Dynamic disks

[Falstaff]

G'day all.

I'm running XP Professional with SP2.

I've three hard-drives all dynamic, with XP's RAID 0 set up spanning some of the volumes on all three discs.

XP itself is on a single basic volume on the C drive.

Question.  If I do a fresh install of XP over the existing system will it automatically pick up the dynamic volumes and the RAID 0 arrangements, or will all the volumes on the three disks be 'lost' and need recreating - with all data on them lost too?

Thanks.

[cigarman]

Falstaf,

This sounds dangerous;

During a new installation of Windows XP Professional, Setup displays a list of all disks and volumes installed in the computer. However, Setup does not differentiate between basic and dynamic disks, nor does it differentiate between installable and non-installable dynamic volumes. Therefore, before you begin, decide which volume you plan to install Windows XP Professional on, and then ensure that the volume is installable.

If you choose a dynamic volume that is not installable, Setup displays a message that the partition is unrecognized and that you cannot install Windows XP Professional on it.

When deleting volumes during Setup, especially if the computer contains dynamic disks. Deleting a single dynamic volume during Setup deletes all volumes on the disk and converts the disk to basic. As a result, all data on the disk is lost.

If you want to delete a dynamic volume without causing all other dynamic volumes on the disk to become inaccessible, wait for Setup to complete, and then use the Disk Management snap-in to delete the volume.

If you try to delete a dynamic volume during Setup, you are warned about this issue before any data is destroyed. You can then choose to continue with the deletion, which deletes all volumes and their data, or cancel the deletion.
You better make sure you have a backup of all your data before you begin, you have been warned!! :-/

[Falstaff]

G'day Cigarman.

Thanks for that.

A fresh install is not something I'd undertake lightly and I do back-up to another machine, but even this can fail.

A minor but irritating problem has surfaced with XP, tho', which I can't solve and I don't see any solution but to re-install and hope the fault is corrected.

Would a repair install be any safer, in that this is not supposed to change any settings?  Including XP's software raid settings?

Thanks

[cigarman]

OK, I assume you will have an ASR made, but what excatly is the irritating problem to prompt you to take a drastic action?  Could a system restore to an earlier date not solve the issue?  Or maybe we could help if you provide us the info.

[Falstaff]

G'day Cigarman.

I posted the problem on the Windows OS forum under the heading "Windows toolbar freeze-up".   I'll give process explorer a try, but I'm getting to levels that are too technical for me, and poking about there can make matters worse if you don't know what you're doing.

Whats  ASR?

Thanks, Falstaff

[cigarman]

OK,

I'll look at the other post from  you, meantime ASR automatic system recovery disk.

[cigarman]

Read your post about hte tool bar freeze up, one thing strikes me is that reinstalling win xp might not solve anything if the problem is caused by a program installed to your WXP, with or with your knowledge, I also assume that your system is clean as you have no virus or trojan type bugs.

Reinstalling Win XP will only repair the original XP settings, any settings added by third party programs will remain and therefore your problem will remain.

On the other hand a fresh install is totally different, as this will wipe everything leaving you with XP from scratch,

If you still want to reinstall, you can, Windows XP retain their partition entries in the partition table. The only dynamic volumes listed in the partition table are the following:

The system volume and boot volume of the operating system (Win XP Pro or Win 2000) that you used to convert the disk to dynamic. The system volume and boot volume must be simple volumes.
Any basic volume that was present on the disk when you used Win2000 to convert the disk from basic to dynamic.
Simple volumes on which you run the DiskPart command retain. The retain command adds a partition entry to the partition table so that you can install Win XP Pro on the simple volume.
Because these dynamic volumes retain their partition entries, you can install Windows XP Professional on them.
You better have a full backup - just in case.

[Falstaff]

G'day Cigarman,

Thanks for that.

OK, but if the volume information on the dynamic discs survives a clean installation of XP Pro into the same simple volume as my current version does this mean that XP will also pick up the software RAID 0 settings, which involved striping across three disks for some volumes?

[cigarman]

Software raid is always a problem compare to hardware raid.
I must admit that I have never tried reinstalling XP on software raid, but I can't be sure that the raid will remain intacked after the reinstall.  

I will suggest that you test the reinstallation on a spare PC with raid setup as this is how any organisation will do before final deployment.

I will be interested on your outcome if you do decide to take this route, appreciate your feedback.

[Falstaff]

G'day Cigarman.

I've been thinking about switching to hardware raid, but when I've looked at what's available I've never been confident that I could buy the right bit.  Not really beginners stuff, this.

My motherboard is a PX845 PEV Pro with the Intel 82845PE Northbridge and Intel 82801DBV Southbridge.  The drives are IDE.

Switching to hardware RAID would presumably involve cancelling the software RAID first, and I've no idea how one 'undoes' that.  So I'd probably take the opportunity to do a fresh install anyway just to tidy things up.

[Ash]

You could try running the system file checker to repair any damaged sytsem files:

at command prompt type in: sfc /scannow

[cigarman]

Falstaff,

You are better with hardware raid, they are much faster.  Good luck.

[Falstaff]

G'day.

Thanks Ash.  I tried scannow but it kept telling me that my installation disk was the wrong one.  It wasn't, but I think the problem is that SP2 has changed some of the core files so of course they no longer correspond with the ones on my XP installation disk.  Seems to be a problem with scannow?

Thanks Cigarman.

I've looked for hardware raid for my machine, but all the ones available in New Zealand seem to be for SATA, or at most have only two IDE connectors and I need three min.

Still, perhaps when the next boat comes in.....

Regards,