Raid

[wallie32]

I am going to install 2 120gb hard drives which I want to set up as a Raid 0 array.
Have I to install them before installing my Windows XP operating system or can I install them after the operating system is installed?
I am using an Asus A7V333-Raid board and Western Digital drives.
Also what should the drive jumpers be set to?

Thanks for any info
wal

 

[ski]

Setting up a RAID 0 array will wipe out all data on the HD's, so it's recommended that you do this before installing the OS.
Recommended HD configuration is IDE 1 Master and IDE 2 Master.
Does your MB's manual concur with the above?

 

[wallie32]

Sorry I did not state my case properly.
I have 2 hard drives on my IDE channels one of wich has my Windows XP operating system on.
I have fitted 2 new hard drives to my Raid sockets.
Will I be able to set there 2 drives up as a Raid array or should the Raid array hold the operating system?
Also my motherboard manual states both at master for a Raid array or if it does not work try master and slave.

Thanks
wal

 

[ski]

Actually, installing the OS on one of the RAID 0 HD's is a bad idea because if one of the RAID drives fails, then the data is lost on both drives.
So recommend keeping the OS on one of the IDE drives.

 

[wallie32]

After quite a tussle I am finally making progress in the Raid setup.
Now when I go into Fast Build it shows the array as:
Array 1 Stripe Total Drives 2 Capacity 239988gb Functional

I would like to know what my next step is, I am presuming the array will now have to be Formatted.
I am not quite sure how to do this any help welcome.
Thanks for all the info I have had.
wallie

 

[SpotLizard]

Wallie,

If the motherboard has RAID drivers on a floppy or CD I don't know if this will work. The reason being that this is a hardware based RAID solution. This type of RAID generally has to be identified to the OS during install (press F6 during setup, install the RAID drivers).

Software RAID is possible in Win2K, but this article from Microsoft seems to imply that it can't be done in XP (never tried it, so I can't say)

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q314343

Hope this helps.

SL

 

[phydeau672]

I have a tale of woe to add here.

I recently bought a new PC based on the ASUS A7V8X motherboard, which has onboard RAID. It's one of the kind that needs an OS driver. I ordered it with a 40G drive with WinXP installed on it. I bought two Serial ATA 80G drives to create a RAID-0 (striped) array. The FastBuild configuration went well; it detected the two drives and I told it to stripe them. The OS already had the RAID drivers installed so it recognized the drives as one 160G drive and I was able to add partitions to it with PartitionMagic (a great program, by the way). BTW, Master/Slave doesn't apply to SATA, every drive is on its own cable.

I decided to install a copy of WinXP on the striped drive, with hopes of increased performance dancing in my head. I copied the RAID drivers to a floppy and hit F6 during setup when it asked if I had drivers to install. Worked like a charm, I was able to install the OS on the striped drive, it showed up in my boot menu.

HOWEVER: It doesn't seem to work! When booted to the striped drive I get daily crashes and other mysterious lockups that don't respond to ctrl-alt-del; I have to power off the system to get out of it. It doesn't happen when I'm booted to the non-striped OS.

Moral of the story: Keep the OS installation you have and install a second copy of the OS on the striped drive. (I always have at least two OSes installed on two separate drives.) Maybe it will work for you.

Me, I'm going to look for a 100% hardware RAID solution that presents the striped disks to the OS as one disk, without the need for potentially buggy OS drivers.

Mike Persons

 

[jpm121]

Mike, I'm sorry to hear you're having problems with your array, but it's likely a flawed implementation, not flawed technology.

Check around for an updated driver or firmware for the RAID controller. I have a PCI RAID-0 controller that handles Win2k3 just fine, and I've installed other OSes on other arrays many times.

In a nutshell, the RAID controller WILL present the "large disk" to the OS -- just like the BIOS does in IDE configs. If the drivers handling this are flakey, you'll get the same results whether it's RAID or IDE.

 

[wallie32]

Thanks to everyone for the input.
I have the Raid 0 array setup now and it shows my 2 120gb drives as 1 228gb drive.
As suggested I am keeping my OS on one of my IDE drives.
Just out of curiosity I tried installing the OS on the Raid drive and it worked great.
I have since removed it from the Raid array and restored it to my IDE in case the Raid packs in.
Thanks again
wallie

 

[techwolf]

With western digital leave the jumpers nuetral or remove them, format both drives, with award bios boot from scsi, with onboard highpoint controller. when bios gets to raid program press ctrl+H, setup array to your liking. have boot disk in and format array.