Does Windows NT Workstation support RAID?
A. Windows NT Workstation doesn’t support fault-tolerant RAID (e.g., RAID 1 or RAID 5). However, NT Workstation does support RAID 0 (stripe set without parity). Hardware RAID will work because it’s transparent to the OS.
Although changing the ProductType registry key to enable fault tolerance on NT Workstation might be a future consideration, to do so would violate Microsoft’s licensing, and Microsoft wouldn’t support the change. Don’t request the method from me because I won’t distribute it and will delete your email message without replying.
How do I create a stripe set with parity?
A. To create a stripe set with parity, complete the following steps:
1.From the Start menu, select Programs, Administrative Tools, then Disk Administrator.
2.Select at least three areas of free space on different physical disks.
3.From the Fault Tolerance menu, select Create Stripe Set With Parity.
4.Enter the disk space size you want for the stripe set, and click OK.
Note: A stripe set will use only the lowest common disk space on each physical drive (i.e., with three disks of 100MB, 50MB and 40MB free, each part of the stripe set would be only 40MB, with a maximum 120MB partition in total).
You can’t use stripe sets for the boot or system partition.
What RAID levels does Windows NT Server support?
A. Windows NT Server supports RAID 1 (disk mirroring) and RAID 5 (stripe sets with parity check). NT also supports RAID 0, which is striping without parity; however, RAID 0 doesn’t offer data redundancy.
How do I recreate a broken stripe set?
A. When a stripe set member with parity fails, you don’t receive a warning, and everything continues to work. However, when you start Disk Administrator, you get an indication of the failure on the graphical view of the disk set. The event log will also show the failure. To recreate the stripe set, complete the following steps:
1.Replace the faulty disk, and start Windows NT.
2.From the Start menu, select Programs, Administrative Tools, then Disk Administrator.
3.Select the stripe set you want to repair and an area of unpartioned space on the new physical disk.
4.From the Fault Tolerance menu, select Regenerate.
How do I remove a stripe set?
A. To remove a stripe set, complete the following steps:
1.From the Start menu, select Programs, Administrative Tools, then Disk Administrator.
2.Select the stripe set you want to delete.
3.From the Partition drop-down menu, select Delete.
4.Confirm to delete the partition.
Note: You’ll lose all data on the stripe set.
Can Windows NT be on a stripe set?
A. If Windows NT provides software RAID 0 or RAID 5 (stripe set or stripe set with parity), then neither the NT boot nor the system partition can be on a RAID 0 or RAID 5 volume. This situation results from the fact that using these RAID volumes requires the fault-tolerant driver that NT loads during boot-up. If you require NT to be on a stripped set, you need to purchase hardware RAID.
How do I create a mirror set (RAID 1)?
A. To create a mirror set, first create the primary partition. You can then perform the following steps to create a mirror of it:
1.From the Start menu, select Programs, Administrative Tools, then Disk Administrator.
2.Click the existing primary partition, and hold down the Ctrl key.
3.Click an unpartitioned area of disk space.
4.From the Fault Tolerance menu, select Establish Mirror.
5.From the Partition menu, select Commit changes now to begin duplication.
6.Reboot after the duplication process is completed.
How do I repair a broken mirror set?
A. You need an area of unpartitioned space that is at least the size of the primary partition to repair a broken mirror set. To perform the repair, complete the following steps:
1.From the Start menu, select Programs, Administrative Tools, then Disk Administrator.
2.Click the working part of the mirror, hold down the Ctrl key, and select the area of unpartitioned space.
3.Select Establish Mirror from the Fault Tolerance menu.
Why can't I use the other disk of the mirror set to boot Windows NT?
A. When you create a mirror disk, you automatically create the partition. However, you don’t automatically update the Master Boot Record (MBR) of the disk with the Windows NT boot loader.
To install the NT boot loader, first partition and use Disk Administrator to format the drive, which writes the MBR to the shadow disk. You then delete this partition and continue creating the mirror.
If you already have a mirror disk that you need to boot from and don’t want to use a modified NT boot disk (see Q. How do I create an NT Boot Disk? for details), you can use the repair process to write the MBR record to the shadow disk. To do so, complete the following steps:
1.Use the three NT installation disks to boot the machine.
2.After you run the first two disks, the installation program gives you options to choose from. Select R for repair.
3.Clear the checkboxes for all options except Inspect Boot Sector, and continue.
4.Press Enter to detect hardware, and insert the third disk.
5.The repair procedure will ask if you have an Emergency Repair Disk (ERD). Choose Yes, and insert the ERD.
6.The machine will reboot, and the shadow disk will include the MBR record.
How do I avoid losing all RAID volume sets when I reinstall Windows NT?
A. Windows NT stores information about volume, mirror, and stripe sets in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\Disk registry key. If you reinstall NT, it loses this information and doesn’t recognize the volumes as fault-tolerant sets.
To avoid this problem, perform the following steps before you reinstall NT:
1.From the Start menu, select Programs, Administrative Tools, then the Disk Administrator.
2.From the Partition menu, select Configuration, then Save.
3.Insert a blank formatted disk, and click OK.
4.Click OK to the success message.
The Disk Administrator creates one file, SYSTEM, on the disk. Keep the disk safe and label it with the system name and the date created.
After you reinstall NT, start Disk Administrator. Select Configuration, then Restore from the Partition menu. Insert the disk to restore your original volume/RAID sets, as well as any drive-letter assignments.
If you perform another NT installation on the machine and are also keeping the original NT version, you can just select Configuration and Search from the Partition menu. The OS will attempt to find other NT copies and then give you the option to duplicate the copies’ configurations.
If none of these is possible and you’ve already lost your configuration, your only choice is to use the ftedit.exe Microsoft Windows NT Resource Kit utility, which lets you edit fault-tolerant sets. You can find complete help instructions in the utility, but use it carefully or you might actually lose the data.
How do I create a RAID 5 set in Windows 2000?
A. Windows 2000 introduces dynamic disks, and all members of a RAID volume set must be on a dynamic disk. To convert a disk from basic to dynamic, see 'Q. How do I convert a basic disk to dynamic?'.
To create a RAID 5 set, set perform the following steps:
1.From the Start menu, select Programs, Administrative Tools, then the Computer Management Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in.
2.Expand the Storage branch, and select Disk Management.
3.Right click an area of unallocated space, and select Create Volume from the context menu.
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4.Click Next to the Create Volume Wizard.
5.Select a RAID 5 volume type, and click Next.
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6.In the left pane, select the disks you want to use (at least three in total) and click Add.
7.Select the size to use from each disk. The size must be equal for each disk, so the largest space you can use is the smallest free space on any disk. After you select the size, click Next. If you select 1000MB from each disk, the total size would be only 2000MB because parity information uses a third of the space.
8.Select a drive letter to use, and click Next.
9.Select the file system to use and the label. You might also select whether to enable file and folder compression. Click Next.
10.The program displays a summary screen. Click Finish.
Win2K shows the disk areas as RAID 5 and in a regenerating mode.
You might receive the message The operation did not complete because the partition/volume is not enabled. Please reboot the computer to enable the partition/volume from the Logical Disk Manager. Click OK to this message, but don’t reboot until the regeneration is complete and Win2K shows the volume as healthy. Otherwise, you’ll need to reformat the partition upon reboot completion.
You might still need to reformat the volume, which indicates that the program has a bug.
How do I delete a RAID 5 set in Windows 2000?
A. When you delete a RAID 5 set in Windows 2000, you lose all the data that the set contains. Therefore, make sure you first back up your data.
To delete a RAID 5 set, perform the following steps:
1.From the Start menu, select Programs, Administrative Tools, then the Computer Management Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in.
2.Expand the Storage branch, and select Disk Management.
3.Right click an element of the RAID 5 volume, and select Delete Volume… from the context menu.
4.Click Yes to the confirmation.
Win2K will now list the space that the RAID 5 volume used as unpartitioned.
How do I regenerate a RAID 5 set in Windows 2000?
A. In Windows 2000, if you replace one part of a RAID 5 set as a result of faulty hardware, the volume won’t lose any data because of the stored parity information. However, you must replace the broken disk to re-enable the RAID 5 set’s fault-tolerant ability.
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After you replace the bad disk, complete the following steps:
1.From the Start menu, select Programs, Administrative Tools, then the Computer Management Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in.
2.Expand the Storage branch, and select Disk Management.
3.Win2K still shows the removed disk as Missing.
4.Right click an element of the RAID 5 volume, and select Repair Volume… from the context menu.
5.From the list, select a disk to use as the bad disk’s replacement and click OK.
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6.Win2K will show the set as regenerating.
Your RAID 5 set is now fault tolerant again, but you need to remove the RAID5 partition from the missing disk.
If you had other partitions on the disk that you removed, you can right click the partitions and select Delete Volume… to remove them. You should now right click the Missing text and select Remove Disk from the context menu.
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If you ever reuse the original disk, Win2K displays the disk as Foreign. To read this disk, see 'Q. How do I import a foreign volume in Windows 2000?'
How do I create a mirror set (RAID 1) in Windows 2000?
A. All members of a RAID 1 volume set must be on a dynamic disk. To convert a disk from basic to dynamic, see 'Q. How do I convert a basic disk to dynamic?'.
To create a RAID 1 set in Windows 2000, complete the following steps:
1.From the Start menu, select Programs, Administrative Tools, then the Computer Management Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in.
2.Expand the Storage branch, and select Disk Management.
3.Right click the partition you want to mirror, and select Add Mirror from the context menu.
4.Select the disk that will host the mirror, and click Add Mirror.
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5.If you mirror the boot partition, a dialog box details the changes that the program will make to boot.ini to enable mirror booting. Click OK.
Win2K shows the mirror set in a regenerating mode.
How do I break a mirror set (RAID 1) in Windows 2000?
A. Breaking a mirror set won’t result in data loss but will give you two volumes with duplicate data.
To break a RAID 1 set in Windows 2000, perform the following steps:
1.From the Start menu, select Programs, Administrative Tools, then the Computer Management Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in.
2.Expand the Storage branch, and select Disk Management.
3.Right click the mirror volume you want to remove, and select Break Mirror from the context menu. (In this step, you can also select Delete Mirror to remove both volumes that make up the mirror, but you lose the data on it.)
4.To confirm your selection, click Yes.
5.Another dialog might warn you about possible data loss on the broken mirror. Click Yes to continue.
You will now have two volumes, so you might want to delete the unwanted mirror to avoid confusion.