RAID 0 Problems- Dragon Ultra Platinum

[diggingforgold]

My setup is below. Im trying to format and partition my hard drives (2x 20GB in RAID0). I used bios to make a raid array, and everything worked out ok, It said its now 40GB. Great. Now I can format/partition? No! I cant get it to work! DONT ASK ME WHY IT ISNT WORKING- It says the drive is formatted and partitioned, but when i try booting from winxp cd, it claims that no HDD's are present. Bios picks up the drives as RAID 0. I'm perplexed. Im about to retry from the beginning, and use plain dos format, because this PART program just isnt doing it.

Anyone have a link to a guide, or any suggestions as to what I should do or what I may have missed? Thanks.

 

[repo man11]

I think this thread has your answer http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=722197

 

[diggingforgold]

I think that thread is talking about setting up raid after installing XP, Im just trying to format and partition my raid. It doesnt seem to work. All I want is to see a C:\ with a cursor blinking in dos. PART.exe isnt doing it.

Here is a question- do I have to partition and format both drives before I set up a RAID array, or do I have to set up the array first? Im setting up the array first.

I dunno, Im so perplexed. I need sleep and food, and thinking while sleepy and hungry just doesnt work with me.

 

[repo man11]

You need to format and partition after you've set up the array. RAID 0 should see two 20 gig drives as 20 gigabytes, not 40.
Rest, and it will all be clear.

 

[mbigna]

You need to format and partition after you've set up the array. RAID 0 should see two 20 gig drives as 20 gigabytes, not 40.
Rest, and it will all be clear.

repo man11--
You may be mistaken or mistyped here: RAID 0 is striping for performance. Files (specifically, tracks) are split between both drives so they may be read concurrently. RAID 1 is for security. Both drives are exact copies of each other (unless, of course, one disk dies--then the other takes over--hence fault tolerant). RAID 0 will make 2 20GB drives look like 1 40GB drive to the O/S. RAID 1 will make 2 20GB drives look like 1 20GB drive to the O/S.

 

[repo man11]

Oops, you're correct. Now I'm the one who needs some sleep. Sorry for the incorrect advice diggingforgold.

 

[diggingforgold]

You offered my the suggestion of rest, and IT WORKED!

It was simple. I had to install the RAID drivers that the CD wouldnt copy because winXP pro installation doesnt let you install raid drivers from cd, so yeah I had to copy them to floppy and then install them, but I didnt have a floppy so I had to install one.

Anyway- it was very confusing. I installed the drivers and just let winXP format and partition for me. Simple and quick!

Problem solved. Thanks OC'ers.