RAIDing two Maxtor 80gigs

Ok I have two Maxtor 80gig SATA harddrives that I want to RAID (to have a back up in case one crashes)

The harddrive I got first and have been using for a few months is an OEM Maxtor 6Y080M0 and the second one that I just got is a retail L01M80. Both are Maxtor 80gig SATA drives. The motherboard I am using is an ABIT IC7G MAx II Advance.
Now, for some reason, the compture refuses to let me raid the two. I've tried on chip with SATA ports 1 and 2 and I've tried on board with SATA ports 3 and 4.
I know the hard drive (L01M80) works becuase I managed to get Windows to load up and format the drive. Now however, it refuses to load past the initial BIOS screen if the L01M80 is hooked up.
I've done everything I can think of except install Windows XP on the L01M80 drive. Would installing Windows on the second drive help?

Did it ever occur to you that both Harddrives need to run the same firmware and be the exact same model.

>>1
better to do software raid, that way if your mobo breaks you'll still have a way to acces the data, also the penalty hit for doing software raid isn't that big.

jbod raid

plus raid0 is retarded, but i guess you dont care about your data... probably just porn anyway

>>4

 This is not a RAID for speed. Not everyone RAIDs for speed. It's to keep a running backup of the main system important files.

 >>2

 Yes, yes it did. However, they do not have to be exactly alike.
 Also, evenn though the outside of the box on the retail sayes L01M80, the actual harddrive says 6Y080M0 on it.

 Though after some more tries I think that the harddrive is actually defective(it's producing a great deal more heat than the other 80gig drive and seems to screw up recognition of the other drives. As in no drives can be found yet both optical drives are plugged in. Unplug the harddrive and suddenly those drives are visible once again and work perfectly fine. In other words everything works when the second 80gig isn't attached to the motherboard in some way). That might explain abit....

>>5
if its a backup and you only have two drives then i suppose you are doing a raid1 mirror

the most wasteful of raids... get some more drives and do a raid5

raid0 is retarded