jsmileb
Posts: 71 +0
I have a setup with an Intel DG965WHMKR board, a pair of Seagate 250GB SATA drives. Prior to install of Vista, I set up a RAID 1 array in the BIOS. Vista installed normally. I was a little surprised that there was no prompt for a storage driver (F6 during XP install) during the install. I opted for a typical install and did not choose custom. Everything installed about as expected, I installed the Intel Matrix Storage Consaole and it showed the RAID 1 array as healthy. Proceded to install some additional software and got a surprise reboot and message that the RAID array had degraded, and that one disk drive was faulty. Ran the Seagate dignostics and they said drive was good, and also did a complete erase. Re-installed the drive, reset the array, and the storage console software rebuilt the array. Intel website had a Registry change recommendation that supposedly addressed this problem. Did that and everything is working fine for the moment.
Today I found a website that documents a WIN Vista install, the author did a custom install and during that, was prompted to load RAID drivers. So, it appears to me that the requirement is still there.
Questions:
Even though my RAID 1 array seems to be working, I am less than confident in the install. Is there a way to backload the Intel Matrix Storage drivers after a completed install?
Does Vista include the drivers in the drivers database, hence, making the addition of the Intel drivers superfluous? As I said, my array seems to be working fine even though I never loaded the Intel Matrix Storage drivers during installation.
I have considered adding an Adaptec RAID controller as a solution. What I have been able to garner is that software controlled RAID is less than reliable. Does adding a PCI RAID controller circumvent the issues, or would a board like this still be based on software RAID?
Today I found a website that documents a WIN Vista install, the author did a custom install and during that, was prompted to load RAID drivers. So, it appears to me that the requirement is still there.
Questions:
Even though my RAID 1 array seems to be working, I am less than confident in the install. Is there a way to backload the Intel Matrix Storage drivers after a completed install?
Does Vista include the drivers in the drivers database, hence, making the addition of the Intel drivers superfluous? As I said, my array seems to be working fine even though I never loaded the Intel Matrix Storage drivers during installation.
I have considered adding an Adaptec RAID controller as a solution. What I have been able to garner is that software controlled RAID is less than reliable. Does adding a PCI RAID controller circumvent the issues, or would a board like this still be based on software RAID?
