Installing WinXP Pro of a Raid 0 array

[garyknowz]

Disclaimer: I'm a biochemist, not a computer tech.


Anyway, I just bought a PC and they set up my HDs in RAID 0 (hardware only).

I've installed WinXP Pro on a single drive before. How would I do so in this circumstance? Do I need any special software?

*Any* kind of help would be wonderful.

Thanks,
Gary

[bailey]

just boot with the xp cd and install, it will take care of everything for you, just follow the instructions, when it asks for any third party dirvers for the raid.

[garyknowz]

Thanks for the reply bailey.

If I wasn't given any drivers, how would I obtain them?

[Jeordiewhite]

You installed on a single drive?
Maybe you are confused with the raid setup, or i am confused with what you are asking.
Basically with raid 0, striping mode, you are writing to blocks on each drive, they range from around 64k blocks per drive and they are in a row, so when writing to the hard drive, you are writing to both drives.
With raid 0, they are setup to use both drives at once and they appear to be a single drive, the formating is fairly simple and hasn't changed from using a single drive as the hardware/drivers make it appear so and use it as a single drive in windows itself.

You will have to configure the drives when booting up, before getting to the boot strap loader, there will be a moment for the raid card to post and load it's drivers into the boot rom, it will also ask you to configure them, if you have done so already, then skip this part, if not you will go set them up as raid 0 and will probably want to use a 64k block size for the drives, if you are lost, consult the manual. You will have the card setup the blocks to make them raid 0.
As for a 64k block size, that is generally optimal for anything and isn't a real use to use any other size unless you know you will benefit from it?
Once your done, and it asks you to reboot go to install windows.
To install windows onto these drives, you will need to start the computer from the cd-rom as usual to install windows xp, when you hit any key to start the windows install process, you will notice, "press f6 to boot from a scsi/raid mass storage controller device"
Not sure if it appears exactly as that, you will press F6 when asked to tho, it's right at the very beginning when the screen goes blue, and starts loading the most common and needed drivers to start the install and use all the devices needed.
From there you will next see a screen asking you to insert a floppy for the drivers for the raid card. Unless you have a raid card that is all hardare and does not require drivers, you will have to do this so windows will be able to find and prepare the drives for the install.
For the floppy, if your raid card came with any floppy, it will likely have the drivers, unless your using a motherboard, same rule apply's, if they provided a floppy and it mentions raid on it, you have got your floppy disk ready.
If not you can download the drivers from the manufacter, or maybe it's on their cd and you will need to copy a set of files onto a floppy for the raid, what is checked for to read the contents of the floppy drivers is the file TxtSetup.oem.
It will be with the drivers, you will copy the drivers to the floppy and from there use them to format and install windows.
Later on you will use windows to format the drive, windows will prompt you and you can either partition the drives so you have more than one drive, like for windows, programs, documents etc.
If not install and format it as one partition and install windows.
It will appear as one drive if that is what you meant before?

Good luck and if you need further assistants on the drivers and where to get them, please post system specs and raid card information as that is very important/relevant information in order to help possibly assist you.
Also, Welcome to Techimo

[jmichna]

garyknowz...
Although Jeordiewhite gave you solid, dead-on advice, it may be a bit overwhelming. To keep it simple, you need to have a floppy with your RAID drivers present, and like bailey and Jeordiewhite said, you will begin installing XP from the CD, early on you will be prompted to hit F6 to install any SCSI/special drivers, do this, insert your floppy in the drive when prompted and let the installation program find and load the drivers. That's really just about all there is to it. The rest of the OS installation will be just as if you had a single drive.

There is a lot of debate/opinion regarding optimum stripe size for RAID arrays, and some controllers (like my on-board HighPoint and most controller cards) let you select stripe size. This is done, however, in the RAID's BIOS setup when creating the RAID array in the first place, and it sounds like this has already been done for you. If you feel compelled to play with this, do it now, before you install the OS, since you've got nothing to lose.

[garyknowz]

Thanks you so much folks.

I was knew what raid 0 did however, was unsure about how to get it to do what it does. Get it?

Here are my system specs:

CPU Intel Pentium 4 Processor 3.2GHz FSB800 512KB
1024MB DDR400 PC3200 Memory
ASUS P4C800-E-DX Motherboard
Maxtor 80GB 7200RPM UDMA 133 IDE 8MB Cache ----- X2
Pioneer 4X 106 DVD RW +- Rewriter
LG Combo Drive 52X CD-RW 16X DVD-ROM
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro AIW 128MB, AGP, DVI, TV-Out, Retail
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2
420 Watt Enlight Power Supply Dual Fan

After some research, I found that the Raid controller is integrated onto the mainboard.

Promise 20378 RAID controller:
-1 x UltraDMA 133 support two hard drives
-2 x Serial ATA
RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1, Multiple RAID

I assume the raid driver would be found on the mobo driver but would it have been downloaded during the original bios install or would I toss it in at the <F6> prompt as directed?

Thanks a ton!

[jmichna]

I assume the raid driver would be found on the mobo driver but would it have been downloaded during the original bios install or would I toss it in at the <F6> prompt as directed?

My recollection is the XP install insists on getting the drivers from a floppy. They should be on the CD that came with your mobo. Find them, and extract them to a floppy. Be ready when prompted to hit F6 to install "SCSI" drivers, and insert the floppy. You should be set.

[garyknowz]

Thanks again!

Everything went very smooth.

I do have a couple other questions but those are for other threads.

See you there.

[lep1933]

I am new to RAID configurations and just had a PC built with a RAID 0 config, very similar to garyknowz. I have two (250GB) identical hard drives on an ASUS K8V Deluxe mobo and upon bootup with XP Pro, I see two options of XP Pro to launch from. Also upon getting into XP, I see these two drives in explorer with what appears to contain identical data. The person that built the PC put an indicator on one drive which says 'These files/folders are hidden and you should not modify these files to maintain system integrity). When I install other programs, should I install to the other drive only and is there a resynchronization that occurs (automatically?) once software is installed to either drive? It appears that I have 500GB between the drives though. I did install a game, but it is only appearing on one drive. I'm concerned I'm going to mess something up if I don't learn how to use it properly.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

[jmichna]

Originally posted by lep1933
I am new to RAID configurations and just had a PC built with a RAID 0 config, very similar to garyknowz. I have two (250GB) identical hard drives on an ASUS K8V Deluxe mobo and upon bootup with XP Pro, I see two options of XP Pro to launch from. Also upon getting into XP, I see these two drives in explorer with what appears to contain identical data. The person that built the PC put an indicator on one drive which says 'These files/folders are hidden and you should not modify these files to maintain system integrity). When I install other programs, should I install to the other drive only and is there a resynchronization that occurs (automatically?) once software is installed to either drive? It appears that I have 500GB between the drives though. I did install a game, but it is only appearing on one drive. I'm concerned I'm going to mess something up if I don't learn how to use it properly.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Lep1933... welcome to TechIMO.

First, you really should post your problem as a new thread... it will get a lot more attention.

Now... to your problem... something doesn't seem correct. Assuming you have a RAID-0 array (striping), your two 250gb drives should appear as one 500gb drive, although it may be broken down into smaller partitions. If you are seeing two 'drives" -- not two "partitions" -- then you can't have a RAID-0 array. You should not also be seeing an option to select from two OS instances when booting.

If your drives have been set to a RAID-1 array (mirroring), then you would see only a total of 250gb capacity, and you would not see two OS instances from which to boot. Any OS, program, etc. is written to both disks automatically and simultaneously.

Are you certain that what you see insn't just two partitions (a C: and D: drive?)

Also, if you are running a RAID-0 array, I'm not sure why the person who built your system would have bothered to create a hidden "backup" section, especially since if one drive in a RAID-0 array goers bad, you lose everything (with no ability to recover) anyhow.

I'd go back to who built your PC and ask them to explain just what they did.