Need help concerning RAID 1 on an AsRock Z170 (/thread)

[happita]

I recently built a PC for a relative and I'm having doubts that I've installed RAID 1 properly on this system. I took some screenshots so you guys get a sense of the UEFI BIOS and what's inside.

Specs:
Intel Skylake 6500
ASRock Z170 Pro4
2x8GB DDR4 2400
2x1TB WD BLACK HDD
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1

 

[Kursah]

What about computer management? You should see both drives or possibly a virtual drive with the 1TB ID. I'm assuming the Z170 might show more info in Intel's RST or whatever it's called too.

Did you load RAID drivers properly? That last screenshot showing two drives, but Computer showing one drive would make sense for a RAID1 should be a virtual drive that appears to the OS as a single 1TB HDD. RAID1 being a mirrored array doesn't need to show both drives in Computer, users would try to write to the second drive which wouldn't jive with the array.

The virtual drive will appear the same if you remove a drive as well since data should be the same between the drives, this is the part of the redundancy you want.

How about screenshots of the RAID utility manager and Computer Management, those would be more useful to validate in this case, but I can assume you have it configured right at this point the way things look.

 

[happita]

Question, RAID and RAID type should be configured before the OS is installed correct? If so, the thing is, I never saw any option for the type of RAID I wanted for the 2 drives to be configured in. I'll check computer management and stuff and report back. I don't think I installed the software for Intel's RST (Rapid Storage Technology). Is that a necessity for RAID?

 

[newtekie1]

It doesn't look like it is configured properly to me.

On the Intel Rapid Storage Technology - Option ROM screen, you have to go into that using Ctrl-i and configure a RAID1 array. Right now, the two drives are working independently. Once this is done, the OS will no longer see the two hard drives, it will instead see a single "drive" that is labelled whatever you named the array in the configuration utility.

 

[happita]

Here's a few shots of the system information, don't know if you can make anything out from it.

@newtekie1 , I might have to wipe out the HDD and reinstall the OS then because honestly, I don't know at what point I have to press Ctrl + I , when I did that in the BIOS it did nothing.

 

[Kursah]

If you haven't setup the RAID inside the raid manager then you still gotta do that. My mistake I was under the assumption you had already created the virtual volume.

You sat trying to access that does nothing? Try pressing repeatedly even before that prompt comes up and until it goes away.

You should be able to access the configuration manager without much hassle tbh. Is your keyboard disabled during UEFI boot now? I'm assuming not...but some folks do.

 

[happita]

I think I got it now. Went into the RAID configuration utility by doing the CTRL + I....found an Intel RAID pdf somewhere on the motherboard cd and went through the steps. Thanks a lot guys

/thread