raid question

R

robina_80

Active Member
hi people,
my question is im getting another hard drive exactly the same as the one ive got in my desktop my question is what different RAIDS does windows xp pro support im thinking about raid0 or 1
 
xp doesn't support raid on a software level, you'll need to reformat and then set up raid prior to reinstalling windows
 
say if i ahve 3 hard drives and i make 2 raid and the other one a normal hard drive can i do that or must they be all raid so i want to make one hard drive a non raid
 
Last edited:
Depending on the chipset, you usually can. I currently have 2 160GB raid 0 hard drives with xp pro on them, and i have one 4 GB single drive with server 2003.

You'll need to choose which one you think is more important, for me it is the windows xp. So I installed that first, which is probably the OS on the RAIDed hard drives, for me it was win xp. Then after I was done with that, I put server on the single hard drive. They call that "dual boot" when you have more than one OS on your computer. Or you don't have to make the other hard drive bootable, and you can just use it as storage, which is just fine.

Windows installation might not have drivers for your card/controller, especially the newer chipsets, so make sure you see if you have a floppy or disc with them on there.

I'd recommend that you back up all your stuff onto discs or an extra hard drive, so you can transfer them after you are done installing the OS onto the RAID hard drives. Take a look at the "RAID 101" sticky before you do RAID.
 
i dont know what raid i want to do, any suggestions. ive got 2 the same hard drives so i can raid, ive got windows xp pro
 
i dont know what raid i want to do, any suggestions. ive got 2 the same hard drives so i can raid, ive got windows xp pro
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Depends on what your needs are. If you want more performance but higher risk of failure (one drive fails, all data is lost) then use RAID0. If you want redundancy (a true RAID) then use RAID1. For RAID1 it is also possible to setup without reinstalling Windows.
 
how do you do raid0
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Brief description (note all data on both drives will be lost):
1) When prompted at bootup, go into RAID BIOS... CTL+H I think
2) Create the RAID0 array
3) Reboot into Windows setup w/ Windows CD, press F6 when asked for 3rd party drivers
4) Follow directions and use the RAID driver floppy
5) Proceed with Windows install...
 
ok im in bios and theres 4 different arrays i can use theres striping, mirroring, stripe mirroring and spanning i was wondering what the last 2 raids are also how many hard drives do i need for the last 2
 
stripe mirroring = RAID10, a mirrored RAID0 array, AFAIK you need 4 drives
spanning = just make several (any number) disks look like one disk
I'm pretty sure this stuff is in the RAID 101, and is probably better explained in there.
 
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