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XP - Raid 0 only shows size of one disk

Discussion in 'PC Hardware' started by spoodle101, 2009/05/11.

  1. 2009/05/11
    spoodle101

    spoodle101 Inactive Thread Starter

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    I am using windows XP sp3 on a reasonably new motherboard, (Asus p5k3 Deluxe, with an intel quad core Q6600 go stepping chip installed. I have two 74 gig WD raptor hard drives of which I set up when installing windows as a raid 0 set. The problem is that when I look at my hard drive when in windows, it only shows the size of one of the disk drives and not the combined total of both drives as it should. This does not allow me to utilize the approx 148 gigs that I really have available and gives low disk space warnings when the raid set is not actually low on disk space. Is there any easy fix to this so that it will show my actual disk space without having to re-format hense losing my files as they are now? Any help would be greatly appreciated. If you need any furthar info, please feel free to ask. Thank you.

    Scott


    Here is some disk and system info:
    Drive C:
    Description Local Fixed Disk
    Compressed No
    File System NTFS
    Size 69.24 GB (74,348,269,568 bytes)
    Free Space 19.99 GB (21,464,784,896 bytes)
    Volume Name WD RAPTOR RAID 0
    Volume Serial Number AC8554AA
     
    spoodle101,
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  2. 2009/05/11
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    Please explain how you enabled RAID. It sounds like you did it from within Windows?
     
    Arie,
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  4. 2009/05/11
    spoodle101

    spoodle101 Inactive Thread Starter

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    Thank you for your response Arie,

    Actually as I am sure you know that when you originally install windows XP, it asks you to press F6 if you need to install any raid drivers. So it is at that point that I installed my silicon image raid driver of which I had ready on a floppy a disk. I had previously read somewhere that when you use disk management within windows to set up a Raid 0 configuration that it tends to run slow which would have defeated the my desire to have things run a bit faster. I was also confused by this way of setting up a raid configuration within windows. I guess you would already have some other hard drive with windows already installed on it in order to setup a a new and separate RAID configuration from within windows disk management? If that is the case, I was not sure how to then install windows XP on the new raid 0 set, (Created within Windows disk management) because I thought the install process would basically un-do and/or format the new raid setup created within windows disk management. Perhaps I am wrong? I hope I am making sense. Let me know. Thanks again.

    Scott
     
    spoodle101,
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  5. 2009/05/11
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    No.

    1. You need to have RAID enabled in your computers BIOS

    2. You need to create the RAID array before booting into Windows. When you boot the PC you'll see a prompt to enter RAID setup. There is where you need to create the RAID.

    Check your motherboard manual for details.

    Once you created the RAID, start Windows setup (& load the RAID driver). Windows will now see the RAID array as 1 drive.
     
    Arie,
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  6. 2009/05/11
    spoodle101

    spoodle101 Inactive Thread Starter

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    Arie,

    Not only did I set the motherboard bios up for up a raid drive, but I also set up a RAID 0 set when starting the PC by entering the raid setup as you suggested. In the raid setup, it sees everything fine, there are no errors when you run an error check and the correct disk space is reported, (The sum of both drives). When in windows, the drive is correctly shown as one RAID 0 drive but it only shows the RAID 0 disk size as being 74 Gigs when it should show it as being approx. 148 gigs. It should show a RAID 0 set as the sum total of both drives. That is my problem. Windows is only showing and reporting 1/2 of the avaliable disk space in the RAID set thereby not allowing me to use all of my disk space. Any thoughts? Thanks again.

    Scott
     
    spoodle101,
    #5
  7. 2009/05/12
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    Well, I have no idea how this would show in Windows XP, I haven't used XP for years.

    But in Vista & Windows 7, in disk management the RAID will not be labeled as RAID, since Windows will only 'see' the RAID array as one drive.

    I remember from Windows Server 2003 that when you use a software RAID, it will show in disk management.

    So does disk management specifically identify the hard drive as RAID?

    Once you installed Windows, did you do anything else than loading the RAID driver during installation?
     
    Arie,
    #6
  8. 2009/05/12
    spoodle101

    spoodle101 Inactive Thread Starter

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    Arie,

    I sincerely appreciate all that you have done to try to help me with this situation. I was going to attach two screen capture pics which would have hopefully made this much easier for you to figure out, but I do not see file attachments as an option here. So I will say a big thank you for trying.

    Scott
     
    spoodle101,
    #7

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