I have setup a windows 2003 server, and I intend to use a silicon image 680 raid controller ($30.00) for a pair of 60gb ide hard drives (7200rpm western digital) (both are jumpered as master drives in a single drive system, since there on seperate cables/ide control ports)
I boot hit F3 and setup the mirror set, and it sees both drives, i created the set, by choosing automatic creation and NOT the copy drive command, because the second drive is also blank, it seems to be setup correctly. I then copied the contents fo the sil680raid\win_drv folder to a floppy and booted to the windows 2003 std edition cd rom, hit F6 to specify other controller drivers, and when it asked i had it load the driver from the floppy which it found.
now i get to the create partition and it sees a 60gb drive, so far so good, i then format the entire partition as an NTFS drive, not worried about partitioning since its raid 1 anyway. That all goes good, it copies the files, still good... it reboots, and I get a message saying that windows 2003 is unable to boot to this hardware configuration!?!?!
OOOKAY!
so here i go, I then open up the case and find the two drives are over 120'F, at least, so i put in an 80mm fan on the front of the case and have it blow directly over the bottom of the top drive and over the top of the lower drive physically. I have a second 80mm fan on the backside blowing OUT, so i have one direction of airflow (not including CPU fan) and a backplane fan, that takes air out the same direction on the bottom of the case, now with that, the case should be in a more temperate climate, anyhow, I decide to swap the drives primary secondary roles, and made sure both IDE cables are the compressed 80 wire for ata133.
by the way not sure why these drives are heating up, they didnt do that when they were single drives in this very case, one was setup as primary master the other secondary master using software raid1, it was too slow hence the hardware controller.
I have rebooted to windows 2003, again the drive is there i create a full sized partition and am doing a full ntfs format again, it takes about 15-20 minutes (much slower then standard drive formatting, probably because its formatting both drives), it does read that it is formatting 57140 mb disk 0 at id 0 on bus pnp680r.
copying files went well again,....it finishes
weird on reboot i had an incomplete raid set error message from the controller and it wanted me to go into the config (hit F3) so I do, and its fine, no conflicts set shows both drives in it and its a primary master, i exit and then it boots to wndows 2003.
you may get a logo testing message during windows installation, just click accept/ok continue which ever positive is available, this message is similart to the "not digitally signed" etc..you'll get this at least 2 times.
you should be able to finish up at this point and have a decent windows 2003 server running raid1 on a 29.95 pata ultra ata 133 controller.
--
As you can see it never does go easy, even if it should.
Even if the primary drive fails your server should be able to be rebooted to the secondary master, and only miss a few minutes of uptime, giving you time to schedule a replacement window for the defective drive.
--
Goodluck
This is my trouble ticket server, inexpensive:
Asus AN8V-X mainboard
Athalon 2500 BARTON processor
1 GIG Corsair pc3200 ram
(2) 60GB 7200 WDC IDE harddrives - Raid1 Mirroring
Silicon Image I/O card 680Raid for legacy IDE drives
Asus CD-rom
Soyo Dragon Case, with 400w PSU, and 3 outlets plus fuse
windows 2003 std edition sp1
IT Maximum
I boot hit F3 and setup the mirror set, and it sees both drives, i created the set, by choosing automatic creation and NOT the copy drive command, because the second drive is also blank, it seems to be setup correctly. I then copied the contents fo the sil680raid\win_drv folder to a floppy and booted to the windows 2003 std edition cd rom, hit F6 to specify other controller drivers, and when it asked i had it load the driver from the floppy which it found.
now i get to the create partition and it sees a 60gb drive, so far so good, i then format the entire partition as an NTFS drive, not worried about partitioning since its raid 1 anyway. That all goes good, it copies the files, still good... it reboots, and I get a message saying that windows 2003 is unable to boot to this hardware configuration!?!?!
OOOKAY!
so here i go, I then open up the case and find the two drives are over 120'F, at least, so i put in an 80mm fan on the front of the case and have it blow directly over the bottom of the top drive and over the top of the lower drive physically. I have a second 80mm fan on the backside blowing OUT, so i have one direction of airflow (not including CPU fan) and a backplane fan, that takes air out the same direction on the bottom of the case, now with that, the case should be in a more temperate climate, anyhow, I decide to swap the drives primary secondary roles, and made sure both IDE cables are the compressed 80 wire for ata133.
by the way not sure why these drives are heating up, they didnt do that when they were single drives in this very case, one was setup as primary master the other secondary master using software raid1, it was too slow hence the hardware controller.
I have rebooted to windows 2003, again the drive is there i create a full sized partition and am doing a full ntfs format again, it takes about 15-20 minutes (much slower then standard drive formatting, probably because its formatting both drives), it does read that it is formatting 57140 mb disk 0 at id 0 on bus pnp680r.
copying files went well again,....it finishes
weird on reboot i had an incomplete raid set error message from the controller and it wanted me to go into the config (hit F3) so I do, and its fine, no conflicts set shows both drives in it and its a primary master, i exit and then it boots to wndows 2003.
you may get a logo testing message during windows installation, just click accept/ok continue which ever positive is available, this message is similart to the "not digitally signed" etc..you'll get this at least 2 times.
you should be able to finish up at this point and have a decent windows 2003 server running raid1 on a 29.95 pata ultra ata 133 controller.
--
As you can see it never does go easy, even if it should.
Even if the primary drive fails your server should be able to be rebooted to the secondary master, and only miss a few minutes of uptime, giving you time to schedule a replacement window for the defective drive.
--
Goodluck
This is my trouble ticket server, inexpensive:
Asus AN8V-X mainboard
Athalon 2500 BARTON processor
1 GIG Corsair pc3200 ram
(2) 60GB 7200 WDC IDE harddrives - Raid1 Mirroring
Silicon Image I/O card 680Raid for legacy IDE drives
Asus CD-rom
Soyo Dragon Case, with 400w PSU, and 3 outlets plus fuse
windows 2003 std edition sp1
IT Maximum