Dual-booting on an existing WinXP Raid 1 array??
 

I'm a died-in the wool windows man who believes he should probably be using Linux to get a more stable and secure system, so keen to try Fedora Core.
Went out and bought Fedora Linux 2 Bible by Christopher Negus today - seems like a great book with lots of detail - but didn't answer my question on whether the installation will recognise and deal with my hardware set-up.

I want to install FC as my second OS onto an existing Windows XP installation - so I need a dual-boot system to get me the confidence I need before switching over completely to Linux.

The problem is I have built my computer around a pair of 120GB IDA hard drives operating as a Mirror RAID array (raid type 1). This operates under the motherboard functionality on my Gigabyte GA-7VAXP Ultra, which uses the Promise chipset (20276).

My question is - Is it possible to install FC2 onto my system to give me a dual-boot system which uses a mirror raid array regardless of which OS I happen to be in? This would be like having one large hard disc system divided into four, with the bottom two halves acting as a Windows XP mirror and the top two operating as a mirror under Linux.


Under XP, installing the Promise Raid driver software has the side effect that other programs can't see any drives. Even during XP boot-up, the BIOS reports that I have no drives connected (but this doen't matter under Windows as the RAID driver software then kicks in).

When planning my FC install, I know that I need to re-partition my Windows system to make space for my Linux install, but when I try to do this, the utilities I've tried can't see the disc drives.

I downloaded the 'Linux Rescue CD' which I saw referenced on the 'ntfsresize' documentation. This is an 'iso' image that allowed me to get to a Live Linux command prompt. When I run 'qparted', or when I run 'fdisk' under this Live Linux, neither of them can see my discs or array.

So, if I cannot re-partition my raid array, I'll not be able to install FC2 - is that correct?

thanks in advance if you can help

You are going to have to start over and install FC first on the regular IDE, then follow the instructions on this website, then once you get the raid working, you should be able to install XP on as a second OS. Remember to leave space on the drive for your XP partition during your FC setup. Here is the website:

http://www.magic-lamp.org/howto/pdc2...drake8.2.phtml

Let me know how you make out. Oh and make sure you get yourself a comfy exec chair and a case of beer before you start.