So I hear I need to make a disk with the RAID Controller driver on it, but where can I find that driver for the mediashield that would work during a boot? Second of all, my floppy disk drive is not working, so...is it possible to make a CD or DVD disc with that stuff on it?
Arg! Before I install Vista 64 Bit, all of the drives I want in the RAID array need to be RAID enabled through the BIOS. If I enable all of the drives, there is nothing to boot from, because the one drive with the OS and MediaShield on it is waiting to be put in the RAID through MediaShield.
The Vista 64 Bit installation disc does not have the RIAD controller drivers on it, hence I cannot boot from that disc. If I do try to boot from the installation disc, I get sent to the Windows setup screen where it will not continue the installation because the process cannot detect any hard drives to install the OS onto.
The best I an do is create a RAID 5 array using three of the four drives. The one drive not in the array is the one with the 32 bit Vista Home Premium on it with MediaShield, which is what is allowing me to do the RAID 5 to the other drives.
So I did that, and then booted from the 64 bit Vista disc to install that OS onto the new RAID 5 array. The installation was going fine until I got this strange blue screen of death that only had two lines of information stating that a parity error had occured and that the installation had been halted. So I had to go back and disable RAID on the one disc with 32 bit Vista on it to get back into the OS in order to take the other three drives out of the RAID array to check for errors. No errors were detected and the drives are apparently ready for use...
OH GOD WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!
The second time I tried this whole process I got a BlueScreen with the code 0x000000e7 (or something like that), and information stating that there was not enough hard drive space, blah, blah, blah.
The only solution I can think of is to create a bootable disc with MediaShield on it to get into the RAID configuration BIOS to make all four drives RAID 5 before doing any new OS installations. The problem with that is the MediaShield drivers and RAID controller driver can only be got through the nForce bundle at nVidia's site. I can't figure out any way to make a bootable disc that would actually work. There is a Manual for MediaShield I found through Google that explains what is needed for the boot floppy, but it is so outdated (it was written for use with XP, the old-style nVidia Control Panel, and nForce4) I can't use it.
Seriously. Has anybody made a RAID configuration using all of their hard drives at once on a Dell?
Message Edited by descendant7 on 04-02-2008 11:18 PM
Message Edited by descendant7 on 04-03-2008 08:04 AM
I didn't have a problem hitting ctrl-n and setting up RAID5 in the NVidia RAID bios. What's the exact message you get after you hit ctrl-n?
Your Vista x64 install is failing because the install can only run with 2GB of memory. Take the extra out and it should install. The drivers should already be on the disk.
Well. Somebody needs to fix something, LOL. I went through the process about eight times tonight, creating the array, having x64 Vista not being able to detect any drives to install on, and deleting the array. Eventually I just tried disabling RAID for all the drives and installing x64 on a non-RAID primary drive. Well, the OS wouldn't even do that, saying that the drive was not appropriate or something like that.
So I reformatted: that didn't work. Deleted all drives and made new ones: that didn't work either. Eventually things got to the point that I tried using the Dell diagnistics disc to find a RAID controller (or at least use it as a bootable RAID controller installer). But all the drivers are archived in compression formats, so I obviously couldn't extract them without an OS, but I noticed two RAID files being loaded when I started up the diagnostics program.
Then I thought I'd try it one more time for the heck of it. But this time I got a message right after the BIOS saying that BOOTMGR couldn't be found, and my only option was to restart! So I was really stuck. So I went back into the BIOS and enabled RAID for all of the drives, then put in the x64 installation disc and pressed F12 after a restart, selected CD-ROM as the bootable.
Heheh, so the Vista Home Premium installation starts up again, and voila! There was a single drive listed as the possible installation location for the OS: a 1.36 terabyte drive to be precise! Victory!
I'm in the process of installing that patch for Vista so I can get my 8 gigbytes of RAM functioning. Also have to install video drivers, programs, games, virus protection...It's going to be a fun night! Hooray!
Addendum: ROFL, boy am I embarrassed! Apparently if you are going to make a RAID array that includes a hard drive that currently has an OS and other data on it, you must format that drive and delete all data on that drive in order for it to properly enter the array. This gets rid of the data allocation tables, and that's probably what was giving me problems!
As for a RAID controller driver bootable, it's not needed because the necessary information is already contained in the RAID controller chipset (if it an be called chipset) on the motherboard.
But otherwise...Could anyone guess as to why MediaShield does not show up in my NVIDIA Control Panel?
You figured it out. When you create an array, you must wipe it clean and set it bootable before you begin. Also, the drivers should be on the disk, they are on ultimate anyway.
Mediashield is in the nvidia nforce driver pack here:
Hooray, I'm a big boy now! I have almost ascended to a Level 2 Nerd. I think I will spend my Attribute Points on my Upgrading abilities this time. Haha just kidding.
Yeah, I think the drivers are actually on the discs, RAID isn't really all that new of a technology, so for Microsoft to not have the drivers ready would be hard to fathom.
Oh, and MediaShield suddenly started showing up in my NVIDIA control panel now so for once a happy ending.
descendant7
123 Posts
0
April 3rd, 2008 01:00
descendant7
123 Posts
0
April 3rd, 2008 03:00
Arg! Before I install Vista 64 Bit, all of the drives I want in the RAID array need to be RAID enabled through the BIOS. If I enable all of the drives, there is nothing to boot from, because the one drive with the OS and MediaShield on it is waiting to be put in the RAID through MediaShield.
The Vista 64 Bit installation disc does not have the RIAD controller drivers on it, hence I cannot boot from that disc. If I do try to boot from the installation disc, I get sent to the Windows setup screen where it will not continue the installation because the process cannot detect any hard drives to install the OS onto.
The best I an do is create a RAID 5 array using three of the four drives. The one drive not in the array is the one with the 32 bit Vista Home Premium on it with MediaShield, which is what is allowing me to do the RAID 5 to the other drives.
So I did that, and then booted from the 64 bit Vista disc to install that OS onto the new RAID 5 array. The installation was going fine until I got this strange blue screen of death that only had two lines of information stating that a parity error had occured and that the installation had been halted. So I had to go back and disable RAID on the one disc with 32 bit Vista on it to get back into the OS in order to take the other three drives out of the RAID array to check for errors. No errors were detected and the drives are apparently ready for use...
OH GOD WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!
The second time I tried this whole process I got a BlueScreen with the code 0x000000e7 (or something like that), and information stating that there was not enough hard drive space, blah, blah, blah.
The only solution I can think of is to create a bootable disc with MediaShield on it to get into the RAID configuration BIOS to make all four drives RAID 5 before doing any new OS installations. The problem with that is the MediaShield drivers and RAID controller driver can only be got through the nForce bundle at nVidia's site. I can't figure out any way to make a bootable disc that would actually work. There is a Manual for MediaShield I found through Google that explains what is needed for the boot floppy, but it is so outdated (it was written for use with XP, the old-style nVidia Control Panel, and nForce4) I can't use it.
Seriously. Has anybody made a RAID configuration using all of their hard drives at once on a Dell?
supersnoop
63 Posts
0
April 3rd, 2008 15:00
I didn't have a problem hitting ctrl-n and setting up RAID5 in the NVidia RAID bios. What's the exact message you get after you hit ctrl-n?
Your Vista x64 install is failing because the install can only run with 2GB of memory. Take the extra out and it should install. The drivers should already be on the disk.
descendant7
123 Posts
0
April 3rd, 2008 22:00
descendant7
123 Posts
0
April 4th, 2008 01:00
Well. Somebody needs to fix something, LOL. I went through the process about eight times tonight, creating the array, having x64 Vista not being able to detect any drives to install on, and deleting the array. Eventually I just tried disabling RAID for all the drives and installing x64 on a non-RAID primary drive. Well, the OS wouldn't even do that, saying that the drive was not appropriate or something like that.
So I reformatted: that didn't work. Deleted all drives and made new ones: that didn't work either. Eventually things got to the point that I tried using the Dell diagnistics disc to find a RAID controller (or at least use it as a bootable RAID controller installer). But all the drivers are archived in compression formats, so I obviously couldn't extract them without an OS, but I noticed two RAID files being loaded when I started up the diagnostics program.
Then I thought I'd try it one more time for the heck of it. But this time I got a message right after the BIOS saying that BOOTMGR couldn't be found, and my only option was to restart! So I was really stuck. So I went back into the BIOS and enabled RAID for all of the drives, then put in the x64 installation disc and pressed F12 after a restart, selected CD-ROM as the bootable.
Heheh, so the Vista Home Premium installation starts up again, and voila! There was a single drive listed as the possible installation location for the OS: a 1.36 terabyte drive to be precise! Victory!
I'm in the process of installing that patch for Vista so I can get my 8 gigbytes of RAM functioning. Also have to install video drivers, programs, games, virus protection...It's going to be a fun night! Hooray!
descendant7
123 Posts
0
April 5th, 2008 01:00
Addendum: ROFL, boy am I embarrassed! Apparently if you are going to make a RAID array that includes a hard drive that currently has an OS and other data on it, you must format that drive and delete all data on that drive in order for it to properly enter the array. This gets rid of the data allocation tables, and that's probably what was giving me problems!
As for a RAID controller driver bootable, it's not needed because the necessary information is already contained in the RAID controller chipset (if it an be called chipset) on the motherboard.
But otherwise...Could anyone guess as to why MediaShield does not show up in my NVIDIA Control Panel?
gdwrnch3
2 Intern
•
3.3K Posts
0
April 5th, 2008 01:00
You figured it out. When you create an array, you must wipe it clean and set it bootable before you begin. Also, the drivers should be on the disk, they are on ultimate anyway.
Mediashield is in the nvidia nforce driver pack here:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_64_15.08.html
descendant7
123 Posts
0
April 5th, 2008 18:00
Hooray, I'm a big boy now! I have almost ascended to a Level 2 Nerd. I think I will spend my Attribute Points on my Upgrading abilities this time. Haha just kidding.
Yeah, I think the drivers are actually on the discs, RAID isn't really all that new of a technology, so for Microsoft to not have the drivers ready would be hard to fathom.
Oh, and MediaShield suddenly started showing up in my NVIDIA control panel now so for once a happy ending.