RAID for XP Issues

[SunSamurai]

Information:
mobo: MSI MS-7125
Ram: Drives... SATA Samsun and some 120 IDE.

They both work fine, and Ive I know Its not recommended to have two non-identical drives in a raid, but ive had it work before just fine, but they were both IDE around 8 years ago.

Anyway, I tried this, loaded both the IDE and SATA raid drivers at the XP install. It loads all its crap, restarts itself to install windows then dies saying it cant find a disk.

My question is, are there issues with doing IDE SATA RAIDs or am I simply doing it wrong?

 

[Billb2]

The only "issue" is that it can't be done.

 

[daveybrat]

Originally posted by: Billb2
The only "issue" is that it can't be done.

Exactly. Why would you think you can stripe half your data across two different interfaces? IDE and SATA?

You need 2 IDE drives or 2 SATA drives. Simple as that.

 

[SunSamurai]

Post 14: http://forums.cnet.com/5208-75...5142&messageID=1307714
http://www.techsupportforum.co...a-sata-raid-array.html

Thank you Billb2 and daveybrat for making it clear who NOT to listen to.

 

[corkyg]

Actually it can be done, but it depends on the mobo's RAID controller. My old ASUS P4PE allows it, but has a special IDE/PATA port for that purpose. Generally speaking, it is not a good idea.

 

[Laputa]

Yup, that can be done. However, it's not recommended. Just in case one of the drive failed and you can simply kiss the drive and say good bye to the data. With identical drives, you have a 75-95% of likelyhood to get everything back if one of the drive failed due to electrical issues.

 

[SunSamurai]

Hmm. The thing is I can get to the point windows starts to load for the first time to start its install, I see the windows logo for half a second and I get a blue screen.

I have been trying IDE x 2 all day.

 

[Billb2]

Originally posted by: aeternitas
Hmm. The thing is I can get to the point windows starts to load for the first time to start its install, I see the windows logo for half a second and I get a blue screen.

I have been trying IDE x 2 all day.

And what is the BIOS setting for the boot device when windows loads for the first time? ...You never went back and changed it to be the RAID array. You couldn't have, the array doesn't exist until Windows install loaded the RAID drivers. It then reboots to the drive set as the BOOT device, which was probably left to be the optical drive. So windows looks for the next thing in the boot device order (it knows not to boot from the optical drive) ...bingo! it found a drive, and since the drive is 1/2 of an array ...bingo! BSOD.

Yes, I found both threads ....HA!

 

[SunSamurai]

Billb2, you seem to know less about this than I do. First you tell me IDE/SATA mix cannot be done, when it in fact CAN. Then you give me this latest gibberish about boot. There is a clear option in the RAID bios for that that I enabled. Its not installing on any other device due to the fact only the RAID is plugged into the system. Im starting to wonder if you've even done this in the last 6 years.

You keep going on and on about basic things, while missing that actual problem I am having. I can't make it any more clear than I already have in the other thread. (motherboard forums)

 

[Billb2]

Originally posted by: aeternitas
You keep going on and on about basic things, while missing that actual problem I am having. I can't make it any more clear than I already have in the other thread. (motherboard forums)

I've installed on-board raids and raid cards with numerous motherboards. If you think your problem is the reading of the floppy:

Get a brand new floppy and format it.
Copy he drivers you think you need.
Go.
I know, I know ...Windows install seems to be particularly snarkey about the floppy. This has more than once fixed the problem.
-------------or---------
When windows reboots, pull the floppy. This forces windows to use the copy of the driver it just copied. This is my SOP now.

I'm aware that there are SI raid chips that do ISE/SATA raids, I just don't think you have one. The symptoms you are seeing would result, as Windows Install makes a list of drivers it needs and we press F6 to tell it about drivers for hardware that doesn't exist yet or that it doesn't have native drives for. It adds the raid controller to it's list of required drivers, but if it can't find the controller (and hence the array) it won't load the driver.

Bye ...and good luck.

 

[SunSamurai]

Dear Billb2,

It's not the floppy. I did this same thing in XP Pro (not MCE) and the floppy was read perfectly fine. The matter is that when trying with XP-MCE it doesn't even try to access. This is different from it trying to access the data and givbeing a read error. See what I'm saying? I have three floppies I'm using now because I too thought it might be that a few days ago. They all work 100%. This is a mobo/OS issue.

It's probably a combination of me not explaining this well, and this issue being a strange one thats rarely seen. Also, you need to stop assuming what kind of hardware I have. I gave links, its clear most nforce4 boards use SIL chips for their RAID.

Consider that I have installed an OS successfully in this setup (XP PRO), thus you saying you dont think it can work ect ect, doesnt help me. I am looking for a reason why this is failing in XP MCE.

1. Its not the floppy
2. Its not the CD/DVD integrity

It has something to do with the XP MCE install.