Software RAID-1 unavailable XPpro SP2?

[Bozz]

I've googled and found 2/10ths of ah heck all and I'm hoping I'm posting in the right section.

Got a P4 3.0GHz/1Gb/2x identical 250Gb Seagate SATA disks and Gigabyte GA-8I915G Pro motherboard.

It has onboard RAID however it seems like its only for the PATA ports.

In XP, you can make the disks dynamic, reboot a few times for XP to detect them however to create the RAID array is always greyed out no matter what I do.

I've done this dozens of times with server OS's and it always works flawlessly.... What could be wrong?

 

[Nothinman]

MS won't let you use any redundant RAID levels with non-Server editions of Windows. The only options in XP Home/Pro are linear and RAID0.

 

[Bozz]

Well poo.

Cheers

 

[Nothinman]

There's a hack that you can use to fool the driver into thinking that your system is Server so that you can create them, but I've seen at least one story of someone losing their RAID set after installing a patch that affected the driver so I wouldn't recommend it.

You could alwayse use Linux, it's software RAID and LVM lets you do whatever you want. =)

 

[RebateMonger]

You could also try a low end PCI RAID card (hardware/software RAID). Some of them are only $20 to $60. Performance might not be the best, but neither is Windows Software RAID. A PCI card lets you easily move the array to a different PC and has some other management and recovery features that you don't get in Windows Software RAID.

 

[Abzstrak]

you can hexedit the 3 files needed to make the dm tools think its a server OS.... I've done it before, it seems to be fine but be wary of updates, mainly service packs. It shouldn't be too big of a deal with a mirror though, even if it can boot with a mirror after an udate I would think it would boot to one or the other, then rehack and be on your way.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Abzstrak
you can hexedit the 3 files needed to make the dm tools think its a server OS.... I've done it before, it seems to be fine but be wary of updates, mainly service packs. It shouldn't be too big of a deal with a mirror though, even if it can boot with a mirror after an udate I would think it would boot to one or the other, then rehack and be on your way.

Just a warning, discussions around circumventing licenses tend to get locked...