[CentOS] Re: IDE RAID support -- clarification ...

Tue Jul 26 07:15:30 UTC 2005
Kay Diederichs <kay.diederichs at uni-konstanz.de>

Aleksandar Milivojevic wrote:
> Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> 
>> "Bryan J. Smith" <b.j.smith at ieee.org> wrote:
>>
>>> ??? I thought XP Pro can use LDM and striping/mirroring, just
>>> like Windows 2000 Pro ???
>>
>>
>>
>> Just FYI, you have to use a Logical Disk Manager (LDM)
>> Disk Label** (aka "Dynamic Disk") to use the software RAID
>> features of Windows 2000 Pro and XP Pro (not sure about
>> XP Home, what it offers).
> 
> 
> On 2000 Pro and XP Home/Pro, the option is there, but either grayed out 
> or there's popup screen informing you that it works only on Server and 
> up (don't remember anymore).  You need to have at least Server version 
> of Windows in order to use it.  Unless of course you managed to hack 
> something in the registry to enable it (in which case you violated 
> licencing agreement, and sure, I'd like to know how you did it ;-). 

If you can read german - there is a "raidpatch" (short) documentation and 
zipfile for W2K SP4 and WXP SP2 at  http://www.heise.de/ct/ftp/05/03/090/ . The 
warning (at http://www.heise.de/ct/05/14/166/default.shtml) is: if a Microsoft 
patch affects the patched files then you might loose the functionality again - 
and maybe your data, too. So you should make an image of your system partition 
before you apply a MS patch.

hope this helps,

Kay

> Currently, the only software RAID option for 2000 Pro and XP Home/Pro 
> are those fake RAID controllers with their specialized drivers (I'm not 
> aware of any 3rd party general purpuse software RAID drivers for Windows).
> 
> Of course, all this holds only if Microsoft hasn't decided to unlock the 
> feature in one of the service packs (which I doubt).