Dual Booting RAID

[David Lewis]

Hi All

Is it possible to dual boot into a RAID array with each OS able to see and
use the RAID drive?

Specifically I want to have :

1)Two instances of XP pro,one each on a separate non raid SATA hard disc
mounted on a removable rack to swap between them.Whichever disc that is
inserted would be C Drive
2)Two fixed internal SATA Hard discs in RAID 0 for video processing,D Drive
3)One extra SATA drive for data and backups, E Drive.

Mobo supports 4 SATA drives and hardware RAID.

I have been told that only one OS will work with the RAID array.

Thank you for any help

 

[Wizzy]

It is possible i am not sure if i Quite understand what
you want to do but this is my system i have a server that
has hotswap drives created into a raid i have drive c with
windows xp installed and i have another hard drive with
windows 2000 and another with win2k advanced server and
another with win2003 small business and all i do is swap
the harddrives to what ever operating system i feel like
working with that day

 

[Chris]

If it is hardware RAID then, yes, you can have more than
one O/S as long as all O/S's can read the file system
(FAT32/NTFS). Hardware RAID is completely independant of
the operating system(s).

 

[David Lewis]

It is possible i am not sure if i Quite understand what
you want to do but this is my system i have a server that
has hotswap drives created into a raid i have drive c with
windows xp installed and i have another hard drive with
windows 2000 and another with win2k advanced server and
another with win2003 small business and all i do is swap
the harddrives to what ever operating system i feel like
working with that day

Wow that's a lot of OS's! and yes hot swapping SATA drives including OS's is
exactly what I mean.Just to clarify, by hot swapping you don't have to turn
off the computer to change C drives (and OS's) and each different OS can see
and use the RAID array which stays fixed on the machine,say drive D ?

 

[David Lewis]

If it is hardware RAID then, yes, you can have more than
one O/S as long as all O/S's can read the file system
(FAT32/NTFS). Hardware RAID is completely independant of
the operating system(s).

OK and thanks. I was led to believe that the hardware RAID array was somehow
tied into the OS that was first installed...I guess analagous to why you
can't make a mirror of your entire OS/programs and use it on a different pc
machine (which I don't really understand either)

 

[David B.]

No reason why one load of XP would see the array and one wouldn't.