setting up raid on the ma790x-ud3p ?

[chaotic_uk]

how do you set up raid on the ma790x-ud3p ? , just got 2x "Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache" drives but am having problems setting it up . which sata ports on the mobo do you use ? , i have tried both the normal sata ports and the g-sata ports on this mother board . it shows up as a raid arrey when i use the g-sata ports but not when i use the normal sata ports , when i try to install windows 7 x64 it fails to install the drivers for some reason . please help a noob to raid

[Dark Mantis]

You need to set up the RAID on the ports in the BIOS. Use the RAID option as opposed to AHCI or IDE.

[chaotic_uk]

i have tried that but none of the drivers thats on the disk or gigabyte site installed for me , it said unable to install this driver but did not say why

[Dark Mantis]

Are you trying to set it up to boot from it or use as a data disk?

[chaotic_uk]

trying to do a fresh install of windows7 64bit so it boots from it , is this possible ?

[Dark Mantis]

I'm no expert on installing RAID arrays but as far as I can remember you need to enable the RAID option in the BIOS then start the Windows installation and you will be prompted for the RAID drivers at the right time. I am sure that someone will correct me if I am wrong.

[chaotic_uk]

when it asks for the drivers i have tried the one from the mobo disk and gigabytes site ,it says it cannot install the drivers . when i cancel it gives me some options like repair startup . i pick this and it gives me an add drivers button and when i choose this it says the drivers are corrupt , downloaded them all a dozen times and i am ready for returning the drives . which raid version should i chose ? , raid 0 or raid 1 ?

[Dark Mantis]

Well it depends on why you want to run a RAID setup in the first place. The RAID0 configuration is also known as striping and is best for speed as it takes the data and stripes it over the two disks giving you in theory at least twice the read/write speed. RAID1 is also known as mirroring. This doesn't give any speeed increase but does give you data redundancy. Basically it gives you a backup copy of all your hard drive. So as I said you can choose what you want to get out of it. There are of course other RAID arrays, RAID2, 5, 10 and jbod. With all the others (except jbod) you need more than two hard drives though.

[chaotic_uk]

many thx for the help , turns out it was the bios (f7a) that was the problem . downgraded the bios and it worked 

[Dark Mantis]

Glad you got it sorted out. Usually a simple explanation, just seeing it through the fog sometimes is the difficult bit.