How to install RAID 0 hard drives?

I know about using the RAID 0 drivers on the floppy, but before that,
do I need to do the FDISK stuff to format each drive? I just want one
big drive ( or two big drives ). What do I do exactly? Install one,
run FDISK to partition it, remove it, install the other, run FDISK to
partion it, then reinstall the first, then begin the XP installation,
hitting F6 to install 3rd party drivers?

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 08:55:09 -0500, wrote:

I know about using the RAID 0 drivers on the floppy, but before that,
do I need to do the FDISK stuff to format each drive? I just want one
big drive ( or two big drives ). What do I do exactly? Install one,
run FDISK to partition it, remove it, install the other, run FDISK to
partion it, then reinstall the first, then begin the XP installation,
hitting F6 to install 3rd party drivers?

Your RAID 0 array has to be partitioned and formated as the array, with
both drives connected, etc.. Do it all from the XP setup. Boot the XP cd.
Do f6 to install the drivers. Let XP then partition and format the drive.

JT

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 08:55:09 -0500, wrote:

I know about using the RAID 0 drivers on the floppy, but before that,
do I need to do the FDISK stuff to format each drive? I just want one
big drive ( or two big drives ). What do I do exactly? Install one,
run FDISK to partition it, remove it, install the other, run FDISK to
partion it, then reinstall the first, then begin the XP installation,
hitting F6 to install 3rd party drivers?

Assuming both drives installed in system, jumpered correctly (ready to
go), the first thing to do is enter the RAID "bios" setup screen and
define the array, assigning both drives to it. This causes the pair
to be treated as one drive from that point forward.

Next FDISK, then format.

Thanks guys.

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 14:34:16 GMT, kony wrote:

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 08:55:09 -0500, wrote:

I know about using the RAID 0 drivers on the floppy, but before that,
do I need to do the FDISK stuff to format each drive? I just want one
big drive ( or two big drives ). What do I do exactly? Install one,
run FDISK to partition it, remove it, install the other, run FDISK to
partion it, then reinstall the first, then begin the XP installation,
hitting F6 to install 3rd party drivers?

Assuming both drives installed in system, jumpered correctly (ready to
go), the first thing to do is enter the RAID "bios" setup screen and
define the array, assigning both drives to it. This causes the pair
to be treated as one drive from that point forward.

Next FDISK, then format.

Kony says use FDISk, JT says let XP partion it. Which one do I follow?

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 10:51:35 -0500, wrote:

Kony says use FDISk, JT says let XP partion it. Which one do I follow?
Fdisk is a partitioning tool. It doesn't come with XP, and the WIN 9x/ME
versions don't know about NTFS which is the prefered file system for XP, as
well as being less wasteful than FAT32. It is also simpler to let XP do the
partitioning and formatting. If you are using RAID 0, you will also
probably end up with a drive of over 64gb. Earlier versions of FDISK had
problems with large partitions (misreporting sizes, but working ok with
percents, etc.) which MS released a fix for.

Why add extra steps?

JT

If you want to run windows from a RAID drive you will have to configure the drives from the hardware RAID BIOS so that the array appears as a single drive when windows starts up.
You can also configure software RAID from within windows. A software RAID drive can be used for data or applications, but not the OS.

wrote:

Kony says use FDISk, JT says let XP partion it. Which one do I follow?

--
Mike Walsh
West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S.A.

hanks to all for the info!

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 10:51:35 -0500, wrote:

Kony says use FDISk, JT says let XP partion it. Which one do I follow?

I was just making the generic suggestion, you could instead let
Windows handle it, but the main point was to first define the array
before proceeding ANY further, that must be done first.