I have an ASUS p5ke-wifi/ap which has built-in RAID controller. From the BIOS, I can choose between 3 controller types:
IDE
RAID
AHCI
In that order. This setting was set to AHCI when I installed Windows7 Pro x64 and everything's fine. I have 3 hard drives, one is Windows7, and the other two I want to configure in RAID1/mirrored configuration, like this:
HDD1: Win7
HDD2: RAID Member1
HDD3: RAID Member2
Now, I've already installed Windows7, but it does not boot up when I set the controller to RAID from the BIOS. While in RAID mode, I was able to create a mirrored array from HDDs 2 and 3, and in AHCI mode Windows7 seems to recognize them perfectly as 1 disk drive. Is RAID a superset of AHCI – do I even need to set the controller to RAID mode?
I've been reading that you have to install Windows7 while in RAID mode for it to force the RAID drivers to install. Yet it seems to work without this.. so I'm not sure if it's software or hardware RAID.
Is this correct setup? How do I know whether this is hardware raid or Windows7 self-configured to see them as software RAID? Can I run my RAID configuration with the BIOS set to AHCI mode or does it have to be RAID? Thank you.
Best Answer
You can RAID drives independent of the BIOS setting using utilities like Linux's MD RAID or Window's Dynamic Disks. Windows likely wasn't booting when you moved from AHCI to RAID because that is translated to Windows as a hardware change, which it does not typically play well with.
Setting RAID mode in the BIOS really only will enable a boot-time RAID setup utility which is provided by the motherboard manufacturer. If one is not supplied, then setting it to RAID more will realistically have no effect.