Setting up a RAID on a Clevo D900T laptop

Hello Guys,

Here is another problem that I need to solve.

This is a bit specialist…I may be in the wrong part of the forum.

I have a Clevo D900T laptop. High spec computer about 4 year's old

It has two Serial ATA HDDs running under a mirrored RAID. These disks are too small now.

I have obtained from Clevo a cable that will plug into the mother board and connect to two large capacity PARELLEL ATA discs. Everything will fix together and I am assured that the mother board will support both SATA and PATA HDDs. - This is not the problem but has been the subject of a long thread already. Don't worry about this.

However before installing these disks I have reviewed the documentation for installing the OS.

The fist thing that has to be done is to install the RAID. At some point the installation programme will ask me to select the appropriate RAID Controller. There are only two options (apparently) both are for SATA disks but my new ones are PATA disks.

I suspect the new cable is a conversion cable so selecting the Windows XP SATA version of the raid controller will work. (XP is the operating system I am using.)

Can anyone confirm this or offer any other advice.

 

We've been over this - the drives you currently have are Parallel ATA, and the new drives are Serial ATA.

You need the RAID controller for the SATA drives, as you have just said.

 

No we have not been here before collinsl.

The other thread was about jumpers that got bogged down in irrelevant detail because I was stupid enough to confuse PATA and SATA in the first post but my intention should have been clear in each post after that.

This is about RAID configuration. So in respect of your response - for which I am grateful...

Can you be sure of that I definately need a SATA RAID controller?

If the cable is some sort of conversion cable perhaps not.

How can you be so certain?

Have you had this type of situation before?

Thank you for your continued interest.

 

I am fairly sure as I have been looking around over the Internet to see what others have been saying about this laptop. Most point to XP working with the laptop in RAID1 mode but not SATA mode, therefore you need the RAID drivers.

Source: http://www.wirelessforums.org/alt-comp-hardware/clevo-d900t-problem-100gb-harddisks-2885.html

 

UPDATE:

Because it has been impossible to be absolutely sure that new large capacity disks will work in this old computer I have decide not to proceed with the installation.

I have removed redundant files and programmes from the existing hard discs thus creating more space, and will hope that the computer will last another year when I will replace it with a new laptop.

Thank you for your interest and your help.

Jim