raid and new os install

[oatesj77]

never worked with a raid setup let alone sata, but i've just picked up 2 wd raptors to be used in a raid 0 setup on my new machine. i'll be picking up xp 64 pro to install and just wondering if anyone has any advice on a new raid setup.

i know drivers need to be installed at setup (f6) but most of what i can find say to use a floppy, wasn't planning on using a floppy in this machine, any workaround for this?

also found that there is no floppy disc with my mobo, just a cd with "Silicon SATARAID miniport utility" and the mobo has "nForce PRO" and "Sil3114R controllers"

any advice would be great

[Autoload]

You'll need to get your SCSI drivers and burn a custom install CD. There's many tutorials on how to do this and build a CD for yourself. Below is just one of them.

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=13173

You may also find Microsoft's answer file and sysprep page useful:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314460/EN-US/

[oatesj77]

excellent, msfn looks like it is just what i need

[Autoload]

Read up on the answer file as well. It is "the" way to install an OS. Granted you're only doing one installation, but fully unattended installs are the way to go in my opinion.

[oatesj77]

i'll be going over these two in detail while killing time at work, last 2 components for machine come today, so will grab xp on the way home and give my monster life tonight.

[satis]

another way would be to put another harddrive in there ( outside of your raid array) and just your installation directory to it (the i386 folder) as well as the sata drivers you need. Then just run the install off the harddrive. I did this recently for a friend having major installation issues with XP, using DOS boot cds. Of course, it's slower then hell installing in 16 bit real mode, but it works.

[oatesj77]

mobo cd didn't have raid drivers for xp 64, so install delayed a bit. i did think about installing win2k to a 3rd hdd, but then that is a lot of time for an intermediate step, would rather hash it all out in one evening.

[oatesj77]

lots of problems

got my raid setup. started install, installed drivers (F6) went through xp setup stuff (product key, date/time etc...) had about 15 min left on the install then got BSODeath! went back and tried again and received several different errors, i'm doing a low-level format of my two drives and going to start again later.

anyone have a positive install with xp-64 and a raid setup?

[Autoload]

lots of problems
anyone have a positive install with xp-64 and a raid setup?

Only in an enterprise environment. Is all your hardware on the HCL?

M$ doesn't maintain a HCL list anymore.. they give you a online store to browse and if any of your stuff isn't in there, then I guess you're suppose to buy it from them. LOL

http://testedproducts.windowsmarketplace.com/results.aspx?&bCatID=42&cpID=0&ocID=105&OR=1

[oatesj77]

went throught the marketplace and checked everything;
asus k8n-dl - ok
wd raptors - ok
kingston hyper x ram - NO, didn't see anything for ram
bfg 7900 gt - NO, didn't see anything above the 6000 series.

i also tried a linux live cd (ubuntu) and was unable to get that going, had an error message about server X and something about graphics, so i have a strong feeling the gpu is the problem.

here's what i've tried so far, configured raid w/silicon image raid controller, partitioned and formatted raid drive with ntfs, started the xp-64 install, gets to the end of user input section and then BSOD.

changed setting in bios, removed caching form cpu's and memory, disabled usb and other controllers. started install process all over, this time took about 4x as long as previous, but with same result.

i'm going to try the other raid controller on my mobo (nForce4) with fat 32 and a win2k pro since i don't think that controller will work with 64-bit stuff. if that doesn't work i might take satis's idea and toss in an ide drive and see if i can get that going. :(

thanks for the help autoload, i've got to go get some tacos before i try all this again.

[oatesj77]

decided the gfx card was the problem so ran out and picked up an older grforce 7300 card. put in an ide drive and removed my raid discs. windows install just loops through the copying file part. here's what happens.
boot bachine w/cd. install copies files, then asks for partition to use, i select partition to format then select again to install windows on. checks hardware copies files etc, then reboots. i don't touch anythig and it goes to the cd and starts the install all over. i tried taking the cd out at this point, but it asks for it. i tried changing changing boot order to hdd, cd then floppy at reset, but it still looks for cd and boots from it restarting the install. went back into bios, set all for default and tried again with win2k, same results. my drive is an older wd from last machine, was working last time it ran about a month ago. i've look all through google for install loops, and the best advice i could find was take the cd out, but like i said above, it just ask for it again.

slowly going crazy so any help wouild be great

[IanS]

Try removing blanking the drive and then fdisk(ing) it so there are no partitions. Try installing W2k on that setup.

If this doesn't work, repeat for W98!

As it's an older drive, check that the size is big enough, installs can require a massive amount of space, even under W2k. Also check that you've reset it to be the master drive, drive 0 and enabled large disk support.

[Autoload]

My sentiments exactly. During the setup of XP, use the utility to blow away (DELETE) the partitions away completely and make new ones. Then start the install.

[oatesj77]

thanks for all the help everyone. i had tried several format/partition sizes with no luck, and think the problem might have been because the hdd and cd were on same ribbon, couldn't get to other id input (no space). anyway i decided to go back and try the other sata controller on my board. long story short, i didn't get raid enabled, but did get xp 64 installed, but not till about 10:00 sunday night, so haven't been able to "play" with it much.

thanks again for all the help. i think my next step will be to get a large sata backup drive, get an os on that and then try and setup the raid again, but not for a while.

[oatesj77]

i've another quiestion for you guys about the swap drive. i made a small partition on my second raptor, 2048 MB to use as a swap drive (os is on other drive) anyway when i went to set the virtual memory up, it said the page file was too big, it was already over 2gb on my windows install drive. should i manually configure the file to be; min 1024, max 2048? or should i make my swap drive bigger, like 5Gb? I also set up a partition to be used as a schratch disk for photoshop, also 2Gb, but wonderign if I should make that 5Gb? they are the only two partitions on the 2nd drive, so changing them is simple, just looking for some solid advice as it seems like 10Gb for windows install + 5Gb for swpa drive is a bit excessive.

thanks

[satis]

for Windows swap, I recommend setting the minimum and maximum swap size identical. That way Windows doesn't waste time manually resizing the swap size. As for swap file size, standard rule of thumb is double your RAM. You woulnd't want to go less than that, but going more wouldn't cause any problems.

I can't answer with any authority ont he photoshop thing.

[oatesj77]

min=max? always just thogut the page file was a collection of data that varied in size. so if i set the min and max at 5000mb, the page file will actuakky be 5000mb? what could it use to make a file that big?

[IanS]

The swap file of 5Gb would not get full on normal usage, but try doing a few major edits on more than one very large image keeping all the history of changes, and you could find that it does get used, even with a 1 or 2 Gb of RAM machine.

I would take the view, double the RAM, and modify your own usage of the machine to reduce swap file usage.

On a server, I don't know, but would guess that heavy traffic would cause the swap file to be used a lot.

[oatesj77]

swap or scratch disk? i think you are talking about the scratch disk for photoshop. either way i made a 5gb partition on my second drive for a swap file with a 2048 min and 5000mb max, then set up a scratch disc partition with 5gb for photoshop, should be enough on top of 2gb of hardware ram.
thanks for all the input everyone, i never did get my raid setup going, but may go back and try it all again in a month or two, at that point i'll try for an automated cd, but right now this thing is fast enough, and not even sure it raid 0 is worth the hastle again.

[satis]

You'd be better off setting the max and min sizes of the windows swap file to be the same. When you create teh swap file, Windows writes a file to the harddrive of the minimum size of the swap file. It's 'empty' but it takes up your min file size (2048 MB in your case). It'll write to this file as it needs to. However, if it ever writes more than 2048 MB to the file, it will be forced to increase the size of the swap file. To do this, it has to do a bunch of reading and writing from the disk... this is evidenced by hard drive 'thrashing'... lots of grinding noises and the computer gets real slow for a bit. Once the file has been made larger, it goes back to acting normally. Until it needs to store less in the swap file and decides to resize it down to 2048 MB again... then you have another sessions of thrashing while the O/S cleans up and resizes the swap drive.

By setting the max and min sizes to the same value, Windows never resizes the swap file and thus never thrashes the drive.

[IanS]

swap or scratch disk? i think you are talking about the scratch disk for photoshop.
Not a scratch disk for photoshop - I don't know or use photoshop.