Looking for opinions/experiences: Abit KT7a-RAID and Win2K

[rockethead]

I am setting up a new system (1 Ghz Athlon on KT7a-RAID) and I am considering going with Win2K for its greater stability. However, I've spent alot of time recently surfing KT7 FAQ and forums recently, and I've gotten the very clear impression that ALOT of people are having problems with Win2K and this board. This wouldn't surprise me at all -- it's a Microsoft product less than a year old, therefore it's basically a public beta, right? 🙂
Seriously, Win98SE is no great shakes, but at least its been around long enough that most of the hardware manufacturers seem to have gotten their driver issues sorted out. The machine is currently running very solid under Win98SE for testing. I'm just about ready to migrate my data from my old machine, and I'm trying to decide: Should I stick with win98SE, which I know works (sort of), until Win2K is more mature? Or should I take the plunge now and switch to Win2K?

On a related note, can anyone direct me to some good resources that would help an experienced and technically competent Win98 user get up to speed quickly on Win2K?

Thanks!

-rh

My system:
1Ghz Athlon-c (no OC)
Abit KT7A-RAID
512M Crucial PC133-CL2 RAM
Hercules 3D Prophet 2 64M DDR
Santa Cruz
Linksys NIC
generic winmodem (backup for DSL only)
Dual-boot RAID array: one pair mirrored (for work) one pair striped (for games), all drives are Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 60 (thank you Staples!)

BIOS tweaked (more or less) in accordance with Paul's FAQ

 

[Blundar]

I built a system for a friend of mine using the KT7a, non-raid version, several months ago.
AFTER FLASHING THE BIOS to the latest as of May something, Win2K was fairly stable.
I was not running any devices except the pioneer slot-load DVD off the motherboard IDE controllers. An adaptec UDMA-RAID controller was installed with 4 - 45Gig 75GXPs in a RAID5 unit. (yes it is fast.)
The soundcard was a SBLive OEM
The video was a NVidia GForce2GTS

I couldn't get the system stable at AGP4X. Period. I had to switch down to AGP2X for stability purposes. I tried numerous 4-in-1 drivers to no avail. Oh well.

The SBLive seemed very unhappy at first, but doing a Plug n Pray reset in the bios managed to fix that.

Overall Windows 2000 works pretty decent with the system. It is a 1.2Gig Tbird OC to 1.333 bus from 100 -> 133 w/ FOP32. It has 512 Megs of TinyBGA PC150 in 2 - 256Meg sticks. I don't expect you will have too many headaches, especially with the RECENT bios fixes(like mid-may) and Windows 2000 SP2 supposedly having some stuff to help VIA southbridges get less confused.

Hope some of that helped

 

[MikeA]

Running a KT7A-RAID (defult bios) in Win2k Pro without a problem here. Games work fine and the system is stable as can be. Haven't rebooted since I installed everything (6 days now) without any problems. I have a Geforce2 and a SB Live X-Gamer. Never have I had any of these mystical problems. The rest of my specs are (that I think matter as far as Win2k goes),

384mb PC133 CAS2 Crucial RAM
IBM 45gb hard drive (on the raid controler)
16X slot load DVD >
Plextor 121032A > (on the ATA100 controler)
Dlink NIC
WinTV TV Tunner

Using the 12.40 nvidia drivers, liveware3 for SB, VIA 4.31s, and SP2 for Win2k.

 

[rockethead]

ttt

 

[Nomans]

Why do you want to upgrade your Win98SE to Win2k in the first place when your Win98SE system is running perfectly solid? . Don't fix what ain't broken...

Win9x (Win95,98,98SE,Me) are OSes for Home users while Win2k Pro are business OSes, with all its ups and downsides. The 2 OSes are quite different so don't expect Win2k beats Win98SE in gaming issues. On the other side, people don't expect the overall stability of Win2k in Win98SE either. In your case, if you are willing to take the plunge to Win2k, I would install Win2k from scratch to avoid an upgrade from Win98SE to Win2k. Too much hassles... Anyhow, I would do some research to make sure that all hardware are compatible with Win2k (drivers are available) before I make the jump. It seems that all your hardware are pretty new (video, sound, etc..)
and the problem with new hardware is Win2k may or may not have the latest drivers available on the CD. If not, check manufacturer web sites and d/l them asap.

BTW, Microsoft has announced the release of Windows XP in October 2001 (Beta 2 has been out couple weeks), so I don't think they're going to release Win2k SP3 at all (SP2 just released recently). So much for your waiting for more Win2k Service Packs.

I have another question: how did you set up your mirror drives with the KT7A RAID? via the RAID BIOS? 'cause I'm sure Win98SE does not support mirroring drives, not even Win2k Professional version. Only Windows NT/2000 Server does.

 

[rockethead]

Well, when I say that my system is stabled under Win98SE, I mean that I can run Prime95 and 3dMark without crashing. It does not mean that I don't have to reboot every day to get Windows to clean up after itself...

No way I would do an update -- clean install is the only way to go. That's why I'm looking at this now: I'm about to wipe the drive and do a clean install anyway.

As far as RAID goes: The Highpoint RAID chip comes with drivers for both Win98SE and Win2K. Mirroring definately is supported. Where are you getting your information from?

 

[GOATMAN]

have you thought of split booting, use something like partion magic and split your drive up. Then install windows2000, you'll get a boot.ini file were you can choose which os you want to boot from!, make sure you make your boot disk!
good luck!
GOAT

 

[rockethead]

So far I'm leaning away from bothering with Win2K for now. Anyone else have an opinion?

 

[obenton]

Try it safely by putting in another HD and making a dual boot.

 

[DainBrammage]

Yeah NEVER UPGRADE YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM, always do a clean install it will save you lots of heart-ache and tons of dwontime. You may get away with it every now and then but your best bet is always a clean install. if you want to use 2kPro by all means use it. I would do this though I would Dual Boot.