Raid Question

I have a "Unique Power User" with an existing install of Windows XP Pro on an Intel platform.

He wants to clone his existing OS drive to an 80GB drive, (IDE) and then mirror that with a Promise Fastrack T2000 pci card.

My question is this. Do I just boot to the Windows CD, and hit F6 to install the RAID driver? Will XP Pro do this without forcing a Repair Install? I know that if I do this improperly, the XP installation will be shot.

FYI, all data is backed up to an external drive, but it would take a long time to get all his programs re-installed, so we are trying to avoid a reload if possible. This is my oldest and most lucrative customer, but I always treat him fairly.

Thanks in advance.

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Originally Posted by Tekboy

...FYI, all data is backed up to an external drive, but it would take a long time to get all his programs re-installed...

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So you obviously don't mean backed up like I mean backed up -else the best & safest answer is to do a clean install, mount your raid & then restore your backup minus any hardware keys.

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Originally Posted by confus-ed

So you obviously don't mean backed up like I mean backed up -else the best & safest answer is to do a clean install, mount your raid & then restore your backup minus any hardware keys.

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Am I to infer that you have no intention of actually answering my question, but you just want to play "Tarzan -ed" and thump your chest? :devil:

Just last week I did this myself with a business that does CAD. Installed the card and booted into XP and installed the driver. Then I shut down and created the mirror. Booted up and configured the raid mirror and proceeded to clone the drive with data on it to the mirrored drive. Rebooted and XP loaded no problem. Didn't even have to do a repair install.

Just to play it safe,.. perhaps you can use a disk utility (like data lifeguard) to clone the original drive partition over to a spare drive so that you can work your magic without any worries.

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Originally Posted by Tekboy

Am I to infer that you have no intention of actually answering my question, but you just want to play "Tarzan -ed" and thump your chest? :devil:

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[Sigh] .. a cloned image is different to a backup .. I did just tell you ..

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Originally Posted by confus-ed

[Sigh] .. a cloned image is different to a backup .. I did just tell you ..

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I am not sweating the cloning part at all. I am more concerned with the HAL when I change IDE drivers.

I did this before, and as I recall, I built the mirror in the 3rd Party RAID Utility, then booted to the Windows CD, and installed the RAID driver using F6. Everything worked fine for me at that point.

My concern is that I have only done this once (same customer) and I just took six months off from this business to run one of this same customer's businesses. I can clone HDDs with NTFS until the cows come home, but I know what happens if you screw up the IDE driver change in an NT based OS. I am totally unconcerned about the cloning part. The only reason I am cloning is to go from 60GB to 80GB, as we have two 80gb drives.

The driver change is my issue. If there is a smoother way to accomplish this, I am open to suggestion.

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Originally Posted by Tekboy

I am not sweating the cloning part at all. I am more concerned with the HAL when I change IDE drivers.

I did this before, and as I recall, I built the mirror in the 3rd Party RAID Utility, then booted to the Windows CD, and installed the RAID driver using F6. Everything worked fine for me at that point.

My concern is that I have only done this once (same customer) and I just took six months off from this business to run one of this same customer's businesses. I can clone HDDs with NTFS until the cows come home, but I know what happens if you screw up the IDE driver change in an NT based OS. I am totally unconcerned about the cloning part. The only reason I am cloning is to go from 60GB to 80GB, as we have two 80gb drives.

The driver change is my issue. If there is a smoother way to accomplish this, I am open to suggestion.

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I think I understand what your saying...This is scary sometimes although

Not that difficult

This is what I did It worked...

http://www.windowsreinstall.com/inst...oard/winxp.htm

Then restore the backup

Enjoy

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Originally Posted by Tekboy

I am not sweating the cloning part at all. I am more concerned with the HAL when I change IDE drivers..

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So this is why you use a backup & not a clone ! PC technicians in general get so caught up thinking 'ghost is great' they forget what its really for which is images - exact copies - sure you can 'bend it' to do lots of things it perhaps oughtn't to be used for strictly (watch out for versions with ghost, only the very latest do 'cylinder boundary' translation/alignment right when re-sizing partitions & not always then (it reads whats in the bios translation table & not the disks firmware, as its a windows app when it works it out & then a dos program when it implements it :rolleyes: no wonder it goes wrong !, personally I use ranish partition manager much better & free, but without all that system admin 'guff' you get in later versions), but it is my considerable experience that the apparent 'long way' is better often than the 'short' way as much of what gets otherwise suggested may or mayn't work trouble free, this (backup & restore to new install) once mastered should work in all situations & produces 'as clean an install as you can get' if you want to also transfer existing stuff ;)

Here's what I'm on about (note: there's no KB called this anymore, Billy Boy must have sussed that he was kind of shooting himself in the foot anti-piracy wise ;) & pulled it, but there's one very similar for w2k, this also is best for pro as there's no advice for activation probably another reason why it got pulled ..)

Right .. :D - having said all of that !, & given you've got a back-up (albeit a clone) & blank disks to go at (so effectively anotherbackup as you shouldn't have to touch the original disk at all if you remove it at the right point) did you just try it your way ? As it does work 'mostly' .. ( if I decide to take my chances & do it quickly I always issue the disclaimer 'really ..' {& spout all that above - :D} before starting ;)).

Thanks for the help, guys. It had been quite a while since I had done a job of that nature, and I was nervous. Here is how it went down.

First, I cloned the 60gb drive onto one of the two 80gb drives, and removed the 60gb. No harm, no foul at this point. If all goes south, just put the 60gb back onto the main IDE controller and go back to original configuration, and back to work.

Next, I installed the Promise Fastrak T2000, AND THE DRIVERS, rebooted, and made sure all was well. Then I hooked both drives up to the new controller, and entered the RAID configuration utility, and built the mirror.

Rebooted to Windows XP, and everything worked perfectly.

Life is good.