Installing RAID on my PC

[Toxin]

Hi guys. Last week I decided I wanted to dabble a bit with RAID. So I got myself two Seagate 80Gig SATA2 drives to start playing with. I enabled RAID in my BIOS set up an array (I made a striping array) and then wanted to start installing windows. Only problem was that windows didn't want to pick it up.

I know what the problem is. I need to install my RAID drivers before installing windows, by pressing F6 right at the beginning of the windows installation process and have the drivers on a stiffy ready. Right here's my problem, I hate stiffys……. I hate them very much. Oh, and I don't have stiffy drive. Don't remember exactly what happened to it. I get flashbacks sometimes of me holding a hammer in the air screaming something incoherent, then there's just bits of plastic and metal and me laughing my 3V0L laugh…….. anyway.

Back to the point. I DON'T WANT TO USE A STIFFY DRIVE!!!!! I FSUCKING HATE STIFFYS!!!!! So, can I use my flashdrive?

I've got an ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe. Can it be done?

God, please some fellow stiffy hater tell me it can be done. Please??

PS: About RAID. A striping array is the one that makes everything harddrive related faster, right? Also would a striping/mirror array be better?

 

[killadoob]

toxin funny thing i just decided to set up raid as well

there is no other way

i had to go dig out a stiffy drive then find a stiffy disk

loaded it and it worked perfectly (the speed is much faster)

remember stripe and performance
dont go for mirror or there is no performance gain

trust me go find a stiffy drive with a stiffy disk and get raid goin best thing you'll ever do

and its so simple i thought it was heavy complicated

remember with mirror you'll loose 1 80 gig hdd

striping performance is the best

 

[Ryder_JHB]

A striped array (or Raid0) is fast as the data is being accessed from both drives at the same time, thus, twice as fast. However, a Raid0 offers no redundancy, so if you lose one drive, you lose everything. Raid0 is favoured by people doing Video editing, Graphic design etc.

AFAIK, The current versions of windows (XP, Server 2003 etc) will not accept a usb flash drive as a source for drivers when installing, Vista will however.

If at all possible, try and borrow a stiffy drive for this installation, or buy one - I think they are relatively cheap - R100 or so at the most. There are ways to solve your problem, but they require lengthy workarounds...

Let's see what other forumites have to say....

Edit: Killadoob beat me to it...

 

[MrBean_pm]

Depends on what you wanna use your pc for - gaming only, making occassional backups, Raid0 (striping) makes a lot of difference, specially opening/loading apps.

I am running both my home pc's on WD Raptor Raid0 setups. The perf increase worth it for me. Best would be Raid0+1 for that controller, with minimum cpu overhead, but you'd need 4 drives - cost vs perf ratio not worth it.

You could format flash drive as a floppy, there are utils available to do this, copy drivers to it, disable onboard floppy controller in the bios, and you should be able to install from flashdrive. I stand to be corrected on this, but I am using IDE zip drive to perform same function, which works ok.

I know Transcend has a nice utility which I use a lot, that you can format "usb hdd", "usb stiffy", "usb zip" etc....

I actually remember reading somewhere that this can be done, so let me find the util/linkie...

Make sure usb is enabled in the bios too.

Great board btw, I luv it.

 

[mancombseepgood]

What about

Havent tested, but stick it on CD? Or does Windows not allow you to read CD drive during install?

 

[bdt]

..Only problem was that windows didn't want to pick it up. I know what the problem is. I need to install my RAID drivers before installing windows, by pressing F6 right at the beginning of the windows installation process and have the drivers on a stiffy ready. Right here's my problem, I hate stiffys……. I hate them very much.

Amen brother, I FEEL your pain: the first time a stiffy fails me (usually that old hoary old chestnut "track 0 bad, disk unusable") I whip out and crush it ..a throw across the room usually follows, sometimes not.

So, can I use my flashdrive? I've got an ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe. Can it be done?

Mayhap not from USB ..but I used to have (lost it now, dammit!) a slipstreaming tool that whose MAGIC party trick is to merge these infamous F6 drivers into an XP setup CD so, comes the time, IIRC you still do the F6 thing and the RAID drivers are automagically already there - no FFS stiffy (or USB needed). I can't recall the name now but if you elG for "xp driver slipstreaming" (or words that effect, you should get there.

PS: About RAID. A striping array is the one that makes everything harddrive related faster, right? Also would a striping/mirror array be better?

Striping is "RAID" 0 (quotes because, as the puritans will tell you, it's not real RAID as there's no redundancy) and yes, it oh-so-does make things go faster.

A pal 'n I have just upgraded his bedroom/TV machine from a 40gig/4200rpm laptop drive to a RAID0 set of 60gig/5400rpm drives (that's the smallest size we could get to that spindle speed) and the efect is ..profound. As a very basic metric, boot time has changed from around 1m10s to around 45s ..and remember that there's a lot of initial BIOS/drive detection (that TAKES time) going on before the boot sequence even starts.

As long as you remember that there's NO protection if the volume fails, and so don't keep anything important on it, it's a fabulous way to really get some speed into your system.

 

[xenithon]

nLite - it is your friend . Check out nLite Homepage and use it to slipstream the drivers (one of the millions of brilliant functions nLite does. For support check out MSFN.

 

[Jeeva]

Just find one of those all-in-one windows CD's on a torrent site. They install those stiffy drivers from the CD, so no FDD required.

And in the long run, you will always find problems with nLite copies.

 

[Ryder_JHB]

Like I said, go buy yourself a stiffy drive, and save yourself lots of time!

 

[Toxin]

The main reason I absolute F***ING hate stiffys is due to my previous motherboard. I had the A7V600. Where just installing a normal SATA drive needed the stiffy. Of course my one friend AND my cousin got the same board as well. So who did they call to install their SATA drives? Who did they call when they needed to re-install windows……? Me! That's who.

Damnit!!!! I told myself I'd never work with stiffys again, now I have to…… crap.

There should be one or two survivors of the "Great stiffy drive slaughter of 2004" that I can cannibalize. Ah, stiffy genocide never felt so good.

Thanks guys.

PS: I F***CKING HATE STIFFY DRIVES!!1!

 

[bdt]

nLite! Ahhh, thanks for reminding me xenithon. Jeeva, yes: I've also experienced the more, shall we say "charismatic" aspects of it, but if you're disciplined enough to keep the tweaking down to the bare minimum, as in slipstreaming in the drivers ONLY, there's a far smaller chance of things getting interesting.

Ryder, you HAVE to be stirring the pot there, man! Surely you can appreciate that it's the principle of the thing?

 

[bdt]

PS: I F***CKING HATE STIFFY DRIVES!!1!

Go Toxin go! Heh, you're only saying out loud what we all feel, anyway. (and boy, do you ever feel the down-to-the-bone-RAGE of a failed stiffy when it's stopping you from getting things done!)

 

[Toxin]

I swear you never had this many problems with them when they first came out. It's as if they give more problems now then what what they did.

I remember when I was a kid you could stand on the damn things and they would give you crap. Now just put them down wrong or in the wrong place and they fail.

Oh, how many times I've put in a stiffy, with my hardworked info on it, only to be greeted with the infamous "This stiffy isn't formatted. Format it now?" message.

Go to your happy Toxin.... remember the Great stiffy drive slaughter of 2004. Ah, bliss.

PS: Have I mentioned how much I F***CKING HATE STIFFY DRIVES!!111!!!!!!11

 

[Ryder_JHB]

bdt, not stirring, - just work with these things daily (slipstreaming, nlite, PE, OPK etc) and my best time saving advice is to use the stiffy! Makes things so much easier! - But I hear ya!

 

[killadoob]

yup the stiffy is very easy

lucky i still kept my old one in the backroom heheh

 

[Ryder_JHB]

I have so much stuff stored in my back room - for rainy days! - and Linux Firewalls just love old hardware!

And yes, I got me a stiffy in my main pc as well! (Just in case!)

 

[Toxin]

Well, here I stand, bloodied and bruised but...... I stand victorious!

Teh 3V0L stiffy could not defeat me!! Tho it tried I slew it..... onetime.

Yeah for me!! I got my drives running in raid. Just busy reinstalling everything and I'll be sorted.

Thanks for all the advice guys.

 

[mancombseepgood]

I swear you never had this many problems with them when they first came out. It's as if they give more problems now then what what they did.

Quite right... remember that old Sperry XT you had that used to boot off one floppy and run your spreadsheet off the other? Worked for years on the same floppy... then came the robust and more reliable stiffy... not!