Solved Win XP and 8 Dual boot problem w/RAID1? Help!

raistlin888

New Member
Messages
5
Hello,

I have DUAL BOOTED Win XP Pro 64 and Windows 8 before with no problem, but I need a redundancy for less downtime, which is where RAID1 comes in...

I've managed to install Windows XP Pro 64 Bit using RAID1 on my system. I made the partition DURING the install of XP. Now I want to DUAL BOOT Win 8 Pro 64, but after I put in the serial key it shows me the two partitions, the XP one and the Unallocated one. When I select the Unallocated one, the message towards the bottom tells me Windows cannot install onto this disk (See details) and when I click on (See Details) it tells me the following:

"Windows cannot be
installed to this disk. The selected disk has an MBR partition table. The EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks"

Any Ideas?:eek:
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows XP Pro 64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Self Built
    CPU
    i7-3820 Oc'd to 4.5GHz 1.3V
    Motherboard
    Asus P9X79 Pro
    Memory
    16GB Corsair Vengence Quad Channel DDR3-1866MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    PNY Quadro 2000D 1GB-DDR5; EVGA GeForce 610
    Hard Drives
    2x1TB Seagate Barracuda
    PSU
    Corsair HX650W Professional Series
All Windows Vista, 7, and 8 need that 100 MB partition for storing the grubloader, if that space is not there at the beginning of the drive, you will not be able to install any of those OS's. XP does not use a grub loader, it just boots, so you don't have to reserve the first part of the partition for those files. That's probably what's preventing you from installing to those disks.

You can use a Partitioning Program like Partition Wizard, use it to create a 100 MB partition at the front of the disk. It will create the partition at the end, you can slide the other partitions to the back of the drive until that 100MB partition is in the front. Ive done this. After you do that, you can just slect the drive itself, and create a new MBR for it, then you can try to install. You have to do this outside of Windows, you can do it with Mini Windows XP from Hiren's Boot CD, you can assign drive letter C to that Windows XP partition so it will boot, then you can install Windows 8 on top of that.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro with Media Center/Windows 7
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus M2N-MX SE Plus § DualCore AMD Athlon 64 X2, 2300 MHz (11.5 x 200) 4400+ § Corsair Value Select
    CPU
    AMD 4400+/4200+
    Motherboard
    Asus M2N-MX SE Plus/Asus A8M2N-LA (NodusM)
    Memory
    2 GB/3GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    GeForce 8400 GS/GeForce 210
    Sound Card
    nVIDIA GT218 - High Definition Audio Controller
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Hitachi 40" LCD HDTV
    Screen Resolution
    "1842 x 1036"
    Hard Drives
    WDC WD50 00AAKS-007AA SCSI Disk Device
    ST1000DL 002-9TT153 SCSI Disk Device
    WDC WD3200AAJB-00J3A0 ATA Device
    WDC WD32 WD-WCAPZ2942630 USB Device
    WD My Book 1140 USB Device
    PSU
    Works 550w
    Case
    MSI "M-Box"
    Cooling
    Water Cooled
    Keyboard
    Dell Keyboard
    Mouse
    Microsoft Intellimouse
    Internet Speed
    Cable Medium Speed
    Browser
    Chrome/IE 10
    Antivirus
    Eset NOD32 6.x/Win Defend
    Other Info
    Recently lost my Windows 8 on my main PC, had to go back to Windows 7.
Hm - I thought Windows 8 also needed that space, I just checked my partitions, it uses the whole drive. Ok, my bad, there must be some other reason why it wont install to that partition, maybe it needs to be formatted from within Setup.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro with Media Center/Windows 7
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus M2N-MX SE Plus § DualCore AMD Athlon 64 X2, 2300 MHz (11.5 x 200) 4400+ § Corsair Value Select
    CPU
    AMD 4400+/4200+
    Motherboard
    Asus M2N-MX SE Plus/Asus A8M2N-LA (NodusM)
    Memory
    2 GB/3GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    GeForce 8400 GS/GeForce 210
    Sound Card
    nVIDIA GT218 - High Definition Audio Controller
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Hitachi 40" LCD HDTV
    Screen Resolution
    "1842 x 1036"
    Hard Drives
    WDC WD50 00AAKS-007AA SCSI Disk Device
    ST1000DL 002-9TT153 SCSI Disk Device
    WDC WD3200AAJB-00J3A0 ATA Device
    WDC WD32 WD-WCAPZ2942630 USB Device
    WD My Book 1140 USB Device
    PSU
    Works 550w
    Case
    MSI "M-Box"
    Cooling
    Water Cooled
    Keyboard
    Dell Keyboard
    Mouse
    Microsoft Intellimouse
    Internet Speed
    Cable Medium Speed
    Browser
    Chrome/IE 10
    Antivirus
    Eset NOD32 6.x/Win Defend
    Other Info
    Recently lost my Windows 8 on my main PC, had to go back to Windows 7.
Maybe im not wording my question right...

I can install Windows 8 by itself just fine on my RAID1 array.
I can install Windows XP Pro 64bit also by itself just fine on my RAID1 array
But I can't Dual boot these two together on my RAID1 array?
I CAN get them to dual boot just fine when they were set up in IDE mode in the BIOS.
What is the big difference trying to use RAID1? Its just mirroring the other drive?
There isn't anything different in Install/Setup of either OS's (other than WinXP needing RAID Drivers to be installed during RAID install)
I have seen it on you tube, but I assume it wasn't in RAID1.
I google it and people seem to get it to work just fine, but none of the results are showing them attemting it in RAID1
I've tried to read the links that Theog provided... but as far as I saw it was above my head in technical jargon, and from what I skimmed thru, none referred to anything about RAID1 as NOT an option

If someone does know, I need it in layman's terms please.:eek:


Thanks ahead of time!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows XP Pro 64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Self Built
    CPU
    i7-3820 Oc'd to 4.5GHz 1.3V
    Motherboard
    Asus P9X79 Pro
    Memory
    16GB Corsair Vengence Quad Channel DDR3-1866MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    PNY Quadro 2000D 1GB-DDR5; EVGA GeForce 610
    Hard Drives
    2x1TB Seagate Barracuda
    PSU
    Corsair HX650W Professional Series
If we go back to the original message, it appears to be saying you are attempting to install Windows 8 using the UEFI configuration. Do you know for sure you are not booting the media with the UEFI option?

If you are booting to the MBR version of the media, the other thing, as was suggested, is to partition the unallocated space. Perhaps telling Windows 8 to install in unallocated space confuses it and it thinks it needs to recreate all the necessary partitions, but can't because there is already an active one.

But you are correct, once the RAID array is set up, it should just look like a normal drive to the installers. How did you get the RAID drivers to load during the XP install? I use a USB floppy for that.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Grown
    CPU
    i7 3770K
    Motherboard
    ASUS P8Z77 -v Pro, Z87-Expert
    Memory
    16 G
    Graphics Card(s)
    EVGA GTX 680 Classified (2)
    Hard Drives
    Kingston SSD 240 GB
If we go back to the original message, it appears to be saying you are attempting to install Windows 8 using the UEFI configuration. Do you know for sure you are not booting the media with the UEFI option?
Ok, so I tried going back into the BIOS, It gave me three options for booting. 1) CD UEFI 2) P3 CD 3)Intel RAID (my raid volume). I wasn't thinking about the UEFI CD as being my issue till you brought it up...
So I put the P3 CD as first boot priority and it worked!!!
:DThanks so much @Saltgrass!!! THANK YOU!!!:D
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows XP Pro 64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Self Built
    CPU
    i7-3820 Oc'd to 4.5GHz 1.3V
    Motherboard
    Asus P9X79 Pro
    Memory
    16GB Corsair Vengence Quad Channel DDR3-1866MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    PNY Quadro 2000D 1GB-DDR5; EVGA GeForce 610
    Hard Drives
    2x1TB Seagate Barracuda
    PSU
    Corsair HX650W Professional Series
But you are correct, once the RAID array is set up, it should just look like a normal drive to the installers. How did you get the RAID drivers to load during the XP install? I use a USB floppy for that.
I used nLite to SLIPSTREAM the Intel RAID Controllers into the .iso boot cd. It took me a little bit to find the right drivers, but when I did, it worked seamlessly!

CHEERS!!!:)

 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows XP Pro 64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Self Built
    CPU
    i7-3820 Oc'd to 4.5GHz 1.3V
    Motherboard
    Asus P9X79 Pro
    Memory
    16GB Corsair Vengence Quad Channel DDR3-1866MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    PNY Quadro 2000D 1GB-DDR5; EVGA GeForce 610
    Hard Drives
    2x1TB Seagate Barracuda
    PSU
    Corsair HX650W Professional Series
Maybe im not wording my question right...

I can install Windows 8 by itself just fine on my RAID1 array.
I can install Windows XP Pro 64bit also by itself just fine on my RAID1 array
But I can't Dual boot these two together on my RAID1 array?
I CAN get them to dual boot just fine when they were set up in IDE mode in the BIOS.
What is the big difference trying to use RAID1? Its just mirroring the other drive?
There isn't anything different in Install/Setup of either OS's (other than WinXP needing RAID Drivers to be installed during RAID install)
I have seen it on you tube, but I assume it wasn't in RAID1.
I google it and people seem to get it to work just fine, but none of the results are showing them attemting it in RAID1
I've tried to read the links that Theog provided... but as far as I saw it was above my head in technical jargon, and from what I skimmed thru, none referred to anything about RAID1 as NOT an option

If someone does know, I need it in layman's terms please.:eek:


Thanks ahead of time!

Hi there
this is NOT the answer to your question but IMO could be a sensible get around your dilemma.

Have you thought about installing XP-X64 in a VIRTUAL machine. The latest version of VMWARE vmplayer is FREE and has decent graphics in it so things like DVD playing and even SOME (note not all) Games will work in a VM.

Typical legacy hardware devices don't have any issues with a Virtual machine and modern hardware will run a VM almost as fast as the "Native" machine.

An advantage also with VM's is that you can start / stop them at will - you don't need to logoff the Host system and it's also possible for people to logon to a VM without even needing an account on the host system.

(If this is not what you want then OK forget this post but all I'm suggesting is that I see this solution as a decent more convenient alternative). The XP-64 system will run quite nicely on a 3 GB Virtual machine - or even 2GB.).

The RAID on the host will work just fine and you can set the Virtual HDD's to SCSI if you want -- plenty of tutorials on setting up and using Virtual Machines on this Forum (and the W7 one too).

I'm running a Windows W2K3 server as a VM -- this has a load of VERY EXPENSIVE legacy ENGINEERING type laboratory hardware -- so I'm keeping it for a while yet. The manufacturer of the hardware has long since "disappeared" but the hardware works really well.

(I'm also running a W98 legacy system too -- even older). Both these run just fine even on a laptop -- so long as your laptop / system has at least 8GB RAM you'll be fine.

From my point of view this is a FAR better solution than keeping a dual boot system or a dedicated older machine.

BTW I'm using VMware workstation -- the paid product -- but these work from VMware PLAYER too -- the FREE product -- download from VMware site.

Cheers
jimbo
 

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My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Linux Centos 7, W8.1, W7, W2K3 Server W10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Monitor(s) Displays
    1 X LG 40 inch TV
    Hard Drives
    SSD's * 3 (Samsung 840 series) 250 GB
    2 X 3 TB sata
    5 X 1 TB sata
    Internet Speed
    0.12 GB/s (120Mb/s)
@jimbo45

thanks for the reply. i have tried using both xp mode and hyper-v both work, but the connection to my the database server is really slow, (fair size image files thru VPN) compared to the full program. also, dont thunk it will utilize my workstation card to ita full potential. but i managed to get it dual booted finally.

thanks.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows XP Pro 64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Self Built
    CPU
    i7-3820 Oc'd to 4.5GHz 1.3V
    Motherboard
    Asus P9X79 Pro
    Memory
    16GB Corsair Vengence Quad Channel DDR3-1866MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    PNY Quadro 2000D 1GB-DDR5; EVGA GeForce 610
    Hard Drives
    2x1TB Seagate Barracuda
    PSU
    Corsair HX650W Professional Series
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