If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
How to Repartition a Hardware RAID1 Array?
Hi,
I built a new system about a year ago, including a legit copy of XP pro and well-equipped ASUS A8V MB. To complete the upgrade, I built a hardware IDE RAID 1 with 2 160G Maxtor HDDs using the promise FastTrak controller and firmware. Now for my mistake - I partitioned this drive to allow for easy reinstall of the OS, into 4 parts - OS, Installables, SW, and Data at 8, 50, 13, and 79 GB, respectively. In spite of my best efforts to keep all SW installations on the SW drive, Im now at 98% occupancy of the OS drive and must repartition it. I can find no written information on what software to buy and/or what to do to make this process have more than a 20% likelyhood of completing successfully without data loss. I've tried XP internal features and Acronis Partition Expert to no avail. I tried breaking the mirror by removing power from one drive of the pair, but no boot. Is anybody out there a real RAID expert for a configuration like this??? -- Bob in Florida |
Ads |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
How to Repartition a Hardware RAID1 Array?
Partition Magic or any equal will do. Since the mirror is built and handled
at the hardware level it is invisible to the operating system and these utilities. BTW there is no advantage to installing software to a partition separate from the operating system. -- Regards, Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup. Microsoft Certified Professional Microsoft MVP [Windows] http://www.microsoft.com/protect "Bob J." wrote: | Hi, | I built a new system about a year ago, including a legit copy of XP pro and | well-equipped ASUS A8V MB. To complete the upgrade, I built a hardware IDE | RAID 1 with 2 160G Maxtor HDDs using the promise FastTrak controller and | firmware. | Now for my mistake - I partitioned this drive to allow for easy reinstall of | the OS, into 4 parts - OS, Installables, SW, and Data at 8, 50, 13, and 79 | GB, respectively. | In spite of my best efforts to keep all SW installations on the SW drive, Im | now at 98% occupancy of the OS drive and must repartition it. I can find no | written information on what software to buy and/or what to do to make this | process have more than a 20% likelyhood of completing successfully without | data loss. I've tried XP internal features and Acronis Partition Expert to | no avail. I tried breaking the mirror by removing power from one drive of | the pair, but no boot. | Is anybody out there a real RAID expert for a configuration like this??? | -- | Bob in Florida |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
How to Repartition a Hardware RAID1 Array?
--
Bob in Florida "Dave Patrick" wrote: Partition Magic or any equal will do. Since the mirror is built and handled at the hardware level it is invisible to the operating system and these utilities. BTW there is no advantage to installing software to a partition separate from the operating system. It's been many years since I used PM, so decided to try Acronis because it's available at work - bad choice, perhaps. Does PM require CD or floppy boot, or does it do all under XP? The array configuration looks a little strange to me - When I goe to XP Disk Management, the OS (boot?) partition and the SW partition show up as a logical drives, and the other two are "primary". Some of the menu choices are grayed out on the OS and SW, too. Are there any disadvantages to separate partitions? (except, of course for the extra complexity). My original intent was to limit the OS partition size while allowing lots of space for SW installs to expand while still allowing for easy OS format and reinstall if required. I keep hoping that MS will enable that a clean OS reinstall will not necessitate reinstall of all software. On the other hand, it appears that XP (for me, at least) is solid enough that this may now be an academic issue. It certainly wasn't so for 98, nor for my son-in-law, who got so fed up with XP that he's now in the Apple camp. -- Regards, Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup. Microsoft Certified Professional Microsoft MVP [Windows] http://www.microsoft.com/protect "Bob J." wrote: | Hi, | I built a new system about a year ago, including a legit copy of XP pro and | well-equipped ASUS A8V MB. To complete the upgrade, I built a hardware IDE | RAID 1 with 2 160G Maxtor HDDs using the promise FastTrak controller and | firmware. | Now for my mistake - I partitioned this drive to allow for easy reinstall of | the OS, into 4 parts - OS, Installables, SW, and Data at 8, 50, 13, and 79 | GB, respectively. | In spite of my best efforts to keep all SW installations on the SW drive, Im | now at 98% occupancy of the OS drive and must repartition it. I can find no | written information on what software to buy and/or what to do to make this | process have more than a 20% likelyhood of completing successfully without | data loss. I've tried XP internal features and Acronis Partition Expert to | no avail. I tried breaking the mirror by removing power from one drive of | the pair, but no boot. | Is anybody out there a real RAID expert for a configuration like this??? | -- | Bob in Florida |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
How to Repartition a Hardware RAID1 Array?
"Bob J." wrote:
| It's been many years since I used PM, so decided to try Acronis because it's | available at work - bad choice, perhaps. Does PM require CD or floppy boot, | or does it do all under XP? * I've never used acronis but in either case you'll need to do the floppy (or CD-Rom) boot. You wouldn't be allowed to resize the operating system partition while the OS is running. You'll need to shrink and or move one of the others in order to make room to expand the OS partition. | The array configuration looks a little strange to me - When I goe to XP Disk | Management, the OS (boot?) partition and the SW partition show up as a | logical drives, and the other two are "primary". Some of the menu choices | are grayed out on the OS and SW, too. * Note that Microsoft defines the boot partition for the partition where the operating system is installed, while the system partition is the first primary active partition (where the boot sector resides) The system partition can also be the boot partition for one operating system. Sounds like either the 'Installables' or 'Data' partition is the system partition. | Are there any disadvantages to separate partitions? (except, of course for | the extra complexity). My original intent was to limit the OS partition size | while allowing lots of space for SW installs to expand while still allowing | for easy OS format and reinstall if required. * Generally speaking it's advisable to create a suitably sized parition for the operating system and software and then, depending on personal preference, have one or more data partitions. -- Regards, Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup. Microsoft Certified Professional Microsoft MVP [Windows] http://www.microsoft.com/protect |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
How to Repartition a Hardware RAID1 Array?
"Dave Patrick" wrote:
snip BTW there is no advantage to installing software to a partition separate from the operating system. There is if you are booting multiple operating systems, as this allows you to have only one copy of the program files on the hard drive. A few years ago I had three versions of Windows (XP, Me, and 98) installed on a 17 gb hard drive. In order to conserve disk space I had a separate partition for programs. It worked very well. Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada -- Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006) On-Line Help Computer Service http://onlinehelp.bc.ca |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
How to Repartition a Hardware RAID1 Array?
I'm glad it worked for you but I'd never recommend this especially with
different operating system versions. -- Regards, Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup. Microsoft Certified Professional Microsoft MVP [Windows] http://www.microsoft.com/protect "Ron Martell" wrote: | There is if you are booting multiple operating systems, as this allows | you to have only one copy of the program files on the hard drive. | | A few years ago I had three versions of Windows (XP, Me, and 98) | installed on a 17 gb hard drive. In order to conserve disk space I | had a separate partition for programs. It worked very well. | | Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada | -- | Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006) | On-Line Help Computer Service | http://onlinehelp.bc.ca |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
How to Repartition a Hardware RAID1 Array?
"Dave Patrick" wrote:
I'm glad it worked for you but I'd never recommend this especially with different operating system versions. Why not? Each application was installed 3 times - once for each operating system, and the registry entries etc were in the operating system partition, not the application programs. In order to ensure that there were no drive letter conflicts I used a 3rd party boot mananger (Boot Magic) and configured it so that the non-booting operating system partitions were hidden and therefore no matter which O/S I booted the operating system was always on drive C:, the application programs were on drive D:, and my data files were always on drive E:. Worked like a charm, until I upgraded to a larger hard drive and decided that I no longer needed to have Windows Me or Windows 98 always available. Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada -- Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006) On-Line Help Computer Service http://onlinehelp.bc.ca |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
How to Repartition a Hardware RAID1 Array?
I just downloaded a trial copy of PowerQuest PartitionMagic 8.0 from the fine
folks at Soft32. This appears to be the same thing as Symantec PartitionMagic 8.0, but I can't be positive. The nice manual that came with the download says it only supports hardware RAID 0 and RAID 5 configurations. Seems to me that if it supports RAID 5 it should support RAID 1 also, but it sure would be nice if they blew the big bucks for the few extra words so we could know before we buy and go messing around with all our data. Any comments before I try it? -- Bob in Florida "Dave Patrick" wrote: Partition Magic or any equal will do. Since the mirror is built and handled at the hardware level it is invisible to the operating system and these utilities. BTW there is no advantage to installing software to a partition separate from the operating system. -- Regards, Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup. Microsoft Certified Professional Microsoft MVP [Windows] http://www.microsoft.com/protect "Bob J." wrote: | Hi, | I built a new system about a year ago, including a legit copy of XP pro and | well-equipped ASUS A8V MB. To complete the upgrade, I built a hardware IDE | RAID 1 with 2 160G Maxtor HDDs using the promise FastTrak controller and | firmware. | Now for my mistake - I partitioned this drive to allow for easy reinstall of | the OS, into 4 parts - OS, Installables, SW, and Data at 8, 50, 13, and 79 | GB, respectively. | In spite of my best efforts to keep all SW installations on the SW drive, Im | now at 98% occupancy of the OS drive and must repartition it. I can find no | written information on what software to buy and/or what to do to make this | process have more than a 20% likelyhood of completing successfully without | data loss. I've tried XP internal features and Acronis Partition Expert to | no avail. I tried breaking the mirror by removing power from one drive of | the pair, but no boot. | Is anybody out there a real RAID expert for a configuration like this??? | -- | Bob in Florida |
#9
|
|||
|
|||
How to Repartition a Hardware RAID1 Array?
My old version of PM6 doesn't have that limitation.
-- Regards, Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup. Microsoft Certified Professional Microsoft MVP [Windows] http://www.microsoft.com/protect "Bob J." wrote: |I just downloaded a trial copy of PowerQuest PartitionMagic 8.0 from the fine | folks at Soft32. This appears to be the same thing as Symantec | PartitionMagic 8.0, but I can't be positive. The nice manual that came with | the download says it only supports hardware RAID 0 and RAID 5 configurations. | Seems to me that if it supports RAID 5 it should support RAID 1 also, but it | sure would be nice if they blew the big bucks for the few extra words so we | could know before we buy and go messing around with all our data. Any | comments before I try it? | -- | Bob in Florida |
#10
|
|||
|
|||
How to Repartition a Hardware RAID1 Array?
Most people probably wouldn't be using a 3rd party boot manager. Not all
application installs use the same set of installation files (especially across hybrid and 32 bit systems). As I said I'm glad it worked for you but I would never recommend this to anyone and with respect to this thread the concept doesn't apply. -- Regards, Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup. Microsoft Certified Professional Microsoft MVP [Windows] http://www.microsoft.com/protect "Ron Martell" wrote: | Why not? | | Each application was installed 3 times - once for each operating | system, and the registry entries etc were in the operating system | partition, not the application programs. | | In order to ensure that there were no drive letter conflicts I used a | 3rd party boot mananger (Boot Magic) and configured it so that the | non-booting operating system partitions were hidden and therefore no | matter which O/S I booted the operating system was always on drive C:, | the application programs were on drive D:, and my data files were | always on drive E:. Worked like a charm, until I upgraded to a larger | hard drive and decided that I no longer needed to have Windows Me or | Windows 98 always available. | | Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada | -- | Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006) | On-Line Help Computer Service | http://onlinehelp.bc.ca |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Should I buy upgrade or full version of Windows XP? | Lekkei | General XP issues or comments | 11 | August 19th 06 04:19 PM |
70% CPU Usage Due to Hardware Interrupt Conflicts | TZar | General XP issues or comments | 8 | August 1st 05 07:57 PM |
OEM versus Upgrade | Carl G | General XP issues or comments | 207 | April 2nd 05 02:14 PM |
UPGRADE OR FULL VERSION | MSS | General XP issues or comments | 120 | March 4th 05 06:13 AM |
Device Drivers not detected on hardware install | Doug Sherman [MVP] | Networking and the Internet with Windows XP | 23 | July 30th 04 03:30 AM |