Hello - I'm having trouble creating a RAID1 array and I wondered if I did it all wrong.

I installed a new MB (Gigabyte) with the nvidia nforce3 chipset. SATA RAID is onboard. The RAID drivers are already installed in my OS (confirmed - XP).  My 40GB IDE drive is almost full so I bought 2 200GB Maxtor SATA drives (with MaxBlast software). I installed one of the SATA drives and cloned my existing drive through MaxBlast, pulled the IDE drive and have been HAPPILY booting from the SATA drive. I then connected the 2nd SATA drive and did what Gigabyte SUPPORT told me to do:

"If you want set 2 SATA drives to Raid 1 ( mirror ), you need to go into IDE function setup, set SATA primary master Raid & SATA secondary master Raid to Enable. Then when the system boots press ctrl + G (two keys), go to Raid bios & create Raid 1 array -  then select duplicate from source drive to the destination drive".

I went into the Raid setup utility - both drives were shown & I created the array. NOWHERE did it have a selection to "duplicate from source drive to the destination drive". So, of course, thinking the data would copy over when I exited the utility, I SHUT it down. The system tried to boot and wouldn't (boot disk failure - insert operating system disk). Great...

I took away the 2nd SATA drive and booted back to the 1ST one - nothing had been CORRUPTED in the process.

I thought (my mistake) I'd hook up the 2nd drive, go into the Raid utility and try to rebuild the array...just like a drive crashed and I had to add a new one - a situation where I'd HAVE to copy the data from one drive to the mirror drive. It asked me to "select a drive from inside the array" to rebuild. I chose the second (empty) drive but nothing happened. Was I supposed to select the first drive (with data)?? I'm so confused!

Anyway, now I feel like deleting the array, wiping the data off the 1st SATA drive and starting all over. Can anyone give me a simple, step-by-step tutorial on how to do this? This is what I THINK I should do. Am I close??

1- Go into the setup utility and clear the drive and maybe delete the array?

2- Reinstall the IDE drive and make sure I can still boot from it.

3- Connect both SATA drives and reboot into the RAID utility - create the array. Save & exit, still booting from the IDE drive.

4 - Format the SATA drive(s) with Maxblast - will it do both since it's now a mirrored array?

5 - Clone from the IDE to the array - or whatever it shows available to clone to.
Does it see the array as one drive?

6 - Shut down, remove the IDE drive, boot into BIOS, enable primary and secondary master Raid, and boot from the array.



THANKS & sorry for the lengthy post....first time.
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Was I supposed to select the first drive (with data)??