Existing striped Raid, new XP install

Go to Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Computer Management

There is a Storage section - Disk Management

If you right click on the disk array - do you have the option to Assign Drive letter?

No, I do not.

Is it striped through XP or via hardware?

If it is hardware - the drivers need to be installed.  (assuming they are)

Let me update this.  It comes up under disk management as a "basic" type, not a striped or raid.  But it is giving the volume 305GB of space (roughly 2 x 160 GB drives)  From what I have been reading it doesn't look hopeful but I haven't seen anything exactly like this anywhere.  

It was originally installed software.  ie, raid was not enabled on the motherboard.

As far as I know Raid partitions made by windows need to be claimed by the new OS in order to reassemble the data structure.  When you right click on the array in Disk Management - what options are available to you?

delete partition :)

Nope.

Do you see the drives as seperate?  Do you see the two 160Gb drives seperately?
If not - that seems to be Hardware RAID.  In software (OS) Raid you would see the two drives seperately.

hmm, ok, it is only reading as one drive.  I know the raid was not enabled in bios when it came in.  The original configuration apparently was a mirrored stripe.  Somewhere they removed one drive for another system.  
Anyway, if I go back into the bios and enable the hardware raid...  will this have any reprecussions on the existing data?

As long as you don't modify the structure in the BIOS it should remain intact.

With Raid enabled in bios:  In disk management I see the striped drive as one drive in the top and bottom windows.
With Raid disabled in bios:    I see one drive in the top window, I see two drives in the bottom window.  The first is shows the striped 305GB (2x160)  the third shows an unpartitioned 160gb drive.  Everything is shown as "basic"
The hardware drivers are loaded.

With Raid enabled in Bios - do you have the option to access raid setup during th boot process?

I know on my machine - right after the RAM and system test there is a quick display stating something like - to access RAID BIOS press <I> - or something similar.

It is there that I choose which drives to use in a RAID and the type - Level 0, 1, 5 etc.
In there should be the option to view the health, rebuild, and seperate (delete) the array.

You may have to enable Raid BIOS as well as Raid in the main BIOS.  My system (ASUS) has the two options.  I can disable the RAID BIOS and still have my RAID accessable - but any changes to the array I need to re-enable the RAID BIOS.

Hope this makes some sense.

I can access the raid via f10 on bootup but I only have the option to rebuild a mirrored array.  Can't seem to find anything  on the raid bios.

i think you forgot to install raid when you where installing winxp. press down windows key (the one betwen ctrl and alt on the left) and key pause to bring out system properties. now click hardware then device manager do you see any yelow markers by the device?

Are there any other options greyed out besides the Rebuid Array?
At this point I would say that you need to rebuild in the BIOS.
The question is - what happens if it fails?

If the customer had 3 drives in the raid as a simple stripe - and one has been removed - the array is completely broken.  You won't be able to rebuild the array - all data is lost (well actually in that scenero 1/3 of the data is actually lost)

Is there a missing drive from the array?

The system was setup with a boot drive, two drives striped for data, and then another data drive.  Strange configuration.
Anyway, to the best of your knowledge can you add an old array to a new install?  I haven't seen anything positive in the forums but thought I'd try here.

The drivers were loaded at install time sofoiks.  

Ok, fair enough.  Thanks for your input.

No problem - hope that helped.

Thanks for the points.