WinXP-64 bit corrupts existing RAID array

I've got an MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum motherboard running Win XP Pro SP2 on two 36 gig SATA Raptors. Everything was working fine, but I wanted to try the 64 bit version of XP. Grabbed an old 80 gig PATA drive and threw that in the case. Unplugged the SATA drives so as not to risk messing with the existing working OS. Installed the latest 1218 x64 beta and it worked well.
The problem was that when I shut down and reconnected my old RAID array, windows wouldn't boot from it. I lost everything and had to rebuild Windows from scratch. So now I know to never unplug the SATA drives
Rebuilt WinXP on the RAID array and then tried rebooting with the PATA drive with the 64 bit OS. Came up with the "drive needs checking" screen, and proceeds to "fix" the RAID array while ignoring my frantic pounding on the Logitech USB keyboard to stop. Rebooted and yes, the new install was nuked. Okay, since it's gone anyway, reboot to the 64 bit OS and make sure it's got the 64 bit RAID drivers installed.
Reinstall WinXP on the RAID array, reboot to the 64 bit OS on the other drive and the same old scandisk comes and nukes it AGAIN!
So now the PATA drive is sitting on the shelf again, unless someone here can suggest what is causing this problem.
System Specs
Athlon64 3500
gig of PQI 3200 at 2-2-2-5 2.6
2x36 gig Raptors on ports 3-4
Plextor PX-716a DVD+_RW
Visiontek X800 Pro.

The first time you re-installed Win 32 on the raid that was a bit drastic. A repair ought to have done the job.
The problem was probably that you disconnected the array but that's where the boot.ini was and that file needed to be modified to add the path to the Win64 install.
Since you took out the array the Win64 install created a new boot.ini on the PATA drive. Even when you tell BIOS to boot off the array, Windows has a bad habit of looking at the IDE channels & using the boot.ini if it finds one there - but the file it found didn't point to the array of course.
So basically if you already have Win32 on the array I would leave that array connected normally when installing Win64 on the PATA drive and all should be well.
I've installed Win64 on the same array as my Win32 install and they co-exist happily. I reckon that's the most efficient way to do it. The main thing is to make separate partitions for Win32, Win64 and data files when you install Win32 in the first place. The two OSs can share the same data files, incuding stuff like email.

Similar Messages

Deleting existing raid array

just rebuilt my system with a new a64 , msi k8n neo2
had a abit nfs before with two 120gig wd sata drives in raid 0 installed on it.
Now its saying to me "no disk reserved for raid use, raid disabled"
Ive gone through and changed all the bios settings to allow raid.
all i want to do is formatt the hdds and start a new raid 0, im just going to count the info that was on thier as gone (most of it was backed up anyway)
according to the manual you press f10 before it loads into os for the raid options yet i can not do this as it just gives this message nothing more then continues "no disk reserved for raid use, raid disabled"
Does this makes sense to anyone?
any suggestions ? ive been combing the net for some
Thanks

mine dos.
4. Go into “Integrated Peripherals”
5. Press ENTER on “Onboard Devices”
6. Press ENTER on “RAID Config”
7. Locate the “SATA1/4 RAID” make sure whatever port it is plugged into is enabled.
8. Return to “Onboard Devices” menu
9. Locate the SATA1/SATA2 – SATA3/SATA4 and enable the option that corresponds with your drive
these steps helped me, are you sure you enabled all in the bios , what exatly did you enable in the.
4. Go into “Integrated Peripherals”
5. Press ENTER on “Onboard Devices”
6. Press ENTER on “RAID Config”
7. Locate the “SATA1/4 RAID” make sure whatever port it is plugged into is enabled.
??

MOVED: Upgrading system with existing RAID Array

This topic has been moved to Vista problems.
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=106509.0

The only issue I can foresee is a permissions one. Make sure it is set to "Ignore permissions…" before doing anything. If the drive has specific ownership when you reinstall and you fail to have a matching account to the onwer you'll need to mess with the root account to potentially get back into the drive.
Most unknowingly avoid this issue though using the same username and short username on the reinstalled system.

RAID Arrays and WinXP Home

OK... I tried upgrading to Win XP 64-bit, but found there were games and applications that were screwy there and some items without 64-bit drivers, etc. So, I rolled back to a clean install of XP Home (32-bit).
After much effort, I was told today at a local techie-store that XP Home "doesn't allow for RAID arrays."
True?
I have 2 Hitachi 160GB drives I got last week at the afore-mentioned store for $112 US total! So, I am trying to make it all work, but am having no luck.
Any thoughts?
Scott in Los Angeles

There is a way to make some versions of windows do a software RAID, but the MSI board has a VIA and a Promise hardware array. Don't worry about what the 'techie' said.
Enable Promise controller in BIOS and set it for RAID.
Press Ctrl & F when prompted to set up your RAID array.
Boot to Windows CD
Press F6 when prompted and insert your Promise RAID disk.
Enjoy!

PM8M2-V RAID array not recognised by WinXP Pro

Greetings,
i'm just setting up a PM8M2-V system with 2 x WD 80GB JD SATA drives. In the RAID BIOS i have configured the drives to be RAID 0 (striped) for performance and made them bootable. From a IDE DVD rom, i'm running a WinXP Pro (corp ed - no pre-installed service packs) install but the OS will not detect any drives in the system.
I have downloaded the VIA_RAID_OM74.zip file from MSI VIA PIDE-SATA RAID Drivers and Utility for creating the RAID drivers and tried to create a floppy disk with the WinXP drivers on it using the embedded (and slightly cryptic) VIA MakeDisk.txt instructions.
Containined on the floppy disk are the following files/folders:
a:\TXTSETUP.OEM
a:\PIDE\WinXP\viapdisk.cat
a:\PIDE\WinXP\viapdisk.sys
a:\PIDE\WinXP\viapide.inf
a:\RAID\WinXP\viamraid.cat
a:\RAID\WinXP\viamraid.inf
a:\RAID\WinXP\viamraid.sys
*plus the other MS operating system files in the similar directory structure*
Problem - WinXP Pro does not recognise this created floppy disk as a hardware support disk and will NOT let the OS recognise the SATA RAID array as a drive.
Complete system specs
MSI PM8M2-V VIA P4800 + 8237R (RAID)
Intel P3 3ghz HT LGA775 CPU
2 x 512 DDR-RAM PC3200
2 x WD 80GB JD SATA drives configured in a RAID 0 Striped set and bootable
1 x IDE DVD D/L Burner (Master drive on IDE Secondary Channel)
ATI Radeon 9250 128m AGP Card
Web Excel 56K software modem

Did you boot with WinXP CD 1st and then hit F6 to install the RAID controller drivers?

Is it possible to add a harddrive to an existing Raid 0 Array?

I have an existing striped raid 0 setup with 2 x 500 GB hard drives.
I just bought 2 more x 500 GB hard drives since i noticed HDD is a bottleneck for my 8 core system.
my question is, can i add the 2 harddrives to my existing raid 0 partition ? (so i have one raid 0 partition of 2 TB )
i tried this, but it didnt work
MacPro-PC:~ kronos$ diskutil listraid
RAID SETS
===============================================================================
Name: Raid 0
Unique ID: 7CD5E941-6AA9-4F47-BE18-2183860B0596
Type: Stripe
Status: Online
Size: 999527743488 B
Device Node: disk4
Apple RAID Version: 2
# Device Node UUID Status
0 disk1s2 D8CB113A-4425-4E4D-AA1C-62118342CA89 Online
1 disk2s2 CC80544C-65A1-4F1D-A26C-F05E2EA92840 Online
===============================================================================
bash-3.2# diskutil addToRaid member disk0 /Volumes/Raid\ 0
Error adding the disk to the RAID: Could not modify RAID (-9960)

You will have to backup all the data and start over to make a new, 4 drive, RAID 0. You can't add drives to RAID 0.

System re-install, existing raid 1 array

Here's how my macpro is currently setup:
boot drive is just a standalone sata drive
data drive is a set of mirrored sata's, done through disk utility.
I want to reload my system. If I format my boot drive and do a clean install of 10.5 will it see my previously existing raid 1 setup? Being that this is a software raid I'm unsure whether a clean install would see the existing raid1 drive or if I basically have to start over.

I think so, as if you'd do a clean install with 2 partitions, it'd turn back to 1.

WinXP 64 Bit, Anyone tried yet????

Hi Guys,
Firstly, I fixed my problem I talked about in my last post.
Turned out the VGA Card was bad, I say bad, what I mean is, when you look at the card from the side (?) The contacts were worn out and wouldnt make contact with the VGA slot thus preventing the MB from powering up :o|
Beleive me, I was PISSED !!!!
Anyway, has anyone tried installing WinXP 65 bit extended version yet?
Would be nice to get some feedback as I have a copy and would like to find out if it is worth the hassle??
Not sure if there are enough drivers around.
I know that a few things have been left out of the system by the people at Mikey Soft.
What with the 32bit subsystem, have heard that 32 bit applications run slower than if i installed on regular XP ??
oh well.
K8N Neo Platinum
AMD 64 Bit 3200+ with Gigabyte Cooler Pro
1GB Kingston RAM
160 GB Samsung SATA
MSI WLAN Card
Sound Blaster 5.1 Digital
MSI FX5900XT VGA Card

The first time you re-installed Win 32 on the raid that was a bit drastic. A repair ought to have done the job.
The problem was probably that you disconnected the array but that's where the boot.ini was and that file needed to be modified to add the path to the Win64 install.
Since you took out the array the Win64 install created a new boot.ini on the PATA drive. Even when you tell BIOS to boot off the array, Windows has a bad habit of looking at the IDE channels & using the boot.ini if it finds one there - but the file it found didn't point to the array of course.
So basically if you already have Win32 on the array I would leave that array connected normally when installing Win64 on the PATA drive and all should be well.
I've installed Win64 on the same array as my Win32 install and they co-exist happily. I reckon that's the most efficient way to do it. The main thing is to make separate partitions for Win32, Win64 and data files when you install Win32 in the first place. The two OSs can share the same data files, incuding stuff like email.

Raid array being seen as 2 individual drives

Hi. Here is the issue as posted in other places. Still searching for the answer to this one.
Specs:
K7n2 delta2 platinum with b50 bios
2x1gb crucial pc3200 2.5cas ram
AMD Barton 2500
2 x 160gb 7200rpm 8mb cache SATA Samsung Hdd's
Thermaltake 430w psu
Gainward fx5700 ultra graphics
OS's: original xp corp, slipstreamed xp corp sp2
raid drivers: nvraid.sys v4.27, 5.10, 5.11 (also the needed nvatabus.sys with those)
I am NOT overclocked.
fsb 166
1:1 ram/cpu
no spread spectrum or other garbage
ddr400 patch disabled
PSU gives presumably stable reading (according to what I see), with amperage ratings above the required.
checked and rechecked cables for bad ones
ran mulitple scans on drives, all come up drives OK
I HAVE installed into Raid 0 already, this is not an issue of hardware failure as far as I am concerned.
So here is the scenario
I have properly set up the array, using correct bios settings and the raid setup utility, for a raid 0 array of those 2 hdd's listed. When booting into xp, either version, I have used all 3 of the driver sets listed. I have been reinstalling to do some performance tests on different configurations.
Anyway, for the last few nights I have been trying to get the windows setup to see the raid 0 array as one 300gb drive. It does not, no matter what I try. It sees them as 2 drives, each being 160gb (or thereabouts). These drives are matched, same firmware, same lot, so that should not be an issue.
I have used numberous tools to delete the mbr on the drives, both in an array and as single drives. I have done the same as well as tried an install and formatted each drive individually, still the same effect when the raid array is recreated.
Basically, I can find no good reason why the array is seen as individuals and not as an array. It is interesting to note, that even though xp setup sees the the array as 2 drives, I can complete the text based portion of setup. However, rebooting to start the GUI portion of setup, it will not boot. Obviously becuase the bios has the controller as the nvraid controller and it is supposed to be a raid 0 array, so I expected that.
Short of rewriting the mbr, either by deleting it or by changing each drive by formatting/partitioning/installing an OS on them, I cannot think of how to fix this. I know the drives and xp cd's work because I have already installed with them.
I understand what to do in the bios portion, and in the raid setup utility portion. I know that I can boot into windows as a single drive and use the nvraid tool to set it up, but that is not the way it should be, and that is not the way I am going to learn WHY this is happening.
Roger that. First set in bios enable raid (in this bios I have to enable IDE array, then choose which controller to actually enable raid on, which happens to have been SATA 1 & 2).
Second, upon reboot, I use the F10 key to enter raid utility. Then, set to striping, set stripe size (which was one of the things I am testing), and add the drives to the array. Next step is to create it. It asks to clear disc data, and it is done.
Have deleted that array as well as just cleared it. Have deleted it and reboot and rebuild it. Have deleted it, reboot, change bios back to non-raid, reboot. Reboot. Change bios back to raid enabled. Reboot. Rebuild array in raid utility, reboot. Run setup, only see 2 hdd's, not one array.
Umm, yep, that is about it.
More to the story now.
From some other posts I tried this.
1. destroy array. reboot. disable raid in bios. reboot. verify sata's visible as singles in bios.
2. power down. pull plugs on sata's. reboot. no drives visible.
3. pull power. jumper clear cmos. wait 60 seconds. re-pin jumper. power up.
4. verify no drives. verify default bios settings. all is good
5. plug drives in. reboot. seen as singles. erase mbr on both drives. reboot
6. enable raid in bios, and choose sata 1 & 2 as "enabled". reboot.
7. use F10 key to setup raid. Here is the interesting part. Even though I deleted the array prior to all of this, and removed the drives to force an ESCD update, and cleard the cmos with the board jumper, and then before raid was enabled, cleared the mbr on the drives, when I started the raid utility, the array was already set up. That is the problem, whatever that is. I have read snippets where it is claimed that this chip or bios or whatever stores some kind of a table on this stuff, but this is a bit out of hand.
That combination, IMO, should have cleared anything out. But, the saga continues.
Thanks for you help BWM
[Edit] BTW, I have finally found a utility that will see a raid array and allow me to clear the arrays mbr. It is called SuperFdisk and is at ptdd.com. So far the only one that see's the 2 drives as 1.
Yeppers.
Started with v5.10 which came on a floppy with the mobo. Told setup to use both, nvatabus.sys and nvraid.sys. Even switched which one of the 2 I picked first, just to see.
Same thing with v4.27 and v5.11. Also tried it with just the nvraid.sys and just the nvatabus.sys (which obviously does squat for raid, lol)
Trying some new things now. Post in a little bit.
I am officially at 'Wit's End'.
Here is what I have tried now.
1.pull drive cables. pull power. jumper clear cmos. wait. power up. no drives
2.plug sata 1 in. boot. drive detected.
3.boot to command.com, run MHDD, which is a nice russian utility similar to Spinrite. Used this to clear the mbr at hardware level, and do a complete erase.
4. reboot to command.com. run superfdisk. erase mbr.
5. pull plug on sata 1, and plug in sata 2 with sata 1 cable. repeat the erasure steps listed above.
6. pull plug on sata 2, no sata plugged in. reboot
7. change bios to raid enable on sata 1 & 2. power down
8. plug in sata 1 & 2. power up.
9. inspect raid utility. no listing of any arrays. reboot
10. in raid utility, build array. did NOT clear discs. reboot
11. attempt install. single drives found again (used both drivers).reboot
12. in raid utility, optioned to CLEAR discs (funny, rebuild option is never valid).reboot
13. attempt install, both drivers, still seen as 2 individuals.
Things to note. When creating an array when presumably there are none, it assigns the raid array an ID of 2. Upon reboot, the ID is now 1. Don't know what difference that makes.
Also, tried the install listed above with APIC functionality both off and on. Also, when on, set MPS to both 1.1 and 1.4. In addition to this, each variant I tried manual HAL layers of, in this order, ACPI (the one that actually spells ACPI out), ACPI Uniprocessor, MPS Uniprocessor, and let it choose it for me.
So, here I sit in a barca-lounger at 'Wit's End', with a warm cup of java and a dinner mint.

Here is the final product on the floppy disk that I used to successfully install a stable raid 0 on the MSI K7N2 Delta 2 Ultra 400 Platinum ms-6570e motherboard.
On root of floppy, from driverset 6.70. (after much testing, I used driver pack 5.10 for my nic and smbus. I used the realtek sound drivers off the cd for audio. I have used every driver pack I could find, and while some did offer better I/O or read/write latency, this set in general provided the most stable environment. The only drivers I used were these floppy drivers for SATA, the nic and smbus just mentioned, the sound just mentioned, and updating the nvide drivers to mside drivers)
<from sataraid directory>
disk1
idecoi.dll
nvatabus.sys
nvraid.cat
nvraid.inf
nvraid.sys
nvraidco.dll
<from legacy directory>
nvata.cat
nvatabus.inf
I used the txtsetup.oem from the sataraid directory, but edited this:
[Files.scsi.RAIDCLASS]
driver = d1,nvraid.sys,RAIDCLASS
inf = d1,nvraid.inf
dll = d1,nvraidco.dll
catalog = d1,nvraid.cat
[Files.scsi.BUSDRV]
driver = d1,nvatabus.sys,BUSDRV
inf = d1, nvraid.inf
dll = d1,idecoi.dll
catalog = d1, nvraid.cat
To this:
[Files.scsi.RAIDCLASS]
driver = d1,nvraid.sys,RAIDCLASS
inf = d1,nvraid.inf
dll = d1,nvraidco.dll
catalog = d1,nvata.cat
[Files.scsi.BUSDRV]
driver = d1,nvatabus.sys,BUSDRV
inf = d1, nvatabus.inf
dll = d1,idecoi.dll
catalog = d1, nvata.cat
Now, it is important to note that I installed or attempted to install at least 50 times. Bare minimum. I noticed when I use this custom driver disc that in the GUI portion of setup, XP asks me for files from the disc. I tried lot's of different things to alleviate this, and denied some of them.
One thing that really bugged me was that the bios would see my #2 optical, slave on secondary IDE channel. A dvd/rw drive. And I could even start the setup from it. But, once I got about 3/4 through copy file stage on text setup portion, I would hang. Becuase the drive was no longer accessible. Booting from the master would get me to the desktop, but the slave optical was nowhere to be found. Updating the ATA/IDE controller to the ms ide drivers would get it visible, but I kept having issues with stability after I did that.
The most stable method I found was to use my above listing of driver files for the floppy, and when in GUI mode setup asks about NVCOI.DLL, I skipped it, ignored it, and did not let setup install it. That actually got me to the desktop, with access to the slave optical as a "removable drive". It even knew what the hardware was. It just could not access it. On a reboot however, back to not seeing it. This method however did allow me to update the nvide driver with the mside driver with no stability issues. So, for me it was a raving success.
Here are some links regarding the SATA RAID driver workaround:
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:jHbX5bNfGx4J:www.msfn.org/board/lofiversion/index.php/t51140.html+nforce2+nvraid.sys+ms+ide&hl=en&client=opera
http://www.aoaforums.com/frontpage/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=292&Itemid
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:J9UhG2Kd8W4J:www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php%3Ft%3D32751+xp+2+sata+raid+0+seen+as+individual&hl=en&client=opera
Early on one problem I noticed was that in text setup mode of xp installation, there were long pauses that I have never seen before. I noticed that with both ide and sata installs. Also I noticed that when booting there was a really long pause when the xp logo is first seen in a sort of dim state till when it became bright and vivid.
Come to find out that this is a more or less typical scenario. Most instances that I read about were all pointing to the nvide driver. So, I found if I just updated the PATA controller to the standard ms ide driver, that went away and the whole system ran better.
It took awhile to figure out that if you install a driver with the nForce2 chip, you had to uninstall it or you will have issues. Herein was the main problem I encountered with the SATA RAID installs. The nvatabus.sys driver was required for an SATA RAID install. Omitting the ata driver was impossible. And for awhile I had no success updating the ms ide driver once I was to the desktop without major instability. Here are some links regarding the drivers for this chipset:
http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/latest-drivers-for-nforce-3-vt60240.html
In my browsing I came across some pretty interesting articles regarding ACPI. One thing I started playing with was the different HAL layers that xp installs on it's own, vs. me picking one manually (F5 key). I must have started the setup at least 50 times to figure out this: that this particular board does not give me the bios settings to install xp with anything but the ACPI Uniprocessor Hal. For instance, the MPS Uniprocessor HAL is much more responsive, but it lacks the IRQ's needed for setup to see the raid array. I booted to each one, some locking the system up, some booting OK. The one I found the best performance with early on was the one that spells out ACPI, not just initialized. (sorry, I don't want to look it up).
I seemed to be getting closer, but I could not find the needed bios settings to properly manage my ACPI, and since I was trying for RAID, I could not use the one that did work. Here is a link for that kind of stuff.
http://www.fceduc.umu.se/~jesruv98/info/acpi/acpi.html
Another thing that I did not like was being forced to use the dynamic overclocking feature of this board. I have a 333mhz barton core, and I have ddr400 ram. In optimized (fool proof) mode in bios, I was running asynchronous. I did not want that. So I set it down to run at 166mhz, with very slow and conservative settings on everything. Unfortunately, if I did this "manual" method, I was forced to use the dynamic overclocking. I thought I had that figured out. So I set everything to "optimized". But, as it turns out, the system had terrible stability without the dynamic overclocking set to at least Private. What this meant is that I could not rule out that my stability issues (corruptions and hangs and bsod) were from being overclocked even a tiny bit or not. And as if that were not enough, this bios has a special set of settings you must unlock to see. And one of those is paramount in achieving a stable system. It is called the DDR400 patch, and it is enabled by default. So, by pressing SHIFT+f2 AND CTRL+F3, these settings are now available. Like I said, I had to disable that DDR400 patch setting.
I also found out from the first day that my board shipped with the latest bios. I flashed the 2 prior versions with no success in more stability. After about 6 weeks of getting whipped on by this board, I found mention of some modded bios's for this board. I have used modded bios's in the past, some worked wonders, others required some serious effort to recover from. What I found out about this board is that there are 2 players who make the modded bios's. Here is the first index I found from a german website. This one actually is for the older B4 version only for the Platinum.
http://storage-raid-forum.de/viewtopic.php?t=2824
And here is an english forum for pretty much the same thing
http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/bios-mods-for-k7n-and-k8-boards-vt55014.html
These links have a bit more information, and I decided to go with these. I tried versions b61,b62 and b71. I found b71 to work the best for me. Mind you I am not into overclocking or what-have-you. Just a rig that performs as well as it was advertised to do. Try these out for the bios information:
http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=385480
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=84715.0B62
Here is a page that had a bunch of misc stuff I found interesting:
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:QkvLeKcbwjQJ:www.amdzone.com/modules.php%3Fop%3Dmodload%26name%3DPNphpBB2%26file%3Dviewtopic%26p%3D75383+nforce2+ultra+nvraid+driver+freeze&hl=en&client=opera
In the end, I have, I think, conquered this board. My findings can be summed up as follows, all in my opion only I guess.
1. There are some ACPI/APIC issues with this board or this chipset. I believe it also included drivers and some can be attributed to XP.
2. There are some major bios issues with this board.
3. There are some major driver issues concerning SATA/RAID. I am not sure who get's the boob prize, nVidia or MSI.
The only way I have found to get RAID 0 installed and stable is to modify my bios (which is a modded beta version), modify my driver disk for SATA/RAID, modify my install sequence for those drivers, modify my drivers within windows after setup, use different drivers from different driver packs for different pieces of hardware, and modify my HAL layer after everything else is done, to achieve peak performance.
If I had not spent soooo much time trying to get a stable install, I would have built up an Unattended CD, which has some possibilities for forcing non WHQL drivers. But, hey man, I am totally burn out on this board. And all it was for is a spare LAN box for when I go to a lanparty. Sheesh. Murphy's law.
Oh, and I also found out, with my own eyes, that the Soyo KT600 Dragon+ that I dumped for this wonderful board, is way faster. Faster read/writes, faster throughput on the nic, faster booting, much faster installs of xp. As a matter of fact, I could get my KT600 to get a consistent thruput on the network to my older KT266a board at 99%. That is pretty fast. 2 of these Platinum boards, on a sweet switch that is tweaked, will only go up to 91%, no matter how much I tweak them. The gigabit connects via a crossover cable at about 38% of full bore. This is tweaked stuff, but still. I listened to the hype. Dual channel memory, giglan, etc etc.
I hope this may help anyone else out there who is still fighting with these issues.
Out.
sul

[VIA] K7T266 PRO- RU motherboard: Windows XP on a RAID ARRAY (fasttrak100 LITE)

Hi All!
I have a
MSI K7T266 PRO- RU motherboard, BIOS is the latest, official from MSI website,
Problem short description: Windows XP (sp1 or sp2 english, I tried both)
will not install when I set 2 x 40 Gig = ~80 Gig Stripe Array.
detailed description:
motherboard K7T266 PRO- RU BIOS 1.9 AMI BIOS.
AMD ATHLON XP 1700 + "Palomino" microprocessor, at default speeds.
one piece of 512 PC 3200 RAM, can tell details later.
Power supply: 400 W CODEGEN model : 300X.
HDD-s : one IBM deskstar, fully functional, and a SEAGATE barracuda. seagate SEATOOLS, IBM DFT 32 no errors both.
I set in the FASTTRAK 100 LITE "PDC20276R" (written on the chip) bios a STRIPE array. Powerquest drive magic , or the Windows XP CD handles it fine , as a 80 gig disk.
I downloaded ALL available versions of the FASTTAK 100 LITE driver from the MSI website.
(only tried: MSI driver FASTTRAK 100 lite, the only available driver on the MSI website, and various drivers from www.promise.com) ( http://www.promise.com/support/download/download2_eng.asp?productId=15&category=driver&os=0&go=GO ) (but I guess they WONT support my raid controller on the motherboard)
Windows XP CD , booting, Press F6 for additional RAID /SCSI drivers, I put in the floppy, choose WinXP fasttrak lite driver, windows continues, even formatting the 80 GIG disk, copy files- access the FASTTRAK.SYS driver, EITHER it says: no fixed disk present, press F3 to exit windows setup, or windows setup continues, copies files, reboots, and then STOP ERROR
http://www.martin555.dyndns.org/stop.jpg
please, help me with the following:
how to install XP on a raid array.
is it worth, will it be little bit faster disk load times etc?
is it secure if I trust the HDD-s?
any clue, how to overclock the AMD 1700+ athlon XP palomino to its maximum, but still stability?
AND : I read a lot about some MOD-ded BIOS called " KUNIBERT" , which makes the LITE raid to a FULL RAID and some other extras? where to get it and what to do?
email me if you can martin5 "at" freemail.hu
THANKS !

pardon me, dump? my english is not very perfect.. you mean to trow away, replace to something better, more stable power supply, more powerful?
you must see... first I would like to resolve the "installing XP on a raid array" problem,( how is it possible, is it worth, will it speed up hard disk access and load times... etc... ) and after that maybe I will OC the machine...
it is now , with a 8 cm ventillator and a large aluminium cooler 39 Celsius IDLE and goes to 45 Celsius during EVEREST benchmarking test. (temperatures on 1700+ default setting and OC-'d to 1900+. just experiencing with it. ) (I saw the toms hardware guide movie , smoking processors..)
cheers, Marton.

Ext2 or ext3 for large RAID array

I'm just in the process of creating a 10TB array of 5 x 2TB drives.
I've been burned too many times by EXT4 so it's out for the forseable future.
My concern is the crazy amount of time required to stabalize the file system when periodic checks are mandated. I'm using ext3 right now on a 7.5TB file system and have tuned the auto checking down to 2 years and 100 mounts. It's not the best situation but when the system goes down due to over heating (filter plugs every few months), I turn it on, and it goes into a 2 day recovery procedure during the boot process, it's outside the envelope of acceptibility.
Last edited by TomB17 (2010-06-26 02:32:55)

TomB17 wrote:
I appreciate the comments, gentlemen.
graysky wrote:Not what you asked but can you describe how you have been burnt by ext4?
I've been burned by the 0 byte file bug. The files were all there but some of them went to 0 bytes.
I did that on a backup array about 6~8 months ago. Thinking, "It's just a backup array", I tried EXT4 for the first time. It formatted up nicely, 36 hours of rsync, and I was good to go. I didn't realize I had the 0 byte file issue until my main array had some issues. When I went to the backup array, there were tons of 0 byte files, including fstab, and mdadm.conf. That made it more difficult to rebuild the main array. I did manage to rebuild the main array. Once done, I formatted the backup array EXT3 and I've been hessitante to experiment with filesystems.
The 0 byte file bug is well documented, and perhaps long solved, but I'm not ready to get back on that bandwagon.
For what it's worth, I was burned by EXT3 several times early in it's existance. That was a different issue. The whole filesystem would become corrupt after a while. It was disasterous but I didn't count on my PC then the way I do now. That was back in the days I could back up to CD-ROM. I kept at it and eventually EXT3 stabalized. These days, I trust EXT3 with my life.
I encountered very similar issues, which resulted in me switching this workstation to FreeBSD and using ZFS for my raid arrays.
The beauty of that file system far outweighs anything available on Linux at this current time.

K8N DIAMOND: New Raid array and old HD... I'm going crazy!!! Please

Hi guys
First, sorry for my poor english...
My problem is:
I bought two Raptor 36 Gb for my new raid array.
I have my old HD Hitachi 250 Gb connected on sata 1.
I connected my two raptor, on sata 3 and 4, I enabled all sata port and raid config for ports 3 and 4.
I restart PC, typed F10 and set a stripe array with two raptor. All run ok...
Restarted and boot with my copy of WinXP with SP2 and NF4 raid drivers.
Installation found my array and my Hitachi;
Hitachi with 4 partitions; C (os), D (driver), E (films), F (music)
I create one partitions on my raid array, and it takes I: letter... So I formatted and start to copy os...
Errors occurs when, restarting pc and resetting the boot to Hard disk (the order of booting is 1 - nvidia array, 2 - hitachi 250 gb), just before loading installation, It shows a black screen with an error: "there is an error in your hard disk bla bla bla.. try to control your connection or connect to windows help....bla bla..."
The Raid array works properly, infact I try to disconnect my Hitachi from sata port 1 and all installation works (I'm writing from Win xp on the raid array).
I tried to connect the hitachi on port 1 of silicon image controller.... same error..!!
I'm desperate... I have all my life on my hitachi...
I think that there's a sort of conflict in drive letter assignement... I cant find a solution ..
PLEASE HELP ME!!!

Glad it worked, I had a feeling it would.
Quote
One question for you.. on G: partition, there's a directory called "Windows", do you suggest me to format this partition??
You can format it if you want to free up space, but unless you moved things around the My documents folder and everything in it is on that partition, along with anything you might of had on the old desktop during that Windows install. You might have something you want there, I usually leave mine for a few month, and figure out if I have everything I need.
Quote
What I have to do, if I need to reinstall WIn XP on first partition of raptor array??
Things should be fine now as Windows marked the Hitachi drive as G. You should be able to reinstall without issue. But if you have a lot of sensitive info on the Hitachi, I would always disconnect the Hitachi if doing a fresh install. Once windows is done installing, hook it back up. But next time you shouldn't have to reconfigure NVRAID after disconnecting and reconnecting.

Disk utility & adding to existing RAID 0 set

Hi all,
I have a RAID 0 set-up with two 1TB drives, it works just great for what I need, but I am running out of space. And I thought 2TB would be more than enough!!!!!
Just a thought, but can I add another 1TB disk into the RAID (same manufacture & model) and increase the size of the raid set without wiping the contents of the existing RAID 0 set?
Not sure is OS X software RAID would add this as data or a parity disk? Destroy my data and rebuild a new RAID 0 with three disks as data or what?
Any help appreciated.

Hi Tim Cox;
No you can't add another disk to a RAID 0 array.
The way raid 0 works is that it breaks up the data into block that are then written in turn to each of the drives in the array. You can think of this a little like dealing cards when playing a poker. So your data is now spread across two drives. There is no way to spread it across another one so you are not able to add the additional drive.
In order to add the new drive all of the drives would have to be reformatted which will erase all data. So anything currently on the two drive RAID 0 array would have to be backed up first.
What are you currently using for backup?
If either of the two drives were to fall right now you would lose everything. So when using RAID 0 backup is extremely important to protect your data from loose.
Allan

HT201250 Using Time Capsule for Backing Up a RAID Array

I am setting up an 8TB RAID 0 array at home. I am going to use 4 - 2TB FW drives. I already have an SSD in my 3.4 Ghz i7 iMac but am speed hungry and since I have the drives, I figure I would play a bit. I know it is vital to have solid back-up for this, but I am unsure of the best back-up solution. I am wondering if I can attach 3 - 3TB drives to my 1TB Time Capsule and use the combined 10TB in Time Machine to back it up? To date I have backed up each drive separately, but am realizing the folly of that and want to explore RAID 0 at the same time as explore a new back-up solution. Everything I read tells me I need a drive for backing up the RAID array that is at least as large as the combined total of the array. That doesn't make sense if the array is so large... I can't find anywhere if Time Machine supports spanning mulitple back-up drives.

According to the document linked below, you can, but it may not have the performance to back up that much data. Over Wi-Fi, forget it.
Uses for the USB port of Time Capsule, AirPort Extreme, AirPort Express

Moving existing RAID0 array

I have 2 300gig sata hd's running raid0 on current system.my new setup would be the
K8N Neo4 Platinum/SLI motherboard
and i was wondering if i could move my current raid over to new system with out any problems.I do not care about the OS parition because its bout time i reinstall XP . but would it mess up my other parittions and if there's a guide on how to setup the raid on existing machine would help.
any help is appreciated

Quote from: mrbell84 on 14-August-05, 03:00:50
excellent TheBigMan sounds good... this will only work IF the os is not reinstalled.
Good luck player98198
The RAID array as nothing to do with the OS or vice-versa, the controller is the master here, after the array is created it is recognised as one disc in any OS, as for the File System used, that is another problem as NTFS is only recognised in Windows, but if you create a partition that can be formated as FAT32 the partition is recognised as one logical disc even in DOS, so what matters is the integrity of the partitions for the files contained in them can be recognised in windows.
For the above he can format the OS partition without loosing any data contained in the others, and not loosing the array in any way.
I hope this is clear.
Oh ....and player98198 .... make a backup of your data for security reasons...something can go wrong, you'll never know....
Be well....

WinXP-64 bit corrupts existing RAID array

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