I have a dell Studio 435t/9000 with the ICH10R chipset (report below, don't worry about it's current status, I'm running a verification at the moment to see if that may be my problem).
Anyway....I recently increased the size of my raid 1 array from Samsung 500Gb to WD 1TB. To do this, I first upgraded from the Intel Matrix Storage 8.x to RST-(details below). I formatted 3 new drives as I wanted to go to Raid 5. I pulled one old drive out, mirrored a new drive to that, then then replaced the other along with added the third new drive. At this point, I reset the disks to non-raid in the bio to see if I could set it up as raid 5 in the bios and mirror/stripe from the new drive over to both the other new ones. It only allowed me to create a Raid 1 or 0 in the bios, so I went with raid 1 thinking I could convert through windows RST to raid 5 later. At this point I had the new larger Raid 1 array working perfectly with the third new drive still on its own. (The configuration you see below). However now, windows RST won't give me the option to convert to anything other than Raid 0. Any tricks I need to know? Could it be my orom version is too old for Raid 5? Thank you for any help...
System Report
System Information
OS name: Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Home Premium
OS version: 6.0.6002 Service Pack 2 6002
System name: JOSHUA
System manufacturer: DELL Inc.
System model: Studio XPS 435T
Processor: GenuineIntel Intel64 Family 6 Model 26 Stepping 4 2.934 GHz
BIOS: DELL INC., A16
Intel® Rapid Storage Technology
Kit installed: 11.0.0.1032
User interface version: 11.0.0.1032
Language: English (United States)
Intel RAID controller: Intel(R) Desktop/Workstation/Server Express Chipset SATA RAID Controller
Number of SATA ports: 6
RAID option ROM version: 8.6.0.1007
Driver version: 11.0.0.1032
ISDI version: 11.0.0.1032
Hardware Information
Name: Array_0000
Size: 1.8 TB
Available space: 0 GB
Disk data cache: Enabled
Number of volumes: 1
Volume member: Volume_0000
Number of disks: 2
Array disk: WD-WCC3F2496464
Array disk: WD-WCC3F2480686
Name: Volume_0000
Status: Verifying and repairing 3% complete
Type: RAID 1
Size: 932 GB
Data stripe size: 64 KB
Write-back cache: Disabled
System volume: Yes
Initialized: Yes
Verification errors found: 0
Blocks with media errors: 0
Physical sector size: 4096 Bytes
Logical sector size: 512 Bytes
Parent array: Array_0000
Number of disks: 2
Array disk: WD-WCC3F2496464
Array disk: WD-WCC3F2480686
Disk on port 2
Port location: Internal
Status: Normal
Type: Hard disk
Usage: Array disk
Size: 932 GB
Serial number: WD-WCC3F2496464
Model: WDC WD10EZEX-00BN5A0
Firmware: 01.01A01
System disk: No
Password protected: No
Disk data cache: Enabled
Native command queuing: Yes
SATA transfer rate: 3 Gb/s
Physical sector size: 4096 Bytes
Logical sector size: 512 Bytes
Disk on port 3
Port location: Internal
Status: Normal
Type: Hard disk
Usage: Array disk
Size: 932 GB
Serial number: WD-WCC3F2480686
Model: WDC WD10EZEX-00BN5A0
Firmware: 01.01A01
System disk: No
Password protected: No
Disk data cache: Enabled
Native command queuing: Yes
SATA transfer rate: 3 Gb/s
Physical sector size: 4096 Bytes
Logical sector size: 512 Bytes
Disk on port 4
Port location: Internal
Status: Normal
Type: Hard disk
Usage: Available
Size: 932 GB
Serial number: WD-WCC1S8054047
Model: WDC WD10EZEX-75ZF5A0
Firmware: 80.00A80
System disk: No
Password protected: No
Disk data cache: Enabled
Native command queuing: Yes
SATA transfer rate: 3 Gb/s
Physical sector size: 4096 Bytes
Logical sector size: 512 Bytes
Disk on port 0
Port location: Internal
Status: Normal
Type: ATAPI device
Usage: Unknown
Size: 0 GB
Serial number:
Model: TSSTcorpDVD-ROM TS-H353B
Firmware: D700
System disk: No
Password protected: No
Disk data cache: Disabled
Native command queuing: No
SATA transfer rate: 1.5 Gb/s
Physical sector size: 0 Bytes
Logical sector size: 0 Bytes
Disk on port 1
Port location: Internal
Status: Normal
Type: ATAPI device
Usage: Unknown
Size: 0 GB
Serial number:
Model: PLDS DVD+/-RW DH-16A6S
Firmware: YD12
System disk: No
Password protected: No
Disk data cache: Disabled
Native command queuing: No
SATA transfer rate: 1.5 Gb/s
Physical sector size: 0 Bytes
Logical sector size: 0 Bytes
Empty port
Port: 5
Port location: External