URGENT - Windows 2000 RAID 5!!!!!!!!!!

[CyberTech]

I have a Windows 2000 Server with 3 IDE hard drives. I need to set it up to use RAID 5 across all three drives. I know how to create a RAID 5 volume in disk administrator, but it won't let me because I already have the operating system installed on one of the disks, so only 2 disks have no partitions. If I install a 4th HDD it will allow me to create my RAID5 volume, but I want to use just 3! Can it be done???

A quick response would be great for this one! Thanks in advance.

[GHSTECH]

you can only mirror the boot drive of any raid, hardware or software. so that is the reason that when you add the fourth drive it will let you build an array, but only with the three drives in addition to the boot, but not including the boot drive. So the only way to have a raid 5 and the boot drive be protected is to mirror the boot drive and add an additional drive to the other 2 to build your array with.

[Ya_know]

Yup!

[Hippie_Techs]

You need a hardware RAID card in Win2K like the AAA-UDMA card from Adaptec or I think Promise Technology also makes one (SuperTrak ?). Disk Administrator will only let you set up RAID on the extra drives in the machine.