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SP3 breaks Software RAID Hack!

Forum Windows XP : Windows XP General Discussion - SP3 breaks Software RAID Hack!

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I have been using this hack: http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 925-2.html

for some time quite happily, then quite stupidly, installed WinXP SP3 today, and it lost my mirrored array!

I attempted to re-apply the hack and no joy. Luckily, I could break the mirror, and I have access to my data on a single Drive (I feel for anyone who may have done the same on a RAID 5).

Can anybody confirm that this hack does not work Post SP3 and its not me messing up the hack application?

.. Currently backing up all data that was safely mirrored as a RAID 1.. would love to get this mod back.

-Steve

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Hi steve,
I agree WinXP SP3 overwrites dmadmin.exe, dmboot.sys, and that the old SP2 files will not work.
Unfortunately, you need to modify the new versions of the files. With a Hex editor perform the following edits:-

dmboot.sys
Find :- 74 00 54 00 79 00 70 00 65 00 00 00 57 49 4E 4E 54 00 00 00 53 45 52 56 45 52 4E 54 00 00 00 00
Replace :- 74 00 54 00 79 00 70 00 65 00 00 00 53 45 52 56 45 52 4E 54 57 49 4E 4E 54 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

dmadmin.exe
Find:- 73 65 72 76 65 72 6E 74 00 00 00 00 6C 61 6E 6D 61 6E 6E 74 00 00 00 00 50 72 6F 64 75 63 74 54
Replace:- 77 69 6E 6E 74 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 6C 61 6E 6D 61 6E 6E 74 00 00 00 00 50 72 6F 64 75 63 74 54

dmconfig.dll stays the same as SP2

I think that this works but still have to confirm for sure.
Hope this helps.
Roy.

Reply to roy2000

You're better off with a hardware RAID solution... much more reliable in the long run and you won't have to worry about Windows Update hosing your array. Pretty much all new motherboards have some sort of RAID built-in nowadays.

------------------------------ Desktop: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit; Intel Q6600 CPU; E-VGA 780i SLI motherboard; E-VGA E-GeForce 8800GT; OCZ Vista 4GB dual-channel kit; Ultra X2 750W power supply; 2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB in RAID 0. Laptop: Acer Aspire 8730-6314;
Reply to Zoron

Confirmed.
I had the software RAID hack with SP2 and upgraded to SP3. I am mirroring (RAID1) an IDE to a SATA. After installing SP3 my computer had a BSOD with stop error 0x0000007B (0xf7c46528, 0xC00000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000).

The system was stuck in a continous reboot.

I ran chkdsk /r, didn't work
Then I ran bootcfg /rebuild, didn't work

Then I used recovery console & replaced the following files with the raid hacked versions that I used for SP2:
C:\Windows\System32\dmadmin.exe
C:\Windows\System32\dmconfig.dll
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\dmboot.sys
C:\Windows\System32\dllcache\dmadmin.exe
C:\Windows\System32\dllcache\dmconfig.dll
C:\Windows\System32\dllcache\dmboot.sys

I probably didn't need to copy dmconfig.dll, but I did anyways.

After copying the files my system was able to boot into windows.

My Raid1 mirror is working correctly as well.

Reply to ktrw25

Confirmed.

I had the same problem!!!

Can anyone explains me how i can break the mirror so i can backup the data?

Thanks

Reply to FiShBuRn

Great job roy2000! I wanted to use raid 1 on my fileserver running xp sp3 and implemented the original hack. It worked just fine until i rebooted - my raid-volume was inactivated and had to be reactivated to get online again! Quite annoying to have to run diskmanagement at every reboot, even if it doesn't happen that often. This updated hack seems to have done the work! Thanx!

Reply to qvantis

I just wanted to confirm that roy2000's fix does work. It got my raid 5 back up and running without any lost data.

Reply to Sorce

Hardware RAID anyone??

There's a much easier way to do this, though I have to say thanks to Roy2000 for providing the new changes you need to make.

1) Have the 3 hacked files ready on the root of your C: drive
2) Extract the SP3.EXE file using 7zip to C:\SP3
3) Delete C:\SP3\i386\dmboot.sy_
4) Run C:\SP3\i386\update\Update.exe and install SP3 normally
5) At some point you will be prompted that dmboot.sy_ is missing and asked to provide a new location, point it at C:\
6) Reboot and let Windows boot normally. Go through the post-SP3 nagging about Automatic Updates etc.
6) Reboot again and boot into Safe Mode
7) Replace dmadmin.exe and dmconfig.dll into C:\Windows\system32 and C:\Windows\system32\dllcache
8) Reboot and boot normally.

I have just done this on an SP2 system where the OS partition was a RAID1 mirror, at no point did I have to break or repair the RAID.

You may be tempted to copy over dmadmin.exe using the same trick, but it doesn't work, it fails security validation. For some reason dmboot.sys passes despite being modified!

Reply to Lum

Just to clarify, sorry, the 3 hacked files need to include the SP3 versions of dmboot.sys and dmadmin.exe. If you don't have these from another PC, then use EXPAND.EXE to decompress them from C:\SP3\i386 after you extract the service pack.

Reply to Lum

anyone get this to work with xp pro x64 sp2?

Reply to gboy13

Do people really have something against hardware RAID? It solves the issue of software updates breaking your array. Even if you have an older motherboard that doesn't support it out of the box... an add-in card can be had quite cheaply. It would be a hell of a lot better than relying on a software solution that can be broken at Microsoft's slightest whim.

I seriously can't believe that people still entertain this as a solution. For God's sake people, switch to something with better performance and higher reliability.

It solves the issue, but only until your motherboard dies, if you can't get a replacement with the same controller then bye bye data.

For big corporates this isn't a problem, the big expensive RAID controllers tend to be around for a long time and the chances are they'll have multiple servers all to the same spec so in a worst case scenario they can put the disks in another machine. For consumer level gear neither of these are true. Your best hope is that someone is selling your board on eBay.

Also on most consumer motherboards the "hardware" RAID you have isn't hardware RAID at all, it's a combination of software RAID built into the controller BIOS followed by software RAID built into the driver. Any performance gains are purely down to how well written and well maintained the drivers are. Anyone remember all the boards with the HPT370 RAID controller built on back in the days of the original Athlon?

Reply to Lum

Plus with a Software raid you can raid 1 individual partitions on different sized disks, so if I have a 250Gb disk and a 500Gb disk I can Software Raid 1 all my info from the smaller disk to the larger one. Can someone explain how to accomplish this hack on x64 xp?

Reply to gboy13

Hello Lum- I have a question, I have XP PRO SP3 and I want to remove WMP11 and replace it with WMP9,and get rid of Silverlight, can I edit the SP3 disk like you said about the software raid hack

Reply to number13

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