It's Arrived!

[thescruff]

Installed iata. whatever it did.

It's like mission control around here at the moment, with 4 computers and 3 remote hard drives on the go, and I'm trying to defragment them so I only have one copy and one backup, some I have 6-7 copies of the same file.

What I'm saying is I can concentrate on you or them if I try both at the same time I shall loose data for sure.

As they will eventually end up in the new computer lets get that sorted first.

[chat_to_rich]

The next step is to turn off the PC and unplug one of the 2TB hard drives. I want you to do this because when we create the RAID 1 array we'll be left with C, the 2TB RAID array and the spare  2TB drive. By disconnecting one of the drives we can identify and label the RAID drive once we've created it. 

When you start your PC do you now see an extra screen after the BIOS, but before Windows loads?

The Intel utility is useful for monitoring the health of your disks. You can also use it to create the array from within Windows, which might be easier for you than via the RAID BIOS at startup. It should have added an icon in the system tray. Feel free to open it and have a look. 

I'm on the train at the moment, so it may be later tonight, or tomorrow before I can give much more help. 

[thescruff]

Ok I'll have a poke around.

Didn't notice an extra window, I'll have check on that as well.

There's an intel button in the menu

[thescruff]

Un-plugged drive E, so left with C then D & F with zero on.

When I re-started, it installed, Optiare DVD RW AD 7260S, whatever that is. would it have been on the E drive.

Got some pics showing inside the case if it's any good or of interest.

Never spotted any extra screen when it loaded, but some of it is pretty quite, blink and you miss it.

[gas4you]

It's giving me a headache just following you and your instructions John, god knows what it's doing to you

[thescruff]

Fortunately not a complete Dummy Dave, so I know what their on at the moment.

[chat_to_rich]

The Optiare DVD RW AD 7260S is your DVD drive.

Open the Start Menu, go to Intel -> Intel Rapid Storage Technology. On the screen that opens do you have Status, Create, Manage, Preferences and Help on the top left of the screen?

[thescruff]

You every tried typing with a egg and bacon sandwich in your hand

Yes it has all them on the bar at the top

[chat_to_rich]

OK, lets create the array. As a reminder, anything on the two 2TB drives will be lost.

Click Create, choose Real-time data protection (RAID 1), click Next, Tick the checkboxes next to the two 2TB drives and click Next. Click Create Volume. Let me know what happens. I can't do this last step myself.

[thescruff]

Ok just change computers.

[thescruff]

It says the volume was created successfully.

You still need to partition the new volume using windows disk management before adding data

[thescruff]

Clicked Ok.

Current status, your system is working normally.

Manage.

click on any element in the storage system view to manage it's properties.

[chat_to_rich]

Click Start, then right click on Computer and choose Manage. Click on Disk Management. In the bottom of the middle pane you should be able to see the RAID volume. If you're prompted to initialise the volume then do so. Post back what you can see.

[thescruff]

Storage system view

Array_0000

2 times 1.8 TB with a tick in each.

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Internal system disc 119gb with a tick

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Internal ATAPI device

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Internal empty port 1

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Internal empty port 3

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[thescruff]

There's a manage button in the intel bar at the top