After MUCH searching, I finally found some useful posts here on this topic, but they didn't answer anything (thanks to those that posted!)
I initially set up my Gigabyte P35-DQ6 system with 2 150GB RAID 1 drives (Vista and XP partitions), and 2 80GB drives (intended for Ubuntu) on the Intel controller and installed Vista and XP just fine.
I went to add two 500GB drives on the Gigabyte (JMicro) controller only to find that the driver for it would make vista BSOD on boot. I moved the drives to the Intel controller, and Vista wouldn't boot at all (I figured it might be "drive 0 related" reordered the drives (physically), but got no change (it seems Vista ALWAYS orders RAID after non-RAID volumes, even eSATA.) I discovered if I power on the eSATA drive AFTER vista is booted, it's fine.
Eventually, though, one problem (power, boot, BSODs or whatever) caused a RAID failure (I got one drive (a WD Raptor) reporting error, and during the rebuild from the OTHER Raptor, the SECOND reported failure and I lost the array. I strongly doubt both Raptors failed.
I reinstalled Vista, and after discovering VMWare realized I only need the Vista partition, so I took the 2x80 and 2x150 GB drives and threw them in a RAID10 array for the 25% reliability gain in case one of those drives really was corrupting the array. This time it DIDN'T BSOD with the Gigabyte (JMicro) driver, so I could read off that drive finally. Not until AFTER I got Vista reinstalled did I discover the boot files got shoved to what it now thinks as disk 0,0, the 1st partition on the data drive on the second controller. This of course as someone else mentioned affects the complete system backup (not a big deal it's just one partition lost in this case), but I fear that it defeats the point of the redundancy in the RAID setup.
My question is this: If the data drive were to fail, the one with the /boot data on it, can the system be restored with just the RAID Array with the DVD's "restore boot" option?
Or could the system be restored if I replaced that failed drive with another drive with the DVD's "restore boot" option?
And if, in a catastrophic event of a PSU blowout or something and all the drives get taken out, if I replace the array, AND the stand-alone data drive (with different partition configuration as long as a 0,0 exists on it) would a system complete restore from my backups work as long as that drive is there, or am I set up for a non-recoverable disaster in any case making the RAID array nothing more than wasted space?
BTW: the image generator used for forum registration is the nastiest I've seen, it took 5 attempts before I got a letter set I could almost make out
I initially set up my Gigabyte P35-DQ6 system with 2 150GB RAID 1 drives (Vista and XP partitions), and 2 80GB drives (intended for Ubuntu) on the Intel controller and installed Vista and XP just fine.
I went to add two 500GB drives on the Gigabyte (JMicro) controller only to find that the driver for it would make vista BSOD on boot. I moved the drives to the Intel controller, and Vista wouldn't boot at all (I figured it might be "drive 0 related" reordered the drives (physically), but got no change (it seems Vista ALWAYS orders RAID after non-RAID volumes, even eSATA.) I discovered if I power on the eSATA drive AFTER vista is booted, it's fine.
Eventually, though, one problem (power, boot, BSODs or whatever) caused a RAID failure (I got one drive (a WD Raptor) reporting error, and during the rebuild from the OTHER Raptor, the SECOND reported failure and I lost the array. I strongly doubt both Raptors failed.
I reinstalled Vista, and after discovering VMWare realized I only need the Vista partition, so I took the 2x80 and 2x150 GB drives and threw them in a RAID10 array for the 25% reliability gain in case one of those drives really was corrupting the array. This time it DIDN'T BSOD with the Gigabyte (JMicro) driver, so I could read off that drive finally. Not until AFTER I got Vista reinstalled did I discover the boot files got shoved to what it now thinks as disk 0,0, the 1st partition on the data drive on the second controller. This of course as someone else mentioned affects the complete system backup (not a big deal it's just one partition lost in this case), but I fear that it defeats the point of the redundancy in the RAID setup.
My question is this: If the data drive were to fail, the one with the /boot data on it, can the system be restored with just the RAID Array with the DVD's "restore boot" option?
Or could the system be restored if I replaced that failed drive with another drive with the DVD's "restore boot" option?
And if, in a catastrophic event of a PSU blowout or something and all the drives get taken out, if I replace the array, AND the stand-alone data drive (with different partition configuration as long as a 0,0 exists on it) would a system complete restore from my backups work as long as that drive is there, or am I set up for a non-recoverable disaster in any case making the RAID array nothing more than wasted space?
BTW: the image generator used for forum registration is the nastiest I've seen, it took 5 attempts before I got a letter set I could almost make out