ASROCK 939S56-M User manual

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Guide to SiS RAID Utility for Windows XP / 2000
1. General
1. After installing the SiS RAID utility, go to “Start” menu and choose
“Programs.” From the “Programs” menu, choose “SiS RAID Utility” and
click on “SiSRaid”
NOTE
If your working OS is installed in the SATA hard disk(s) and you want to
re-configure the RAID type, we suggest you to re-configure it in “SiS
RAID BIOS Setting Utility” rather than this “SiS RAID Utility for Windows.

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2. The SiS RAID Utility window opens as below. The main interface has two
tabs: View and Configuration. You can switch to different tabs by
clicking on it. On “View” tab, we can see some device information on
different controllers. You can click the drop-down box “Adapter” to se-
lect the controller you want to use. The default value is the information of
the first device on “SiS RAID controller 1”.
3. Click the tab Configuration, you can find three tabs: Create Raid,
Delete Raid, and Raid Recovery. In the same way, you can switch to
different tabs by clicking on it.

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2. Viewing the “Create Raid”
Click the tab Create Raid, you can find three drop-down box and three
panes. Those meaning will be showing below.
1. Raid Type:
Click the drop-down box “Raid Type”. This box enables the user to select
array type. There are three array types that the user can select: JBOD,
RAID 0, and RAID 1. User can select any one array type to create a RAID
set.
NOTE
If your SATA hard disks are already configured in any RAID type,your
SATA hard disks could not appear in the <Available Disks> pane.

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2. Block Size:
If user selected RAID 0 array types in the “RAID Type” box, the “Block
Size” drop-down box will be enabled and user must select a block size.
Clicking the drop-down box “Block Size”, there are seven block size that
the user can select: 8k, 16k, 32k, 64k, 128k, 256k and 512k. User can
select any one block size to create a RAID 0 set. The default selection is
64k.

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3. Mode Type:
Click the drop-down box “Mode Type”. This box enables the user to
select mode type. There are two mode types that the user can select:
PIO and DMA. User can select any one mode type to create a RAID set.
The default selection is DMA.
NOTE
For the “Mode” option, you may select between “DMA” and “PIO” modes,
but it is recommended to select “DMA” mode.

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4. <Available Disks>:
This pane will list out all the disks that can be used to create a RAID set
currently. It will show some disk information (ex. Location, serial numbers,
the ability of boot and the status of recovering).
5. <Selected Disks>:
This pane will list out all the disks that have been selected to create a
RAID set. User can highlight the specific disk that we wants in the
<Available Disks> pane and click the downward arrow icon or double
click the marked disk to select that disk into the <SelectedDisks> pane. In
the same way, user can click the upward arrow icon or double click the
marked disk in the <Selected Disks> to get back the disk that we might
select wrong to the <Available Disks> pane.
6. <Information>:
This pane will show the information about creating a RAID set after
clicking the Create button. The information may be “Please select the
<Raid Type> first!”, “Please select the <Mode Type> first!”, “Please select
the <Block Size> first!”, “Please select the disk you want first!”, “Mirror
supports TWO DISKS only.”, “Raid Created successful! Reboot please!!”
or “Raid Creation failed!”.

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3. Create Raid
A. To create a JBOD array, follow these steps:
1. Configuration “Create Raid” “Raid Type” JBOD.
2. From the drop-down box “Mode Type”, select the mode type you
want or use the default value “DMA”.
3. From the <Available Disks> pane, select the disk and click down-
ward arrow icon or double click it to add the disk on the <Selected
Disks> pane.

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4. When the JBOD array’s configuration is finished, click the Create
button. Then a warning message will pop up. Pay attention to the
warning message, and then click Yes button to finish the creation of
JBOD array, or click No button to cancel.
NOTE
If the disk you selected has the ability of booting,
another warning message will pop up before “SiS
Software RAID” message. You may click Yes button
to continue or click No button to cancel.
5. Next, another message box will pop up to tell user that disk setting
has been changed and ask whether to restart the computer or not.
Click Yes button to restart the computer or click Cancel button to
skip restarting.
NOTE
New Setting will be activated only after you restart
the computer.

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B. To create a RAID 0 (Stripe) array, follow these steps:
1. Configuration “Create Raid” “Raid Type” RAID 0.
2. From the drop-down box “Block Size”, select the block size you
want.
3. From the drop-down box “Mode Type”, select the mode type you
want.
4. From the <Available Disks> pane, select the disk and click down-
ward arrow icon or double click it to add the disk on the <Selected
Disks> pane.

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5. When the RAID0 array’s configuration is finished, click the Create
button. Then a “Create Stripe RaidSet” dialog will pop up.
<Option Description>
Source: The first selected disk.
Target: The second selected disk.
Create Only: Select this option will destroy all data on all
the selected disks and create a clean stripe
array without any data on it.
Source is not Select this option will split data from source
a boot device: disk into all the selected disks. In this option,
the source cannot be bootable.
Source is a boot Select this option will split data from source
device: disk into all the selected disks. In this option,
the source can be bootable.
OK: Start the operation.
<Disk Copy Remaining Sector>:
Show the remaining splitting data.
6. Next, you may click Cancel button to leave, or click OK button to
continue after the operation being selected. Different warning mes-
sages will pop up according to the option you select. The warning
messages are similar to JBOD array creation but the operation is
“Split data into Raid0”.

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7. If the operation is “Split data into Raid0”, a warning message will pop
up. See below:
Next, you may click Yes button to start the operation
or click No button to cancel.
When this operation is beginning, you still can click
the destroy button on the “Create Stripe RaidSet”
dialog to stop this operation. But this action will
cause the data of the source disk broken. And
the following message will be popup to remind you.

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8. If the operation is “Source is a boot device” of <Split data into
Raid0 Set>, the following warning message will popup, seeing
below:
Next, you can click “Yes” button to start the opera-
tion or click “No” button to cancel. When you click
“Yes” button to start this operation, the following
warning message will popup.
Next, you can click “Yes” button to start the opera-
tion or click “No” button to cancel. When you click
“Yes” button to start this operation, the following
warning message will popup.
Next, you can click “Ok” button to restart the win-
dows and start the operation “Source is a boot
device” of <Split data into Raid0 Set>. Or click
“Cancel” button to suspend this operation. But, this
operation is still done after restarting the windows
next time.

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C. To create a RAID 1 (Mirror) array, follow these steps:
1. Configuration “Create Raid” “Raid Type” RAID 1.
2. From the drop-down box “Mode Type”, select the mode type you
want.
3. From the <Available Disks> pane, select the disk and click down-
ward arrow icon or double click it to add the disk on the <Selected
Disks> pane.

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4. When the RAID1 array’s configuration is finished, click the Create
button. Then a “Create Mirror RaidSet” dialog will pop up.
<Option Description>
Source: The first selected disk.
Target: The second selected disk.
Create Only: Select this option will destroy all data on all
the selected disks and create a clean mirror
array without any data on it.
Create and Duplicate operation will reserve data on the
Duplicate: source disk and copy them onto the target
disk.
OK: Start the operation.
Cancel: Cancel the operation.
<Disk Copy Remaining Sector>:
Show the remaining splitting data.
5. Next, you may click Cancel button to leave, or click OK button to
continue after the operation being selected. The warning messages
will pop up according to the operation you selected, and the mes-
sage is similar to JBOD array creation.

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6. If the operation is “Create and Duplicate”, the following warning
message will popup, seeing below:
Next, you can click “Yes” button to start the opera-
tion or click “No” button to cancel. When you click
“Yes” button to start this operation, the following
warning message will popup.
Click “OK” button to start this duplicating action.Don’t
restart your computer or it will cause the action fail.
7. When the operation is finished, the restart warning message will
popup as well as JBOD array creation.

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4. Explaining the RaidType Information
General case: RAID0 (A = B C | D E)
<Meaning>
RAID0: Raid Type
A: total number of disks in this Raid
B,C: the serial number of each disk in this Raid
D,E: a) Raid is correct, B=D C=E
b) Raid is error, D or E will show “?” or “!”.
In that case, the meaning of “?” and “!” will show below.
<Example>

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<HDinformation>

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5. Delete Raid
Click the tab “Delete Raid”, you can find some panes and two buttons. The
RaidType meaning will show below.
1. Connfiguration “Delete Raid”, the following windows will appear:
2. Highlight the disk array in the <Current RaidType> pane, and then click
the Information button, or double click the array. You can get the
information about the disk array.

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3. If you want to delete a disk array you selected, you can highlight the disk
array and then click the Delete button. Then a warning message will
pop up. Pay attention to the warning message. You may click Yes to
delete the selected disk array, or click No to cancel.
4. Next, another message will pop up to tell user the setting of these disks
have been changed and ask whether to restart the computer.

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6. Raid Recovery
NOTE
The recovering operation is workable only when error RAID1 set exist.
1. Click the tab Raid Recovery, you can find two panes and some buttons.
Those meaning will be showing below.
2. First, you can click the button Available Raid to find whether any error
RAID set existing. See below:
Next, highlight the error RAID set you want to recovery. And you can
click the OK button to continue or click Cancel to cancel this operation.