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A8N-SLI Dlx, want to migrate SATA drive to RAID 1

K

keldog7

Senior member
Tagline says most of it. I've got an Asus board A8NSLI-Deluxe with 3 matched SATA 160 GB HDD in it. Presently, linux is installed on 2 of them, and Win2K on the third. I'm going to pull one of the linux drives from the rig, and convert the second linux drive over to Win2K. Win2K running already, and I'm not keen to re-install it. Is there a way to migrate the current Win2K install to a RAID 1 setup (mirroring) without re-install?

I was leaning towards installing the recovery console on the Win2K install first, then shutdown. Re-arrange drives as noted above. Back into BIOS, enable RAID on nVidia RAID controller. Choose "online" rebuild. Reboot, with Win2K install CD - press R to repair install, and then install the RAID drivers from the Asus CD. Reboot into Windows (if its still working...) and then rebuild a RAID 1 array.

Can anyone tell me if this will be possible? Or should I just give in, and re-install the whole mess?
-Adrian
 
Your method would work, but with a few tweaks:

First, enable the nVidia RAID controller. Boot into Windows, and apply the drivers to it.
Then, shutdown, and setup the RAID-1 array, which will copy the data from the first drive onto the second.

Boot up, and you should be good to go.
 
This is a NIGHTMARE.

Enabling RAID array gives the gold old "inaccessible boot device" error. It comes up as far as asking me wether I want to boot Win2K or the recovery console, then BSOD with inaccessible boot device. Disabling the array still works. Latest NF4 chipset drivers for the A8NSLI (version 6.66) ARE installed.

I tried booting from installation floppies (which I've proved work on another (non-RAID) machine), along with F6 trick to get both the nVidia RAID and nVidia storage drivers loaded. This appears to be working, but it ALWAYS gives an error saying that it "cannot find nvraid.sys". Google search on this error seems to imply that even if I rebuild the install floppies to include the driver (thereby skipping the F6), it will still give the same error. Some have suggested that the "cannot find nvraid.sys error" is a but generic, when the problem is more like it doesn't know what to do with it.

After scrutinizing the A8NSLI cdrom, there's a pdf which outlines the RAID functionality of the board. Basically, Windows 2000 has difficulty creating a bootable RAID array on the NF4 motherboard. In short, without using a version of Win2K which already has SP3 or SP4 installed/integrated, you CAN'T do it. This is what I think the nvraid.sys problem really is.

Anyway, I've been trying for 2 days now to CREATE a new bootable CD with Win2K on it (my OEM Win2K CD is not bootable).
I've copied the Win2K files, and integrated SP4 into it.
I've got several different CD boot sectors (from online sources), and I've burned a dozen or so CDs...none boot.

They all give me an error during the boot to say CDBOOT: Can't find NTLDR...or something very similar. I've tried burning under Windows and with K3B (using xpboot.bin, xpboot.img, win2k.bin and boot.bin as the boot image in separate instances). Same error every time.
I've read that some people have been unable to make a working bootable-CD with certain burning software (including Nero/CDRWin), and that their problems were solved by various registry hacks (Nero) or version changes (use older CDRWin). *sigh*

Can ANYONE tell me how they installed Win2K to a bootable array, on a nForce 4 motherboard?
-Adrian
 
Quick update. Took the BOOT.BIN file, and my Win2K files (appropriately set-up), and burned a disc with CDRWin 4.0B...the d%#$ thing boots!! After reducing the number of steps / transfers of data, I now have a working bootable Win2K disc with SP4 integrated. (small yay!).
...now back to the original problem - tried creating the array, boot - BSOD (inacc boot dev)
...array still created, boot to SP4 containing WIN2K CDROM, F6. Ask it to manually repair the installation (it *does* find the win2K install on the HDD), and it DOES whatever it does... which doesn't seem like much, because another reboot from array led to BSOD.

Help. Anyone.

My next attempt is going to have to be with the recovery console. Can anyone tell me the names of the drivers required to run Win2K from the nVidia RAID 1 array? I'll have to be loading them manually with the console. It would also help if you knew which drivers are *no longer required* since running on array.

ADDENDUM:
Tracked down the filenames - wasn't really an issue. Of course, the fact that you can't copy the files over *is* a problem. "Cannot copy nvraid.sys" or any other file on the driver disk. Incredible. Same issue happens with full reinstall (see other thread). I *even* took the trouble of booting linux, mounted the NTFS formatted array under linux (problematic, as many of you will realize), and *then* copying the file. At this point, some progress made (nvraid.sys would copy), but most of the files WOULD NOT COPY (I get a vague "input / output error" - though the problem in this case might be with the floppy drive. Anyway, I dumped the "migration", and just tried re-installing...4 days and no joy yet.

Cheers,
A
 
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