So I plugged the drives in and started exploring (they're 2 x 200 GB Maxtor SATA disks). After many attempts I now have a new WinXP installation on the new RAID-0 set, and all looks fine there. But after innumerable attempts and much hair tearing I still have no trace of Gentoo. I've eventually discovered that I need to pass "dmraid=X" to the installer at CD-boot time, but the instructions are both wrong and unhelpful in telling me what X is. I did manage to read "man dmraid" (though not print it - anyone know how to print Linux man pages on a Windows box?) from which it seemed I needed an -ay paramter, thus:
After quite a few experience with most software RAID that require drivers I have come to the conclusion that they are not worth anything. You are much better off using Linux software raid which will work even if you change chipsets, as in upgrading your computer in a later point in time. Also there are quite a few software Raid out there that require you to rebuild the Raid if you ever update the Bios.
I would only use only actual real Hardware RAID such as an IBM ServeRaid card.
If you need raid in Windows XP I think that it also supports a virtual Raid system, I have never used it so ymmv.
-- gentoo-amd64@gentoo.org mailing list
