Installing XP on Dynamic disk

[hdtvguy]

Hi! from the cold and snowy Canadian north

I dual boot on a Deskstar IDE drive with WinXP Pro - no SP1 and want to boot on my two Cheetah SCSI drives(17Gb each). After converting them to a Dynamic striped volume (17Gb) I tried to install from the CD-ROM (WInXP with SP1). Got the error message "Setup cannot install on this partition". Some searching on Microsoft revealed that the dynamic volume needs a MBR record.

So I:
1. deleted all volumes on both drives
2. created new simple volumes 1Gb in size on both drives
3. created a striped volume from the 16Gb remaining on both drives
4. used the diskpart utility command "retain" to save a MBR on both simple volumes
5. a message confirmed that retain was successful

Tried installing XP from the CD-ROM but got the same "Setup cannot install on this partition" message. Looking at the drives in Disk Management they are still labelled as Simple Dynamic and under Status indicate they are healthy but nothing to denote them being a boot partition.

What am I doing wrong?

 

[linney]

308424 - HOW TO: Use Disk Management to Configure Dynamic Disks in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308424&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

Some mention about dual booting with other operating systems being a problem.

Local access to dynamic volumes (and to the data that the dynamic volumes contain) is limited to Microsoft Windows 2000 and Microsoft Windows XP Professional-based computers.

You cannot create dynamic volumes on (or access dynamic volumes from) a Windows XP Professional-based computer that has one or more of the following operating systems running:

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 and earlier
Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition
Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition and earlier
MS-DOS



Just typing "dynamic disk" in the Help and Support program search box (while online) will bring up several other articles that might help you.

 

[hdtvguy]

Thanks linney.

These Cheetahs were converted from BASIC to DYNAMIC disks with W2k and ran it on them fine. A little while ago I upgraded them also to WinXP and ran it from a STRIPED VOLUME on the Cheetahs. I recently decided to clean them up and downsize them to a 1GB SIMPLE VOLUME and 16Gb unallocated space on both, which I then converted to a STRIPED VOLUME. This is when the problems started when I converted them using XP. So far I have found out this.

Reference 1:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;309044

states "You must have at least 1 megabyte (MB) of free space on any master boot record (MBR) disk that you want to convert.
This space is automatically reserved when the partition or volume is created in Microsoft Windows 2000 or
Windows XP Professional."
1 is a good thing.

Reference 2:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...prodtechnol/winxppro/reskit/prkb_cnc_ploo.asp

states "You can convert basic disks to dynamic at any time. In most cases, you do not need to restart your computer to complete the
conversion. However, you must restart the computer if the disks you are converting contain any of the following volumes:
System volume (x86-based computers only).
Boot volume.
Volumes that contain the paging file.

When you convert MBR disks that contain the system, boot, or paging file volumes to dynamic, you are prompted to restart
the computer two times. You must restart the computer twice to complete the conversion."

2 is a good thing.

Reference 3:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...prodtechnol/winxppro/reskit/prkb_cnc_pbxa.asp

states "Although you can convert a basic disk to dynamic without losing data, you cannot convert a dynamic disk to basic
if the disk contains volumes. You must delete all volumes on a dynamic disk before you can convert it to basic."


3 is a good thing.

So if for some the "retain" thingy isn't working does this mean that I have to start with a BASIC primary partiton as a SYSTEM VOLUME and a logical partiton for the BOOT VOLUME. Then once XP is up and running convert the whole mess to DYNAMIC?

Then I found this tidbit:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...prodtechnol/winxppro/reskit/prkb_cnc_opkt.asp

it states "You can install Windows XP Professional on the following dynamic volumes:
* Any basic volume that was present on the disk when you converted the disk to dynamic by using Windows 2000.
* Simple volumes on which you run the DiskPart command retain. This command adds a partition entry to the
partition table so that you can install Windows XP Professional on the simple volume.
* An existing simple volume that is the boot or system volume.

I checked my SIMPLE VOLUMES by right clicking the drive label and the "Extend Volume" option is grayed out indicating that a partition entry exists in the table.

I've got a headache now and think I will go watch some DVD's.
Tomorrow is another day to do battle.

Thanks again,
hdtvguy

http://home.cogeco.ca/~hdtvguy/index.HTM

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[hdtvguy]

Well I finally found the answwer. MS says you cannot make a STRIPED volume a BOOT volume.

So just put all the Program Files on the striped drives and XP flies. I suppose I could have installed the BOOT on a second SIMPLE volume and got a basic install of XP working. Then go into my IDE installation of XP, backup the SCSI's BOOT volume and convert that to a STRIPED volume and restore the data back. Well maybe next time.

P.S. the "retain" command does work and is essential to get the XP installer to recognize the drive as an installable partition.

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