Raid0 Help...

JäX · 01-04-2003, 12:28 PM

I cant seem to get my RAID0 setup properly in winXP, I am running 3 20gb maxtors, I was running win2k pro and all was fine, but when upgrading to XP it all went to pot. Tried scores of things (even updated drivers) but I had to use 1 drive, and set up the other 2 on a stripe. But I am disappointed with it, I feel incomplete in my creation.

I have an Abit TH7-II w/RAID * P4 2.4ghz * 1024RDRAM * (3) Maxtor 20gb ata133 7500rpm. the controller is a Highpoint.

Any Ideas

I am kinda new to the Raid thing I have done research and set it up on my win2kpro but still need to get schooled by a "pro".hehe

JäX · 01-08-2003, 07:59 AM

Anyone??

Martoch · 01-08-2003, 08:10 AM

Well I'm no RAID "pro" by any means, but I want to clarify something for those who are.
When you upgraded to XP, did you simply run an upgrade CD or did you format/clean install Win XP?

JäX · 01-08-2003, 01:14 PM

I reformatted, should I have upgraded instead?

Kuasimodem · 01-08-2003, 08:23 PM

Clean install is the way to go

When you ran the install, did you install the RAID controller drivers when prompted at the start of the install? This step is crucial, as XP won't recognize the array unless the drivers are installed. (I can't remember the exact steps, because my XP Pro install went so flawlessly on my RAID system

)

JäX · 01-09-2003, 04:22 PM

Yep, I followed my mobo's manual for the onboard RAID controller setup... Just like when I had it on win2k pro.

Kuasimodem · 01-09-2003, 07:04 PM

Well, if at first you don't succeed, start over...

I would use only 2 of the hard drives to create the RAID array, with each drive as the Master on each IDE channel of the Highpoint controller, with no slave. Place the other hard drive on the normal IDE ports (after installing XP) as a storage drive, or use it in another computer. I say this because IDE controllers can only communicate with one drive at a time per cable. If you have two of the drives on one cable, and one drive on another, the two on the same cable will most likely hinder performance because the controller will have to wait for one drive before it can read/write to the other.

Install one hard drive on each of the Highpoint controller IDE cables as Master, with no slave.
Don't put the other hard drive on the normal IDE channel until after XP finishes installing, XP may try to install to that hard drive by default, since it would technically be the first hard drive that it sees.
Go into your motherboard bios and set the boot order as follows:
First boot - floppy
Second boot - CDROM
Third boot - SCSI controller (or ATA controller, whichever is says)
Go into your Highpoint controller bios and remove any RAID arrays that you have created.
Now create a new RAID0 array.
Put a Win98 boot disk in the floppy drive, reboot, and use FDISK to partition your array.
Remove the boot floppy and put your WinXP install disk in the CDROM.
Reboot and start installation, hitting F6 to install your Highpoint drivers from the floppy that came with your motherboard when prompted.
Complete the WinXP install as you would normally, using the XP install program to format the partition(s).

This is how I always set up RAID arrays

jmichna · 01-10-2003, 12:53 PM

Kuasimodem...
Saw your post here and it got me to thinking... how's that old Slot-A doing for you? Still cranking out W.U.s?
jmichna

Kuasimodem · 01-10-2003, 10:32 PM

Sorry to say, it has been bitten by the bad capacitor bug

I'm not giving up on it though, that board and cpu rocked when it was running, and I'm trying to find replacement caps, so it will live again

Running at 850Mhz, it benched just as fast as my 900 T-bird at stock speed

Hey Jax, did you try my method for setting up the RAID0 yet?

Bob The Great · 01-10-2003, 11:45 PM

I have a RAID0 with 2x40GB maxtor 7200RPM ATA/133 drives... With XP it is almost as slow as a standered drive. On my other PC I have 1 IBM deskstar 40GB 7200RPM ATA/100 and it gets higher scores (I should have made a raid with two of those drives). I think the problem is NTFS uses a bad cluster size by defualt (at least with XP). It kills drive speeds on every PC. You can partly fix this by formating your RAID while in XP and specifiying the cluster size to a larger size. Your best bet would be to set all 3 into a stripping raid and then use a seperate partition util so you can make an NTFS partiotion across your raid with a good cluster size. That should help aliviate your problem.

Good luck!