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Simon Greener

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20 years ago

SG

Simon Greener

2 Posts

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35334

November 14th, 2006 17:00

Dimension E521 RAID, can't enable it

Hi,
 
I have installed a retail version of XP, which did not come from DELL.  I'd already paid for it so was not willing to pay again for another license. 
 
I'm starting to regret it.  My Microsoft XP Professional install CD (no service packs, it's that old!) did not have the NVIDIA RAID drivers either.  In fact the install would bluescreen unless I disabled the SATA RAID option in the BIOS.  I don't have a floppy drive so even if it didn't bluescreen I couldn't have added the RAID driver during install anyway.
 
If I now enable the RAID BIOS the system will not boot; it doesn't see a bootable volume.  I have not tried to create a new RAID volume with the RAID set-up BIOS screen as that will erase the disks.  I have read through the online manuals and I believe I should be able to create the RAID volume from within Windows using the nVidia MediaSheild windows application.
 
I tried to install the MediaSheild application, downloaded from DELL support pages.  After it installs I reboot but there is not observable application installed.
 
After reading through the nVidia website's support docs I also tried to create a slipstream XP-Pro+SP2 bootable setup CD that includes the RAID drivers.  It doesn't work.  Part way through it complains that there is a missing file (ohci394.sys, which is for firewire, which I don't have).  :O(
 
Now I have my XP system set-up just how I want, I do NOT want to reformat.  What do I do?
  • N

    Nospoonzz

    29 Posts

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    Posted November 19th, 2006 04:00

    The only way to install a RAID set up with your old version of Windows XP Pro is to 1st enable raid to "ON" in your system bios.
    Then after rebooting you are going to hit CTRL+N to go into the nVRAID setup program in bios.There you will select create an Aray which will either be "0" for striping or "1" for mirroring. YOU WILL LOOSE ALL OF YOUR DATA ! ! ! ! for which ever one you select.Since you have an old setup Windows CD you must have the nVRAID drivers on a floppy disc and I would highly recommend you go and buy one.They are so cheap nowadays, for under $10.00. You can not use a USB Floppy drive though.Once you have the drivers installed you can install a fresh copy of Windows and make sure you hit "F6" when Windows asks you to do so at setup. You will also need all of the drivers and application software for the Windows based programs after setup completes ,such as that for nVIDIA's Mediashield.Believe me ,I know it s, but it is totally worth it in the long wrong.After you have installed the operating system and set up RAID everything else is easy. Even when replacing hard drives in RAID "1" you just install a new one and let nVIDIA Mediashield do the rest. Hope this helps.
  • SG

    Simon Greener

    2 Posts

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    Posted November 19th, 2006 09:00

    Thanks for taking time to reply.  The problem I have is that my original XP install will bluescreen if I try to install with the SATA RAID interface enabled. 
     
    I guess I will have to wait for the retail version of Vista to be released and enable RAID before installing that. 
     
    :)
     
  • T

    the79bomb

    5 Posts

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    Posted November 22nd, 2006 15:00

    Sounds like you need to download the driver for the raid controller to a floppy disk (no exceptions that I know of, windows demands a floppy disk only) and when you first go into windows setup it asks you to press a certain key if you want to install 3rd party drivers for scsii or raid controllers (you have to really watch for it and be fast). If you first install the driver from dell, setup should not crash in raid mode. This is a limitation with xp setup because they used an outdated install program with windows XP making it difficult to install raid drivers.

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