"-x" option WTF

[merco]

What does it mean when they tell me to ""Create an F6 install floppy by using the "-x" option,"" I get the next step, that's just copy and pasting the sataraid folder to my floppy. Am i missing something with the "-x" option? I can't find anything on the net about it. WinXP is not recognizing my HDD after i run through all the installation steps. It sees the floppy drive even thought its USB, it sees the two sets of software for my nvidia 750a SLI chipset raid. i follow the instruc tions in the manual that came with the ASUS M4N72-E, but when windows goes to look for a drive to install onto, it doesnt see my raid array. Nvidia makes a big deal about, "you gotta do the "-x" option." SO am i missing something with my floppy disk? BIOS sees the raid disks fine, even my other windows XP install on my old EIDE drive can see them now, but a fresh Windows XP 32bit SP2 install doesn't see the array. Help!

 

[GhislainG]

It means that you run the application with the -x option, i.e., drivers.exe -x.

 

[merco]

Is that in DOS? Asus has the makedisk.exe files for XP/Vista 32/64 (all four variants) on the DVD that came with my MB. I could really use a walk through on this, cause I feel like I'm doing everything right but missing a small step that's screwing the process completely. Just to make the disk though. I can have everything else working...I think. I think the floppy I'm creating is jacked. The Asus floppy raid creeation software obviously does not work, or if it does, i'm not doing it right by opening the DVD, selecting the make disk tab that has the nvidia 32bit XP SATA RAID drivers and double clicking it. I've done that and I still get the above problem in windows XP 32bit clean install. It looks like it sees the raid drivers on the floppy (i see the floppy light on and the drivers names display on the lower part of the blue install screen), but then windows still says it doesn't see an array.

How do I make a proper floppy disk, I guess that's my question. Cause the way I'm doing it isn't working.

 

[GhislainG]

What application requires the -x option? You can do it from DOS if you like, but it's easier to click Start, Run, then Browse for the file to run, select it and click Open. Then add -x at the end and click OK.

 

[merco]

i assume the makedisk.exe file that is for making the raid driver floppy. I made it in the cmd prompt...found the directory and typed makedisk.exe -x and it prompted me in windows for a floppy disk. Hope this works.

 

[merco]

okay, so i found what i hope is the file and run it this way in run :

E:\Drivers\Chipset\MakeDisk\RAID\XP\MakeDisk.exe -x

put the -x at the end like you guys said and it makes a disk that looks like a raid floppy driver disk when i check the a: in My Computer. The NVMediaShield manual says to THEN copy all the files from the sataraid folder on the MB DVD. So I am going to do that then try this all again, cause all the stuff before still doesnt work.



On thing I do notice thats different from the manual instructions is the part where in the windows blue screen setup it does ask me to choose the scsi adapter from the following list:

NVIDIA RAID CLASS DRIVERS (required)
NVIDIA NForce Storage Controller (Required)

in the instructions in the manual it makes it sound like you choose the firsat one, then get the option to hit S again and then pick the second one, then just go on and install w/o problem. Everytime I have tried this, it only lets me pick one or the other (i picked the first one, first time i tried) then it moves along and says it can't find a array.

I'll be back after i try the first part.

 

[GhislainG]

But do you have a RAID? If you don't then the drivers won't load.

 

[merco]

When you ask do I have a RAID do you mean did i enable it in BIOS and then go into F10 when prompted to create the stripped array? Yes, I did all that. Even when in windows (installed on my old IEDE drive) it recognized the raid and wanted drivers, installed drivers, and with the Nvidia Media Shield software I even putzed around and made an array in windows (I've since deleted and recreated it, several times in fact, in the F10 utility. What else should I be doing?

On a side note, I do have the two 500GB drives plugged into the 5 and 6 SATA ports on the MB. These are colored black, 1-4 are colored red. I read in the MB manual that these black ports ONLY work for RAID and ACHI (I'm not screwing with ACHI). I also read somewhere the black ports are INTEL while the red ports are JMicron (or something like that) so using the black ones was better. I'm starting to think not so much.

 

[GhislainG]

I think that you might have it wrong, but I don't know what motherboard you have. Based on the description from the manual, the black ports are the JMicron ports while the red ones are the ones that you should use. The JMicron ports are fine for eSATA (if AHCI is enabled).

 

[merco]

My motherboard is a ASUS M4N72-E, chipset nvidia nforce 750a sli

I did switch to the red ports (1 and 2 on the board physically, of course in the raid utility they come up as 0 and 2). Still the same issue. It's got to be somewhere between the floppy disk with the drivers and windows setup, cause my original version of windows on my old EIDE drive sees the disks once the Nvidia storage utility (in windows) sees the raid, lets me delete a raid, and lets me recreate a raid. Thanks for sticking with me on this, but I just don''t know what I'm gonna do about the raid. I'm gonna look into the ACHI for better performance than the defualt IDE setting, and maybe try that. Worst case i just have a TB of storage extra now

Also, for tech support for this, should i be trolling ASUS website (which is sh!t btw) or Nvidia's? I've looked in both, but don't really know who to point the finger at.

 

[GhislainG]

To start with, AHCI is required for eSATA hot swap, but it provides little performance improvements, if any, on a desktop system. It's different on a server, but it still doesn't provide a significant performance improvement.

If your goal is to be able to boot from the RAID, then you need to prepare the floppy as per the instructions and reinstall XP from scratch on the RAID.

 

[merco]

Ya, i'm gonna just start a new thread, cause the problem isn't the -x thing anymore, its the fact that windows install does not seethe raid array even after i make the floppy with the makedisk.exe -x command. Check for my new post if you want. Thanks again for all your help and info.

 

[merco]

Here is my new thread if you're interested.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/240152-45-windows-fresh-install-raid-array

 

[GhislainG]

I read your other thread and I now realize that you're not using a real floppy, but an emulated one. I also read the MediaShield User’s Guide and the instructions are clear and they assume that a floppy is used. If you don't want to use a real floppy drive, why not slipstream the drivers? Then you wouldn't have to worry about a floppy or having to press F6 at installation time. See http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=18189 for more info.

 

[merco]

A USB floppy doesn't count as a real floppy. The guy at Micro center said it would be the exact same thing, and I've even read on Newegg that people used them successfully when they press F6. I think I am gonna try the slipstream, i just installed nlite.

 

[GhislainG]

A USB floppy should be the same as a real one, but it also depends on the BIOS. In your case, it definitely looks like it doesn't behave like you (and NVidia) expected.

 

[merco]

I took your advice and slipstreamed the drivers. Worked like a charm. Thanks man. Now my next question. Should I run the two 500GB HDDS as a SINGLE ARRAY? or run them each as individual arrays. So a 1 TB (approx) array vs 2 500GB arrays. I assume you get better performance out of the single combo array. but if I was goping to split the TB aray into two equal partitions, I might as well make eash HDD an Array in and of itself, right?

 

[GhislainG]

If each drive is an array by itself, then it isn't an array. If you use both drives in a RAID0, then you have a 1 TB array (500 GB plus 500 GB). I don't know about NVidia, but with Intel you could create two 500 GB RAID0, one 500 GB RAID0 and one 500 GB RAID1 (and a few other combinations). You can also create two 500 GB partitions. It all depends on your requirements.

Regardless of what you do, perform regular backups if you value your data because RAID0 is not very safe: one drive fails and you lose everything.

 

[merco]

ya, I was thinking I'd run the drives separate. But what is the advantage to setting up, lets just say, for simplicity sake, One 500GB HDD as a Raid as opposed to IDE (BTW i can't believe after going through all the trouble with getting both drives to be seen as an array I'm contemplating keeping them separate). I assume running a single Physical drive on RAID 0 is faster that running one Single physical drive as IDE (and i think AHCI is somewhere in between, but it sounds problematic so no worries).

But is it faster (load times, bandwith usage, seek times) to run one 500GB drive as a RAID 0, or the two 500GB drives as a RAID 0 Array? I basically want to get the most performance out of my hard drive. I wanna put the 3Gb "to work" as it were. Plus if i keep my OS on one 500GB raid 0, my data(and maybe programs) on another 500gb Raid 0, then I would use my old 250 for compressed backup images and the like or simply as a reserve.

 

[GhislainG]

I assume running a single Physical drive on RAID 0 is faster that running one Single physical drive as IDE (and i think AHCI is somewhere in between, but it sounds problematic so no worries).

To start with, you need at least 2 drives for any RAID configuration. For a desktop, there's no measurable performance difference between AHCI and IDE. RAID0 is faster than a single disk, but it also increases the risk of losing data.

You now have to decide if you'll use both disks in a RAID0 configuration or not.