ANY way to install Windows XP on software RAID/dynamic disks?

[thirdlegstump]

I heard it's unpossible but in my experience, nothing is unpossible so there HAS to be some way of doing this. Do tell.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: deathkoba
I heard it's unpossible but in my experience, nothing is unpossible so there HAS to be some way of doing this. Do tell.

Lets think this thru. In order for the OS to boot, it needs to access the harddrive. To access the harddrive it needs to read some minimum set of files via the bios. The files read include the controller software needs for the harddrive, the file system, raid support etc. Now if the system is raid'ed and the bios doesn't cooperate, how does the boot loader read the files (since they are scattered over multiple physical disks)....

Thus, your boot partition can't be raided (well, mirrored would be fine).

 

[thirdlegstump]

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: deathkoba
I heard it's unpossible but in my experience, nothing is unpossible so there HAS to be some way of doing this. Do tell.

Lets think this thru. In order for the OS to boot, it needs to access the harddrive. To access the harddrive it needs to read some minimum set of files via the bios. The files read include the controller software needs for the harddrive, the file system, raid support etc. Now if the system is raid'ed and the bios doesn't cooperate, how does the boot loader read the files (since they are scattered over multiple physical disks)....

Thus, your boot partition can't be raided (well, mirrored would be fine).

Hmm..Makes perfect sense but can't the scattered disks contain the stripe description to allow the system to boot when it finds the descriptor files?

Also I read someplace that mirrored dynamic disks cannot be bootable as well.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: deathkoba

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: deathkoba
I heard it's unpossible but in my experience, nothing is unpossible so there HAS to be some way of doing this. Do tell.

Lets think this thru. In order for the OS to boot, it needs to access the harddrive. To access the harddrive it needs to read some minimum set of files via the bios. The files read include the controller software needs for the harddrive, the file system, raid support etc. Now if the system is raid'ed and the bios doesn't cooperate, how does the boot loader read the files (since they are scattered over multiple physical disks)....

Thus, your boot partition can't be raided (well, mirrored would be fine).

Hmm..Makes perfect sense but can't the scattered disks contain the stripe description to allow the system to boot when it finds the descriptor files?

How does the system find that information since the system isn't booted yet? If the bios supported the striping used and showed it as a physical drive, then yes this could work. I don't know of any bios's that do that, however.

Also I read someplace that mirrored dynamic disks cannot be bootable as well.

I believe that is incorrect. The bios will simply see one drive of the mirror as the drive itself. No writing is occuring at that point, so the os will bootstrap and then the proper mirror driver will be in place. Worked find on the 2k server I used sw mirroring on.

 

[ub3rnewb]

In the manual for the mobo listed in my sig, it says NVRAID can be config'ed as bootable, but it gives the example of a bootable mirrored array, so we can't be sure about anything other than RAID 1.

 

[thirdlegstump]

Originally posted by: ub3rnewb
In the manual for the mobo listed in my sig, it says NVRAID can be config'ed as bootable, but it gives the example of a bootable mirrored array, so we can't be sure about anything other than RAID 1.

This has nothing to do with onboard hardware RAID controllers. What I'm trying to do is set up either a mirror or a stripe via software RAID using the dynamic disks feature found in Windows XP Pro and Windows 2003 Server which typically requires you to be in Windows itself to configure. Perhaps there's a non-GUI version that can be booted off CD or floppy...

 

[Bozo]

Install a temperary hard drive (stand alone). install XP on the stand alone. Use XP to convert the drives you wish to mirror to dynamic disk and RAID 1 (or RAID 0 ). Shutdown and remove the stand alone. Boot from XP CD and install on RAIDed drives.

Bozo 😀

 

[John]

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q314343

NOTE: Dynamic disks are not supported on portable computers or on Windows XP Home Edition-based computers.

You cannot create mirrored volumes or RAID-5 volumes on Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Professional, or Windows XP 64-Bit Edition-based computers. However, you can use a Windows XP Professional-based computer to create a mirrored or RAID-5 volume on remote computers that are running Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server, or Windows 2000 Datacenter Server. You must have administrative privileges on the remote computer to do this.

 

[thirdlegstump]

Originally posted by: John
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q314343

NOTE: Dynamic disks are not supported on portable computers or on Windows XP Home Edition-based computers.

You cannot create mirrored volumes or RAID-5 volumes on Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Professional, or Windows XP 64-Bit Edition-based computers. However, you can use a Windows XP Professional-based computer to create a mirrored or RAID-5 volume on remote computers that are running Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server, or Windows 2000 Datacenter Server. You must have administrative privileges on the remote computer to do this.

Yes, that's very well understood. I know I can create striped sets in XP while I can do all of the above in 2003 Server.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Bozo
Install a temperary hard drive (stand alone). install XP on the stand alone. Use XP to convert the drives you wish to mirror to dynamic disk and RAID 1 (or RAID 0 ). Shutdown and remove the stand alone. Boot from XP CD and install on RAIDed drives.
Bozo 😀

And how does the new copy of the OS access the raid 0 drive when attempting to boot?