f6 and used the "required" NVRAID controllers and 1 other thing (i believe was the drivers as well) after windows installed i checked with RAID Array config to check the status's ( it always says healthy) and booted into windows no problem

4. so now i have HD's 1 and 2 working, i shut down and swap 2 out for 3 and boot everything back up. error comes up in raid array config, and this is where im unfamiliar with what to do. the errors will either say on both HD's degraded or 1 will say degraded and 1 will say error. i will press enter and delete array on both and add HD's 1 and 3 back into an array and the status will say healthy and i will press B to make them bootable. And i did both letting it boot on its own and rebuilding HD's 1 and 3.

5. Now im just having problems with HD's 1 and 3 not even showing the windows screen. i'll have NTLDR file missing and no matter what i do i cannot make the HD's 1 and 3 work with each other.

this is really frustrating, its driving me nuts, i've looked up all i really could about it and no one has a definitive answer. i see little things like "yeah this board doesnt work with raid or sata very well" ,stuff like that.

the ppl of ocforums have always had an answer for me and im hoping you guys can come through again :beer:

[HondaAP1]

oh and they're to run mirrored raid

[billb]

3. i've installed windows pressing f6 and used the "required" NVRAID controllers and 1 other thing (i believe was the drivers as well) after windows installed i checked with RAID Array config to check the status's ( it always says healthy) and booted into windows no problem

You set up the array with just two drives as mirrored. Then swap out one of the drives (it now becomes the third drive) and the array rebuilds to include the drive you just swapped in. Rinse. Repeat. When the customer needs to recover, he swaps in the third drive but rebuilds from it, not the "bad" drive.

Now I'll ask some questions, the answers to which should lead you to a big part of your problem.

When you started the install, what was set as the boot device in the BIOS?
When windows rebooted, to finish the install, what drive did it boot?
When windows rebooted, where (what drive?) did it finish the install to?
...which drive had the boot sector and MBR on it? Hint ..not the array
When the windows install finished, what was set as the boot device in the BIOS.
Could you have set the array as the boot device before you started the install? Hint...No.

[HondaAP1]

i tried rebuilding it with drive 3 in and no luck
but drive 1 was pretty much the one that had everything installed and used as the main drive


You set up the array with just two drives as mirrored. Then swap out one of the drives (it now becomes the third drive) and the array rebuilds to include the drive you just swapped in. Rinse. Repeat. When the customer needs to recover, he swaps in the third drive but rebuilds from it, not the "bad" drive.

Now I'll ask some questions, the answers to which should lead you to a big part of your problem.

When you started the install, what was set as the boot device in the BIOS?
When windows rebooted, to finish the install, what drive did it boot?
When windows rebooted, where (what drive?) did it finish the install to?
...which drive had the boot sector and MBR on it? Hint ..not the array
When the windows install finished, what was set as the boot device in the BIOS.
Could you have set the array as the boot device before you started the install? Hint...No.

[HondaAP1]

now im getting problems with while reinstalling windows after choosing the raid drivers after F6 it keeps trying to read the system drivers off the floppy so i get stuck at with an incomplete install of windows

[billb]

i tried rebuilding it with drive 3 in and no luck
but drive 1 was pretty much the one that had everything installed and used as the main drive
A "mirrored set" is two drives. not three. When you have two drives in a "mirror set" you can't add third (even if the array is broken). If the array is broken, you remove the "bad" drive, add in a new drive, and rebuild the array "onto" the new drive.

As for your install not working, you've borked the MBRs and boot sectors of your drives. You need to run fixmbr and fixboot from Windows Repair Consol on each drive, one at a time, to repair them. Depending on how borked they are, you may have to go all the way back to FDisking then, or even low level formatting them.

Ok, I put in the answers for you......

When you started the install, what was set as the boot device in the BIOS? ...One drive
When windows rebooted, to finish the install, what drive did it boot? ...that one drive
When windows rebooted, where did it finish the install to? ...that one drive
Which drive had the boot sector and MBR on it? ..not the array ...that one drive
When the windows install finished, what was set as the boot device in the BIOS?...that one drive.
Could you have set the array as the boot device before you started the install? ...No. Because the array doesn't exist until Windows install reboots...but when it rebooted, you didn't interrupt the reboot and then set the array as the boot device, you left ...that one drive as the boot device, and windows installed to ..that one drive, not the array.

Of course you could install windows to a single drive, configure the array, add the raid drivers, then add a another drive, and then rebuild the array onto that new drive.