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Adaptec SCSI RAID 3210S and WindowsXP

MSDOS 6 installs and boots fine on either drive (IDE or RAID).

Windows 2000 Server SP2 installs and boots on the IDE drive. Next I'll try the RAID array.
 
Yes, Adaptec can be frustrating. I've got a couple of AHA3985 PCI RAID adapters. Under DOS, they look like 3 2940s. Windows doesn't know what to do with them. Apparently, they were Netware-only, though heaven only knows the reason for the restriction.
 
Why not attempt the installation without the Adaptec raid controller then try to modify the setup later on.
 
As mentioned earlier, I tried that. The controller is apparently not what XP dislikes about this machine.

MSDOS works with or without the RAID card, and works with the BIOS mounted RAID drive. In fact, MSDOS will boot from the RAID drive without the IDE drive installed. Of course, running MSDOS on a 700G drive is pointless.

Windows 2000 Server works with or without the RAID card, but for some reason the driver for it fails upon boot. I could probably figure that out, but I really don't care to run 2000 Server. I only installed it to make sure it worked, and to see if XP could upgrade from it, which it cannot.

I didn't supply the 2000 Server installation process with the drivers, I installed them after the fact. I think it's very likely that 2000 Server will install on the RAID drive, especially since that's how this ($10000) machine shipped.

For what I want to do with this machine, it must run XP. At this point it seems that it just won't. I've got a few more things to try, otherwise I'm either going to cannibalise this thing and "recycle" it, or just put it back on the shelf for another 15 years.
 
XP Pro SP3, recently purchased. I have a copy of Home which I will try if I can find the disc again. I lost the activation code for that but that's not required to get it installed to the point where I know that it works.
 
If it's one that works with NetBSD, I will be, if I can't get XP running on this thing. I've got one of these cards somewhere, but can't find it.
 
KC9UDX said:
XP Pro SP3, recently purchased. I have a copy of Home which I will try if I can find the disc again. I lost the activation code for that but that's not required to get it installed to the point where I know that it works.
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Maybe you should try an earlier release of XP and those Drivers might want to load instead of them telling you that the XP ones are newer.
 
Syclops said:
Maybe you should try an earlier release of XP and those Drivers might want to load instead of them telling you that the XP ones are newer.
Click to expand...

Just looking at the Driver Release Date of December 12, 2001, I think you might want to try the Original XP without any Service Packs that was released on October 25, 2001.
 
The earliest version of XP that i have a disc for is Pro SP2. That's installing now but I don't expect it to work.

I looked for 95, 98 and 2003 but cannot find them. I may have tossed them. I found NT4, but I don't think that will upgrade to XP either.

Is there any obvious reason why XP shouldn't run on this machine?
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@#$/#@/# SP3 just flat out refuses to install. The upgrade from SP2 starts but fails to find the CD-ROM drive that the CD which it booted from is in.

 
KC9UDX said:
@#$/#@/# SP3 just flat out refuses to install. The upgrade from SP2 starts but fails to find the CD-ROM drive that the CD which it booted from is in.

Click to expand...

Maybe you could try to install SP3 from a folder on the desktop.
 
Agent Orange said:
Maybe you could try to install SP3 from a folder on the desktop.
Click to expand...

You're correct! Thank you. I didn't think that would work but it does. At least, it gets past that point. Except now it stops and says it can't find setupORG.exe and presetup.cmd. Baby steps, I guess. I'll have to dig into this tomorrow.
 
My hat's off to you--at this point, that SCSI card would have been relegated to the "maybe if I'm desperate" box of cards in my bailiwick.

I hesitate to ask--how does the setup do under Linux?
 
You know, at this point you may want to check the integrity of your source CD. If you've got SP2 up and running, SP3 should be a no-brainer.
 
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