How to setup RAID 1 (Mirroring) with XPS M1730

This may or may not work, but its worth a shot..

 

-download and install Intel Matrix Storage Manager on your current OS install

-shut down computer, remove your older HD, put in your newer empty HD

-restart laptop, set bios to raid, than ctrl+I to go into raid bios and create a raid 1 ( you cant lose anything because your original OS is on the other hard drive that is not installed)

- turn off laptop

-put your newer hard drive onto the second sata connector and the original on the first connector

-reboot laptop and if you see the raid bios load and windows loads, you may be able to execute the Intel Matrix Storage Console and rebuild the raid 1..

 

 

This is what I would try.. I by no means guarantee that it will work.. the only problem I see is that it may not boot do to the fact that the OS was not originally installed onto a raid setup..

 

anyways, thats all I can think of right now.. good luck and let us know !!

I downloaded the latest 64bit driver for Intel Matrix Storage Manager and when I run the install it fails saying my system does not meet the minimum specifications....

 

Here is my Specifications;

M1730 XPS
CPU: T7700 2.4Ghz
Memory: 4Gb PC2 5300

Video: 2x8700M GT SLI
HD: 2x320Gb Samsung

Optical: DVD Burner

355 Bluetooth Module

OS: Vista Ultimate 64bit

Then you may be able to circumvent that issue by going into your bios, setting your drives for Raid, but do not enter the Raid Bios and create a raid array yet... It may let your OS know that you have a Raid chip...

 

It may be easier and more time efficient to back up your data.. and reinstall the OS on the Raid..

 

I ordered a couple of Mtron SSD's .. they should be here in a couple of days.. once they arrive, I will try to do what youre doing to see if I can get any further.. ( I was planning on reinstalling my OS's on the  SSD's in a raid 0 anyways )

 

I'll let ya know if I find anything..

Thanks GodfreyOuwens... I will see what you come up with.

 

Originally I had 32 bit Windows Vista Ultimate, but I just reinstalled last week to 64 bit, it took me 3 days to get everything migrated, I know that installing the OS originally on the OS would have worked better, but I installed the 64 bit on the other HDD to make sure I got it up and going and copied the information from the other HDD to the new one, so now it is done.

 

Do you know why or how I can get the Intel Storage Software to install?  At least I could feel comfortable that I at least have the RAID drivers on the OS, as it stands, it is currently set to ATA, because when Dell shipped the notebook to me it was XP not Vista, I never got the AHCI to work... so I did not worry about it, when I boot in either RAID or AHCI it will blue screen and reboot.... 

I did see a workaround for turning on AHCI after the OS install but I can not seem to find it now.. it consisted of manually copying the iastor to the system folder.. and a couple of other things...

 

You can always use Ghost or Acronis to image your C: drive, install both hard drives, create a raid, then image your C: drive back..

I thought of that, but without the proper drivers the OS will never boot properly.  I am trying to find out how to get Vista to even recognize there is a RAID device.

 

I have ghost, and could back it up, then create the RAID and restore the image on the RAID, but the OS will just Bluescreen during windows booting.... so if I can find away around that, I may have a solution. 

Heres the Microsoft fix for this issue :  ( I just copied and pasted it here.. link at bottom of post )

 

SYMPTOMS

Consider the following scenario. In the BIOS setup of a Microsoft Windows Vista-based computer, you change the Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) mode of the boot drive to use the Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) specification. You then restart the computer. In this scenario, you receive the following error message:

 

CAUSE

This issue occurs if the AHCI driver (Msahci.sys) in Windows Vista is disabled. This driver must be enabled before you change the SATA mode of the boot drive.

 

RESOLUTION

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

 

 

To resolve this issue, enable the AHCI driver in the registry before you change the SATA mode of the boot drive. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Exit all Windows-based programs.

2. Click Start, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.

3. If you receive the User Account Control dialog box, click Continue.

4. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:

 

5. In the right pane, right-click Start in the Name column, and then click Modify.

6. In the Value data box, type 0, and then click OK.

7. On the File menu, click Exit to close Registry Editor.

 

MORE INFORMATION

During the Windows Vista installation process, any unused storage drivers are disabled. This behavior speeds up the operating system's startup process. When you change the boot drive to a driver that has been disabled, you must enable the new driver before you change the hardware configuration.

For example, assume that you install Windows Vista on a computer that contains a controller that uses the Pciide.sys driver. Later, you change the SATA mode to AHCI. Therefore, the drive must now load the Msahci.sys driver. However, you must enable the Msahci.sys driver before you make this change.

This issue affects only the boot drive. If the drive that you change is not the boot drive, you do not experience this issue.

AHCI provides several features for SATA devices. These include hot plug functionality and power management functionality. For more information about the AHCI specification, visit the following Intel Web site:

 

http://www.intel.com/technology/serialata/ahci.htm

 

 ____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

The above was copied from microsoft from HERE

Ok, I got the AHCI to work, thank you for the valuable information.

 

I tried setting the BIOS to RAID and it would not boot, so making a Ghost image and then applying the Image to a new RAID will not work from what I can see, so somehow I need to get the RAID drivers in the OS so they can recognize the RAID during Boot up.... 

GodfreyOuwens,

 

Were you able to build your RAID on your machine keeping the existing OS, or did you have to reinstall?