Help with new AMD PC

neo468 · March 2006

I am putting together a new machine, and cant figure out what is going on. here are the new system specs:

ATX CASE W/ 550W POWER SUPPLY

ASUS A8N SLI DELUXE

2GB KINGSTON DDR 400MHZ RAM (4 512mb sims)

AMD ATHLON 64 3200+ PROCESSOR

2 MAXTOR 300GB SATA II HDD SET IN A RAID 0 (Through built in motherboard raid)

Video: NVIDIA GeForce 7800GT OC

CDROM: Sony DRU 540A CDR/RW DVD R/RW

I setup the BIOS then went into the raid setup and configured a raid 0 with the 2 drives. Unfortunately I have to use win xp pro (family computer), when I go to xp setup it just hangs while formatting the drive. I loaded the raid driver in the xp initial setup, and it recognized the raid 0 setup and the full 578gb size. Any ideas?

skully93 · March 2006

Honestly, I'd try installing it on the one drive first, then add in the second for RAID.

Keep in mind I have very little raid exp, but the few that I have set up that way seemed to work with much less effort. Sure it takes a minute to mirror, but meh.

Also, why are you doing the raid 0? It offers very little realy world performance for the overhead you'll be getting on that proc. If you're worried about data backup there are easier ways.

eurotrash · March 2006

skully93 wrote:

raid 0 is striping. you can't have a mirror with XP.

Silver Bullet · March 2006

You can have a Hardware RAID 1 (Mirror) on XP, or any other "Hardware RAID", just not a Software RAID 1, 0, 5 with XP.

I would go back and verify the RAID 0 setup and insure that you are providing the correct driver before the installation begins.

texasmcdst · March 2006

Hi there,

I'd google Windows XP forum and go to Micrsoft's forum web site and ask there. There a a lot of people/experts that view questions posted and can answer your questions.

I was thinking that XP couldn't load on a striped RAID 0 volume but I might be incorrect. Someone else here might be able to clarify. I thought it could only be on RAID 1 and 5 volumes.

Another thing you might try is partitioning a part of the C: and loading the OS, then strip the remaining partition with the second disk.

I'd like to know the outcome when you find the solution so I can clarify in my mind whether you can load XP on a RAID 0 configuration. Maybe it is possible on a hardware raid.

Hope you get it working,

Paul

TheShadow · March 2006

Well if you do not have a refreshed XP Pro with service pack 2 included then it is hanging trying to format a partition larger than 137 Gig. If that is the case you may have difficulty with a Raid 0 because of the ping-pong across drives. Probably not a problem because if I am not mistaken XP PRO will hang formatting a single drive on many systems. Try creating a partition of 100 gig of so and see it it will format that and continue on.

neo468 · March 2006

What about using the xp pro x64 edition?

TheShadow · March 2006

If that is the problem that should be a solution. However drivers will be a new problem.

Webmaster · March 2006

TheShadow alreayd pointed out the problem, but unless you actually want a single huge partition, it's kinda useless to install a RAID 0 if you are going to partition it later. If one drive fails, you will lose your enitre striped set and have to restore it from backup.

neo468 · March 2006

Well, come to find out there are compatibility issues between maxtor sata II especially the 300gb models, and asus boards. I ended up updating the bios, to fix some of the bugs, but still have problems. I cant get windows to boot, or when it does boot it says there is a file missing or corrupt on the cd, this happens before it asks for the source of the raid drivers. Any body else have one of the boards, it is an asus A8N-SLI Deluxe. Should I just go buy another board

Help with new AMD PC

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