RAID and Windows 2000

[Joe]

I know that Windows 2000 pro doesn't allow you to create disk mirroring or
RAID 5 but I deal with charities and they all have very limited budgets and
donated equipment. Many of them in order to gain some of the benefits of
central administration, backups, storage, etc setup a machine running Win2K.
One such organization would like to create a fault tolerant setup using RAID
1. Does anyone know if there's some kind of hardware that could be
purchased that would allow RAID 1 to be setup without Win2K knowing that its
volume is being mirrored?

Joe

 

[Dave Patrick]

Absolutely. Any hardware raid controller's disk configuration would be
completely invisible to the operating system.

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
|I know that Windows 2000 pro doesn't allow you to create disk mirroring or
| RAID 5 but I deal with charities and they all have very limited budgets
and
| donated equipment. Many of them in order to gain some of the benefits of
| central administration, backups, storage, etc setup a machine running
Win2K.
| One such organization would like to create a fault tolerant setup using
RAID
| 1. Does anyone know if there's some kind of hardware that could be
| purchased that would allow RAID 1 to be setup without Win2K knowing that
its
| volume is being mirrored?
|
| Joe
|
|

 

[Joe]

I've found a RAID controller that supports RAID 1, now would it be possible
to setup RAID 1 without having to reinstall everything? The way I see it,
in order for me to use the RAID controller (I've only worked with servers
that have native SCSI controllers) the mirrored drives would have to both be
connected to the controller, however, I believe that in order to boot an OS
the bootable drive has to be on the lowest IDE channel. So, does anyone
know what I would have to do to get this done. Are some of the above things
handled by the controller itself?

Joe

 

[Dave Patrick]

You build the array in controller bios then you'll need to reinstall the
operating system.

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| I've found a RAID controller that supports RAID 1, now would it be
possible
| to setup RAID 1 without having to reinstall everything? The way I see it,
| in order for me to use the RAID controller (I've only worked with servers
| that have native SCSI controllers) the mirrored drives would have to both
be
| connected to the controller, however, I believe that in order to boot an
OS
| the bootable drive has to be on the lowest IDE channel. So, does anyone
| know what I would have to do to get this done. Are some of the above
things
| handled by the controller itself?
|
| Joe

 

[DL]

Assuming you have a functioning o/s, and are using a 2nd hd, do you not
simply connect hd to raid controler, instigate a repair installation of
win2k, installing the raid drivers. reboot to enter the raid setup, and
build the array?

 

[Dave Patrick]

Whatever this means..............

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Assuming you have a functioning o/s, and are using a 2nd hd, do you not
| simply connect hd to raid controler, instigate a repair installation of
| win2k, installing the raid drivers. reboot to enter the raid setup, and
| build the array?

 

[Joe]

Thanks, I think if I can decipher DLs post I should be able to do a repair
install after I've moved the drive to the RAID controller I should be able
to build the mirror set.

Joe

 

[DL]

What I meant was that if you had a functioning sys, that you decided to
implement raid on, Dont you simply install the raid card, and raid driver.
Then move ide cable to raid card, at this point a win2k repair install?,
then add second hd to controller, reboot to enter raid options screen and
allow raid to be built??

Thanks, I think if I can decipher DLs post I should be able to do a repair
install after I've moved the drive to the RAID controller I should be able
to build the mirror set.

Joe

Whatever this means..............

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Assuming you have a functioning o/s, and are using a 2nd hd, do you not
| simply connect hd to raid controler, instigate a repair installation of
| win2k, installing the raid drivers. reboot to enter the raid setup, and
| build the array?

 

[Dave Patrick]

Still confusing What's with all of the ??? ? I never suggested to simply
install a raid controller and be done with it if that's what you mean.

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| What I meant was that if you had a functioning sys, that you decided to
| implement raid on, Dont you simply install the raid card, and raid driver.
| Then move ide cable to raid card, at this point a win2k repair install?,
| then add second hd to controller, reboot to enter raid options screen and
| allow raid to be built??

 

[DL]

A typo,
Not what I meant, I was just querying, the
' You build the array in controller bios then you'll need to reinstall the
operating system'

 

[Joe]

That's what I thought. The question on the table is whether or not one can
take a hard drive with an operating system (in this case W2K) and install a
RAID controller (only for RAID 1) then install the drivers for the RAID
controller then move the bootable HD to the controller together with the
other drive then boot the system and have the RAID controller build the
mirror for you.

Joe

A typo,
Not what I meant, I was just querying, the
' You build the array in controller bios then you'll need to reinstall the
operating system'

Still confusing What's with all of the ??? ? I never suggested to simply
install a raid controller and be done with it if that's what you mean.

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| What I meant was that if you had a functioning sys, that you decided to
| implement raid on, Dont you simply install the raid card, and raid driver.
| Then move ide cable to raid card, at this point a win2k repair install?,
| then add second hd to controller, reboot to enter raid options screen and
| allow raid to be built??

 

[Dave Patrick]

If you get the array built without destroying the data on the drive then
these may help.

How to Move a Windows Installation to Different Hardware
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=249694

HOW TO: Replace the Motherboard on a Computer That Is Running Windows
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=824125

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| That's what I thought. The question on the table is whether or not one
can
| take a hard drive with an operating system (in this case W2K) and install
a
| RAID controller (only for RAID 1) then install the drivers for the RAID
| controller then move the bootable HD to the controller together with the
| other drive then boot the system and have the RAID controller build the
| mirror for you.
|
| Joe

 

[Joe]

I like that motherboard trick, I'm going to remember that one.

Joe

 

[Leythos]

I know that Windows 2000 pro doesn't allow you to create disk mirroring or
RAID 5 but I deal with charities and they all have very limited budgets and
donated equipment. Many of them in order to gain some of the benefits of
central administration, backups, storage, etc setup a machine running Win2K.
One such organization would like to create a fault tolerant setup using RAID
1. Does anyone know if there's some kind of hardware that could be
purchased that would allow RAID 1 to be setup without Win2K knowing that its
volume is being mirrored?

Promise makes a couple IDE RAID Controller cards - the TX2000 card seems
to work very well for single MIRROR sets.

I've used the SX6000 RAID controller card with 6 x 250GB IDE drives.

The Promise cards allow you to HOT-SWAP the IDE drives.

 

[Leythos]

Promise makes a couple IDE RAID Controller cards - the TX2000 card seems
to work very well for single MIRROR sets.

I've used the SX6000 RAID controller card with 6 x 250GB IDE drives.

The Promise cards allow you to HOT-SWAP the IDE drives.

Almost forgot - with the TX2000 card you can use an existing drive, and
Mirror it to another drive, without loosing anything. I would install
the Promise driver BEFORE shutting down the system.

 

[intrepid]

Thanks Leythos, I'll look into that controller.

Joe