ARe you talking about Hardware RAID 5 or Software RAID 5?
With Hardware RAID, you need to buy a special (usually expensive) piece of hardware. This RAID controller will need to be configured. Usually there is special software that is specific to the type of RAID controller you are using...this software will enable you to cofigure your RAID arrays. The OS will not "see" the volume as a RAID set. This is because the hardware is performing ALL of the RAID tasks. In general Hardware RAID is always better...more efficient and does not take resources from the OS.
With Software RAID, you do not need to purchase a special RAID controller card. Software RAID is configured through the OS (NT, NetWare, 2000, UNIX..etc) After the OS is built and working, you then configure the software RAID. In Windows NT the utility to configure RAID is called Disk Administrator in 2000 it is called Disk Management. Software RAID is created after the OS is installed and running. Software RAID takes processing resouces and is not the best method to achive data fault tolerance.
Also...when you restore the data, you will lose all permissions/security on the data.
You need to specify more details...
Joseph L. Poandl
MCSE 2000