Installing Windows on RAID equipped comp? How to?

John Prophet · August 28th, 2002, 09:48 PM

Any good articles on how-to install windows when you are using a RAID array. I have seen a few articles saying to install on a 3rd hard drive hooked to the onboard IDE, then copy every file over to the RAID array, then boot off the RAID setup. Is this the only way?

Lets say I want to install WinXP on a board with a RAID 0 setup...whats the best way to go about it?

Thanks, JP

RADAR1797 · August 28th, 2002, 10:19 PM

Well this is what I did.

1. Built computer (Gigabyte 7VRXP MB)
2. Used a second computer to copy RAID drivers to a 3.5" floppy (this step was not obvious at all, but is necessary later)
3. Boot computer and enter BIOS.
4. Under Integrated Peripherals (I believe) set the RAID controllers to RAID instead of ATA133.
5. Set to boot CD then RAID.
6. Boot off Win XP CD
7. When it came up, I pressed F6 to install 3rd party RAID drivers (when prompted at bottom of the screen).
8. Placed 3.5" floppy with drivers on it in drive.
9. Selected the drivers.
10. Loaded XP as usual after that.

Hope that helps.

-RADAR

DVNT1 · August 28th, 2002, 10:20 PM

In my case I was able to just hit F6 during the install routine and point it to the drivers for the RAID controller. Then the install went without any problem. I know this wasn't always the case with Raid controllers (speaking of IDE ones at least), but the last few I've done have been that easy.

John Prophet · August 28th, 2002, 10:32 PM

From what I read, PCI card type RAID is much trickier to deal with than built-in RAID.

What about installing W98SE? Is it straightforward like XP? ( I am thinking of the fact that there is no f6 for RAID drivers). How would you go about it then..is there a way to do it without installing to single drive first?

Thanks, JP

MaxVal · August 29th, 2002, 09:18 AM

Win98 will not prompt you for the RAID card's drivers during setup. It will run the array with generic drivers when installing, then ask for the card's drivers on the first boot up while detecting hardware.
MAX

jmichna · August 29th, 2002, 01:41 PM

Both Radar1797's and DVNT1's methods work, I've done 'em both ways, with both SCSI RAID and on-board IDE RAID. I'f you've got an older controller, then DVNT1's "should" work, as XP "should" have what it needs on the CD... however I try to be more cautious, and I'd normally do what Radar1797 suggests, and make sure I have a floppy handy with the necessary RAID drivers.
jmichna

bubbles1611 · September 28th, 2002, 09:04 PM

I have a GA-7vrxp mobo, and am trying to install win XP pro, when the cd is booting and it says press F6 for raid drivers, i press F6 many times, and does nothing, I can press F2 for the ASR but F6 doesn't work, Then i get ntkrnl error. I have tried and tried and can't get it to install windows. I also tried it with w2k pro and got exactly the same thing.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

TM12 · September 29th, 2002, 05:11 AM

bubbles, have patience after you press F6. Nothing happens immediately but in a short time you will be prompted for the driver disk. ASR if I'm correct will only work if you've previously created a system back-up. In other words, it's going to restore a previous system save.

bubbles1611 · September 29th, 2002, 11:22 PM

It wasn't even getting to the point of asking for a disk. It would come up with ntkrnlmem error and stop.

Iread somewhere about people slowing their ram down for the setup, which i mucked around with that and it worked.

TM12 · October 1st, 2002, 01:17 PM

glad you got it working. were you overclocking or using aggressive timings?