Best of ALL Worlds!! Vista Ult 64 / Win Pro 32 in RAID 5!!!!

This string dedicated to all those folks who need to run 32bit based engineering programs (AutoDesk, Solidworks,,,etc.) but don't want to be left in the Window dust and also have Vista 64 on another hard drive partition on their RAID 5 systems.

Can You Blame Me????
I really need my 9261 in RAID 5 to be capable of running Vista 64 and Windows Pro 32 bit.

I actually ordered my 9261 with Vista 64 installed. I haven't yet partitioned my RAID array yet but I'm going to soon in order to install WinXP Pro 32.

I need to do this in order to run great programs by AutoDesk and SolidWorks that just don't jive with Vista 64 yet. And I don't think they are going to develop anything for Vista soon.

I understand that I will have to re-install all the 32bit drivers (on the new Win Pro partition) for this monster notebook and all of its "swiss-army knife" tools and toys but I'm willing to do it.

I don't mean to be such a pussball about going forward with this plan but I would like to hear from some folks that have already done something similar. I'm a little "standoff-ish" because my system is in RAID 5 (3 Seagate Momentus 160's) and I'm afraid I may make this system unstable.

I want to keep the Vista Ultimate64 with the 8700GT in order to play with DX10. But if I have to I'll dump the Vista in order to run more productive programs.

Any ideas!?! Any input?!?

I found this superb walk-through (by James Bannan) for folks who already have Vista pre-installed on their systems but there is an option for folks with WinXP who want to add Vista to their systems as well.:

http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp

 

More praise for XoticPC's service and RAID 5! And yes the solution to the problem was in the works within 3 hours.

I want to explain this because my RAID 5 array did function well as expected in the event of 1 of my 3 HD's going bad

I received my 9261 with a bum but not yet dead Momentus 160GB HD. It gave up the ghost after about 6 hours of use. My system wouldn't boot into anything. Just a depressing black screen. I unplugged it and disconnected the battery, then rebooted again. As it rebooted I caught the RAID array setup by pressing "Ctrl+I" as it indicates. It said the my third drive was in error status and unbootable. It then gave me a choice to "Repair Y/N?" So of course I chose "Y" and it booted right up on the 2 remaining drives!
The amazing thing was it didn't seem any slower!

Manufacturer defects happen all the time, to everything, so I didn't really get all hot about it, and, as soon as I reported the problem to Xotic/Sager the bad drive was on its way back to California "3 Day Air" free of charge within 3 hours!

So those of you researching what I'm trying to research, don't believe all those "nay sayers". RAID 5 worked for me.

 

Who is a nay sayer of Raid 5?

I personally run Raid 0 with my 3 drives for performace reasons...

Raid 5 is definitely slower, but faster than Raid 1...

For all out performance... Raid 0 is king...

Oh yeah... Xotic PC rocks!!!


Joe

 

I just run XP Pro SP2 as a virtual machine using VMWare Workstation.

I specified the XP setup to be dual core with 1GB of RAM. I can change the settings whenever I feel like it.

I use FPGA tools in the XP VM since they are not Vista 64 compatible yet. When they finally become x64 compatible I'll just install the tools in Vista and remove my virtual machine. No messing with partitions.

Your applications are graphics intensive though. The default hardware for graphics cards in a virtual machine may not take full advantage of the native graphics devices. Something to consider.

 

WoW! Kozi!

You typed so little yet informed so much. I'm reading up on all your post's suggestions and tips/idea's right now. THanX!

 

VmWare is top notch.. I can run 4 to 5 machines without even choking the system... I can also run a virus scan at the same time...

I definitely couldnt' do that with my old junker... D900K crap....

Joe

 

Vmware also works wonders for USB devices... I use Vista x64 and the usb support sucks... But all i have to do is run a Vmware XP or windows 2003 server image and pass the usb device through and it works like a charm...

You can't do that with Virtual PC..... Also with virtual PC you can't install a 64 bit os... Which I use quite a bit.....

Joe