Hope this makes sense because I’m lost.
What I wanted to do: Install (3) drives in my new DIY, configure 2 in raid 1 with 1st 20g partition for OS and programs 2nd 278g partition for My Docs and data. All (NTFS). 3rd drive unpartitioned for Ghost backup and Genie Backup manager destination.
What I did: 1st boot installed raid drivers, configured (raid 1) with disk 0 and 1 being members disk, left disk 2 as non member disk.( Intel states that boot sequence is 0,1,2,3) so this seemed logical to me. Started XP pro installation when asked I entered C to create a partition on disk 0 and left the other disk alone. Installed OS, updates ect.. Formatted remaining drive in windows and all went well.
What I got: MY computer shows C: as 300g and F:20g and G:278g. I would of thought this would be reversed since my array position 0&1 being first in line in boot sequence would of got C: Well after some head scratching I found out I blew it. My array name is ( volume 0) so when windows asked to format disk 0 I assumed this was my array, but actually formatted my single disk intended fro back up and installed OS on it.

Can I switch the single (partitioned drive with the OS on it) to position 0 on the mobo than plug in un-partitioned drive and let raid rebuild itself? Will this put my drive letters in windows back in order like I set out to do? Can I rename my array to avoid future confusion? Intel’s matrix controller in Bios and windows platform won’t let me in to edit array name. If I have to start from scratch what’s the best course? Additionally I notice some of the updates I downloaded being stored on the drive I set aside for backup, not where the OS resides. Will this continue to be a issue or is it because my back up drive is currently C:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 2.67GHz / 4MB Cache / 1066MHz FSB / Dual-Core
OCZ EL Dual Channel 2048MB PC5400 DDR2 667MHz Gold Memory (2 x 1024MB)
Intel D975XBXLKR Intel Socket 775 ATX Motherboard / Audio / PCI Express / Gigabit LAN / S/PDIF / USB 2.0 & Firewire / Serial ATA / RAID
(3) Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS 320GB Serial ATA
ATI X1900 XTX 512MB
Sound Blaster X-FI
XP Pro

Thanks for your help

Hi RWG.

One thing that windows does...is installs on the next available drive letter. If you already have 2 hard drives, it assigns D: to the CD drive, and C: to the "primary" hard disk, e: to the next, so on.

To get your windows drive on C: you'll have to unplug any extra drives and make sure it is the only partition that is active. Then reinstall windows.

If you can't be bothered - it doesn't make any difference, most programs default to the %SystemDrive% which is normally C: but %SystemDrive% detects which drive windows is installed on.

Hope that makes sense.


PS. Do you mean RAID0 or RAID1? RAID0 adds the 2 drives togheter, 1 mirrors them for redundancy so if one fails, the other will pick in its place.

Raid 1, Should I partition OS drive during windows set up or after windows is up and running? Is there any preferred method to moving my doc's folder


Thanks for the help

If you're wanting to have your windows drive partitioned with 2 or more, do it after windows is installed.

Create the partition for windows the size you want it (say 10gb), and then when windows is up, use disk management (Start -> Run -> diskmgmt.msc) to create the rest of the partitions.

And what do you mean by moving my documents folder? The easiest way is just to "copy and paste".

Thank for your help thats what I'll do.

No problems.

Good luck and if you run into any more problems come back