Raid 1 on Vista 64-bit

[wayliff]

I'm not sure why Vista 64-bit does not see my RAID-1 as such.
When I go into my computer it shows me two hard drives instead of one like Win XP Pro SP2.

Has anybody seen this happen with their machine?
And what did you do about it?

Thanks for any info

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: wayliff
I'm not sure why Vista 64-bit does not see my RAID-1 as such.
When I go into my computer it shows me two hard drives instead of one like Win XP Pro SP2.

Has anybody seen this happen with their machine?
And what did you do about it?

Thanks for any info

XP also doesn't support RAID-1, however there where some hacks listed on the internet to enable that. I suspect you (or someone who had the machine prior) performed those hacks and they didn't carry over when you upgraded to Vista.

 

[wayliff]

Well no I did not upgrade. I have a dual boot of XP Pro and Vista Ultimate.

I have the raid-1 in my XP machine with no problems...it was not hacked...it recognized the raid as such.
When I go into my computer in XP Pro I only see a single hard drive and I know that both are being written to.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: wayliff
Well no I did not upgrade. I have a dual boot of XP Pro and Vista Ultimate.

I have the raid-1 in my XP machine with no problems...it was not hacked...it recognized the raid as such.
When I go into my computer in XP Pro I only see a single hard drive and I know that both are being written to.

Wait, is this software raid or hardware raid? If hardware, is Vista actually showing two drive letters in explorer or two drives in device manager. If the former, sounds like you dont have the right drivers for your raid card.

 

[Nothinman]

Yup, sounds like he's using onboard fakeRAID crap and doesn't have the right drivers installed.

 

[wayliff]

well yes it is indeed 'fakeraid crap' (thanks for the constructive comment)...so what.

Hmm, I see all the drivers installed...I will dig into the raid drivers and see what's up.

 

[Nothinman]

well yes it is indeed 'fakeraid crap' (thanks for the constructive comment)...so what.

It's constructive because as you can see it's not real RAID so there's no advantage to using it over software RAID.

 

[wayliff]

well yes that could be constructive but since it does not help with the question it is not to me...but you're entitled to your opinion.

 

[Nothinman]

Lack of advantages over software RAID because it is software RAID isn't an opinion, it' fact. Although when I called it crap I was expressing an opinion.

And the fact remains that since you're seeing the drives separately means that you don't have the correct drivers installed.

 

[wayliff]

of course the lack of drivers is not an opinion...no need to mention it.

 

[postmortemIA]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Lack of advantages over software RAID because it is software RAID isn't an opinion, it' fact. Although when I called it crap I was expressing an opinion.

And the fact remains that since you're seeing the drives separately means that you don't have the correct drivers installed.

My opinion is that fakeRAID is great low-cost solution. The fact is that it goes to nerves for Linux perfectionists, so they have to call it "crap" once in a while.

 

[Nothinman]

My opinion is that fakeRAID is great low-cost solution. The fact is that it goes to nerves for Linux perfectionists, so they have to call it "crap" once in a while.

It's only "great" for Windows because MS crippled the software RAID portion of their workstation OSes. And even then it still sucks because you can't transfer the RAID set between boards so even a replacement motherboard could force you to restore from backup and hell I wouldn't be surprised if a BIOS update broke the RAID set in some instances. And it gets on the nerves of (I'm assuming that's what you mean by "goes to nerves") Linux users because it's snakeoil sold as hardware RAID when it's not and Linux software RAID is infinitely superior. The Linux dmraid package can handle just about all of the fakeraid setups these days so it's not like we're angry because it's this awesome thing that we can't use, we can but we know to avoid it.

And on top of that too many people think they're getting a cheap backup system when they setup a mirror so it fills them with a false sense of security. Now that's not the fault of any of the fakeraid implementations but they definitely make it easier for people to fall into that trap.

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: wayliff
I'm not sure why Vista 64-bit does not see my RAID-1 as such.
When I go into my computer it shows me two hard drives instead of one like Win XP Pro SP2.

Has anybody seen this happen with their machine?
And what did you do about it?

I've multi-booted at least Vista-64, XP-64, 2003-64 on the same machine and had them recognize on-board RAID arrays without any issues. Similarly with add-on non-pure hardware RAID. Of course the SATA/RAID drivers had to be properly installed in each OS for this to work, and if they weren't, the symptoms would be similar to those reported.

To diagnose this further usefully, we'd need to know at least the details of the motherboard/chipset, RAID controller, drive configuration and driver installation per OS. Perhaps something went wrong with immature x64 drivers.

 

[RebateMonger]

I actually find "fakeRAID" for Windows quite useful. The cost is quite low. The (limited) hardware allows the PC to boot even if one of the drives has failed. If the Master drive of an IDE RAID 1 array has failed, a Windows Software RAID 1 array won't boot. (I don't know about a SATA RAID 1 array).

Also, there's often an alarm buzzer or a warning email if one drive has failed. Windows Software RAID puts an event into the System Event Log, and that's all.

I have an active dislike of Windows Software RAID, having seen too many folks lose data with it (although I do believe that Windows Software RAID 1 can be reasonably secure). "FakeRAID" for Windows provides a low-cost option, providing reasonable performance in RAID 1 mode and providing many of the features that you get with the higher-cost full-hardware RAID cards.

 

[Nothinman]

Windows Software RAID puts an event into the System Event Log, and that's all.

Again that's a failing of Windows and shouldn't be a reason to choose a crappy fakeraid solution.

I have an active dislike of Windows Software RAID, having seen too many folks lose data with it (although I do believe that Windows Software RAID 1 can be reasonably secure). "FakeRAID" for Windows provides a low-cost option, providing reasonable performance in RAID 1 mode and providing many of the features that you get with the higher-cost full-hardware RAID cards.

They're virtually identical so if you dislike one you have to dislike the other.

 

[wayliff]

When somebody "wants and needs" to be right then there's nothing else to comment on the subject. It is a waste of time.
Now moving forward with the issue itself...

 

[wayliff]

Originally posted by: Madwand1

Originally posted by: wayliff
I'm not sure why Vista 64-bit does not see my RAID-1 as such.
When I go into my computer it shows me two hard drives instead of one like Win XP Pro SP2.

Has anybody seen this happen with their machine?
And what did you do about it?

I've multi-booted at least Vista-64, XP-64, 2003-64 on the same machine and had them recognize on-board RAID arrays without any issues. Similarly with add-on non-pure hardware RAID. Of course the SATA/RAID drivers had to be properly installed in each OS for this to work, and if they weren't, the symptoms would be similar to those reported.

To diagnose this further usefully, we'd need to know at least the details of the motherboard/chipset, RAID controller, drive configuration and driver installation per OS. Perhaps something went wrong with immature x64 drivers.

The motherboard is an EPOX 9NPA Ultra with an Nforce 4 chipset.
http://www.epox.com/usa/product.asp?id=EP-9NPAplusULTRA

I'm currently using the latest bios released on August 2006.

When I installed XP, I loaded the Raid drivers using the CD that came with the motherboard...and that works fine.

With Vista 64...I initially did not use the CD and went straight for the install, then I downloaded the latest nvidia platform drivers for vista 64-bit and still vista did not recognize the raid.
Yesterday I reinstalled Vista using the raid drivers from the mobo CD and used the XP 64 drivers...Vista install stopped because the drivers were not signed.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
They're virtually identical so if you dislike one you have to dislike the other.

Identical? Windows Software RAID writes the drives in a "non-standard" way that many data recovery tools and disk management tools can't handle. Many of the low-end PCI IDE RAID controllers write data that can be read from a standard IDE controller with standard disk tools, even if the RAID card is missing.

Anyway, I do agree with you that way too many folks regard redundant RAID as the holy grail of data salvation. As long as folks keep backups, I'll go along with "No-RAID", "RAID 0", "RAID 1", "RAID 5", "Fake-RAID", "Software RAID", "HardWare RAID", or any other type of disk management. It's fairly inconsequential as long as there are appropriate backups and a disaster recovery plan.

 

[Nothinman]

Identical? Windows Software RAID writes the drives in a "non-standard" way that many data recovery tools and disk management tools can't handle. Many of the low-end PCI IDE RAID controllers write data that can be read from a standard IDE controller with standard disk tools, even if the RAID card is missing.

Onboard fakeraid is just as non-standard as Windows software RAID, if they all followed the same convention you'd be able to move volumes between boards and dmraid wouldn't need to be updated every time a new one is released. And in the case of a mirror regular data recovery tools should work too because the filesystem is still there it's just probably offset a bit to make room for the RAID metadata.

 

[postmortemIA]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Identical? Windows Software RAID writes the drives in a "non-standard" way that many data recovery tools and disk management tools can't handle. Many of the low-end PCI IDE RAID controllers write data that can be read from a standard IDE controller with standard disk tools, even if the RAID card is missing.

Onboard fakeraid is just as non-standard as Windows software RAID, if they all followed the same convention you'd be able to move volumes between boards and dmraid wouldn't need to be updated every time a new one is released. And in the case of a mirror regular data recovery tools should work too because the filesystem is still there it's just probably offset a bit to make room for the RAID metadata.

They are not all same, for example intel's matrix raid allows different RAID levels on same array.

Also, you still can move volumes behind boards using dmraid, my understanding is that dmraid recognizes arrays by reading disk, and ignoring fakeRAID BIOS: My SUSE 10.2 install thinks one of drives is in NVRAID array, which was long time ago.

 

[Nothinman]

Also, you still can move volumes behind boards using dmraid, my understanding is that dmraid recognizes arrays by reading disk, and ignoring fakeRAID BIOS: My SUSE 10.2 install thinks one of drives is in NVRAID array, which was long time ago.

Yea, dmraid might work around because the metadata is on the disks. But if the new controller doesn't recognize the new array then you're limited to using it in just Linux and at that point you might as well just use Linux software RAID.

 

[VirtualLarry]

It would be nice if there were a standardized metadata layout for software raid implementations, such that drives could be moved between controllers. But would the industry collaborate like that? I highly doubt it.

It's good that Linux is adding support for all of the various metadata layouts though, it's a step in the right direction.

But MS is taking a step in the wrong direction, by limiting their OS RAID implementations to their highest-prices Server SKUs. RAID is no longer limited to the server domain, as evidenced by the fact that nearly every consumer desktop mobo is and has been including RAID features for several years. RAID is now a desktop staple, and MS should adapt to the market and fully support their software RAID implementations on their desktop OS SKUs. After all, you can RAID nearly everything on a Mac, even "removable" disks, something that NT chokes on.

Edit: MS should also not limit their OS RAID support to "dynamic" disks, IMHO.

 

[bsobel]

After all, you can RAID nearly everything on a Mac, even "removable" disks, something that NT chokes on.

If you mean NT, sure, but if you mean the NT line then no you cando it on removeable drives just fine (but you have to set a registry key first).

 

[Nothinman]

But MS is taking a step in the wrong direction, by limiting their OS RAID implementations to their highest-prices Server SKUs.

They're not taking a step at all, it's been that way since NT was released AFAIK. And it's the same reasons that they limit you to 2 CPU sockets, 4G of memory and 10 SMB connections, they need something to differentiate the SKUs and justify the higher prices.

After all, you can RAID nearly everything on a Mac, even "removable" disks, something that NT chokes on.

Well putting a removable drive in a RAID set is pretty stupid in most cases so I can't really fault them on that decision. If Apple had created their own software RAID code instead of stealing whichever implementation they did I'm sure would have done the same thing. Linux and the BSDs don't care because they figure the onus is on you to make the right decision about what devices you trust to put in that RAID set. Apple and MS usually take the blame when something blows up so they give you less chances to shoot yourself in the foot.

 

[nweaver]

Fakeraid is a standard term. I have lost data to fakeraid (it only took one time). Linux software raid > craptastic low end driver based raid solutions on the market...oh, and it's free too.

On to this...Windows Vista is seeing 2 drives (at least 2 drive letters, it may see 2 drives) you need to install the correct drivers.