RAID Problems such as no Freaking RAID at all

[Xray]

I have a Gigabyte GA-7DXR that has a built on Promise RAID controller and I am using 2 40 gig IBM Deskstars to try and run RAID 0+2.

First let me say I know that everything is pluged in correctly and the jumpers on both drives are set for master.

When I boot I can go in to the FastTrac 100 lite (tm) set up screen and set up my array. After I restart the controller sees the array and says that it is functioning. But when I fdisk it will only create a 13 gig primary active partition and it says that is the only space I have on the drive. WTF!! I have switched cables, jumpers channels you name it. I also changed the mobo jumper for the controler back to just ATA 100 and both channels work fine and I can fdisk both drives properly. I noticed that no partition was put on 1 drive at all after I switched back so when I fdisk my array it only puts a 13 gig partition on 1 drive and doesn't do anything to the other.

I don't understand why if the controller is broke it sets up the array and says its functioning but thats as far as I can get. I still have hope

 

[Xray]

Bump

 

[zzzz]

its fdisk problem. It can't recognise over 64 gb.
Try partition magic or I think there is a free fdisk which doesn't have this limitation
free fdisk

 

[Xray]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I tried free Fdisk but It will only put a fat16 logical dos drive on the array (2 gig) and one of the drives was still untouched. I know because I am booted up on the drive right now. It still has windows and all of my settings on it.

I have a version of Partition Magic. Will that make a boot disk that will fdisk my array properly

 

[RanDum72]

Thats strange, I have two 40gig drives (80gig total) on a Highpoint based RAID controller and FDISK could partition them just fine. what do you mean RAID 0+2 ??? do you mean 0+1 ( RAID stripping with mirroring, you need 4 drives for it)?

 

[ChrisIsBored]

I think he might just mean RAID 0.

 

[Xray]

Yea I mean RAID 0


I Fdisk my Array and it says my drives are one 12.9 hard drive But when I format it dos Says its one 1 80 gig drive. Thats good.

Now when I try and load my drivers in XP Set up I get an error (18). XP says there was an error in Oemsetup.sys on drive D.

Right now I am in Win98 and the controller is loaded and my drive is one big 80 giger like its supposed to be with no conflicts in device manager but in My Computer/properties/performance it says my C drive is running in dos mode.

 

[RemyCanad]

I would write 0's to both drives. (To make sure they are at the same stage) then set up your raid, and not fdisk or format. I would let windows deal with it.

 

[Xray]

You have to fdisk or xp dosen't have a place to copy files thus won't start set up.


Anyway this is where I am.


I loaded the win2000 drivers and that worked for setting up xp.

But now when i reboot after I get past the fasttrac bios i get a blue screen that says to checkdisk.

When I reboot after that I get a option sceen that and I select boot last working config and I get back in windows. The only thing I did was update windows.

 

[RanDum72]

Usually, I set up a RAID stripping array this way (with your controller, it may be different).

- specify and set up the RAID array in the BIOS. This will wipe out all data.
- fdisk using a Win ME start-up disk.
- after fdisk,restart, and format using Win ME start-up disk
- after formatting, restart, pop in winXP CD and booth from CD. Press F6 to specify additional devices
- I pop in floppy of the drivers for my RAID controller. Win XP reads off it, uses the drivers in the floppy. After that everthing is smooth sailing

I noticed that if I don't use F6 to specify devices, win XP setup would give me an error.

 

[sthreallyobscure]

RanDum, following your procedure is cool to get a fat32 partition but is there any way of getting it formatted under ntfs?
Maybe the only way is to create a small fat32 partition and format the remaining partitions after windows (xp) is underway?

 

[RanDum72]

After formatting using fat32, during the setup process, it will ask you if you want to convert the fat32 partition to a NTFS partition. This is shortly after pressing F6 and specifying additional devices.

Or, you can skip formatting to fat32 using the winME start-up disk and just pop in the winXP CD and boot from it. XP will automatically format under NTFS.