XP Home install on a sata drive setup?

[***** charles]

Hi all,

The current config is a D865PERL with one 40G ide hd
connected as master and no sata drives installed. The
new config will be same mb but with 2 sata150's installed
as raid0 right from the begining. So my question is when
doing an install from scratch, will I need any special drivers
to load from F5 if I am using an OEM cd with SP2 on it
or will XPH recognise the raid array from the beginning?

thanks,
charles....

 

[Ron Martell]

Hi all,

The current config is a D865PERL with one 40G ide hd
connected as master and no sata drives installed. The
new config will be same mb but with 2 sata150's installed
as raid0 right from the begining. So my question is when
doing an install from scratch, will I need any special drivers
to load from F5 if I am using an OEM cd with SP2 on it
or will XPH recognise the raid array from the beginning?

thanks,
charles....

Is your RAID 0 configured in the motherboard BIOS or does it require
software drivers to be loaded?

I strongly urge you to reconsider your decision to use a RAID 0 (data
striping) configuration for the operating system.

The performance advantages gained from this are minimal, except
perhaps during startup, and the increased risk to your system more
than offsets this performance gain, at least in my opinion.

The increased risk arises because if either hard drive fails (and the
probability of one drive in a pair failing is markedly higher than
that of single stand alone drive failing) then your computer becomes
unusable and your data is probably beyond recovery.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."

 

[***** charles]

Is your RAID 0 configured in the motherboard BIOS or does it require
software drivers to be loaded?

I strongly urge you to reconsider your decision to use a RAID 0 (data
striping) configuration for the operating system.

The performance advantages gained from this are minimal, except
perhaps during startup, and the increased risk to your system more
than offsets this performance gain, at least in my opinion.

The increased risk arises because if either hard drive fails (and the
probability of one drive in a pair failing is markedly higher than
that of single stand alone drive failing) then your computer becomes
unusable and your data is probably beyond recovery.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."

Hey Ron,

We had a big discussion before about how to speed up "Poser".
The current config is a D865PERL with a 40G IDE ATA-100
hd as the C: drive. I am going to a RAID0 with TWO
SATA2 250G hard drives set up as the C: drive. They are the
new Seagates with 5 year warantees. The plan is to image
the array so if there is a hardware problem, it can be
re-imaged in a short amount of time. The other alternative was
to fill it up with ram and make a big ram drive for the software,
the swap file and the picture being worked on. Since it was
more money to do that than to set up the array and most of
the other guys voted on faster hard drives, that is the way I
went. So I will let y'all know what happens.

I found the downloadable files on Intels' website I needed for
the sata drives.

later.....

 

[Bob Harris]

Did you mean F6 for drives, instead of F5? F5 is to force ACPI, in case XP
fails to detect that the BIOS can handle that. See the following link and
go down about 2 pages:
http://www.theeldergeek.com/clean_installation_of_windows_xp.htm

In any event, the odds are high that you will need drivers for the SATA
controllers, since XP does not come with them.

Be sure that the drivers are on a floppy, not on a CD. The XP installer can
not read drivers from a CD. (Yes, pretty dumb.)

In addition to the "drivers", you may need a file called "txtsetup.oem" on
the root level of the flopp, with drivers in subdriectories under that. At
least I did for my ASUS P4S8X motherboard.

I assume that you are aware that you need to build the raid array, using
BIOS level options, before you attempt to install XP?

 

[Guest]

The plan is to image the array so if there is a hardware problem, it can be
re-imaged in a short amount of time.

That is the big issue with RAID; there are very few imaging-programs that
support it. If you know of one that doesn't involve a second mortgage I'd be
keen to know.

 

[***** charles]

Yes, F6. Sorry for the typo.

Did you mean F6 for drives, instead of F5? F5 is to force ACPI, in case XP
fails to detect that the BIOS can handle that. See the following link and
go down about 2 pages:
http://www.theeldergeek.com/clean_installation_of_windows_xp.htm

In any event, the odds are high that you will need drivers for the SATA
controllers, since XP does not come with them.

Be sure that the drivers are on a floppy, not on a CD. The XP installer can
not read drivers from a CD. (Yes, pretty dumb.)

In addition to the "drivers", you may need a file called "txtsetup.oem" on
the root level of the flopp, with drivers in subdriectories under that. At
least I did for my ASUS P4S8X motherboard.

I assume that you are aware that you need to build the raid array, using
BIOS level options, before you attempt to install XP?