Prev: event log error
Next: Studio 1535 no boot
From: David Arnstein on 26 Apr 2010 20:20
I have a Dell XPS 710 tower that I purchased in early 2007. Dell's
support web pile informs me that it is not possible to upgrade this
monster to Windows 7. Microsoft's "Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor" tells me
that it is possible.

Summary: the upgrade is possible. But I had to spend $50 on new hardware
to do so.

Here is how I upgraded. I started with Windows Vista, service pack 2.

I bought the Windows 7 Professional upgrade disk from Amazon.com. I
tried several times to use this disk. In each case, the upgrade would
go smoothly until the final reboot into Windows 7. Then the boot-up
would fail.

In my case, the blocking issue seemed to be the Nvidia software RAID
that is provided by a motherboard BIOS. I am using a simple SATA RAID
0 array on this computer. I found that the Windows 7 install disk could
use this array without problem, but not Windows 7 itself. Perhaps this
issue won't bite unless one is using RAID. I spent $50 on a PCI-X adapter
card that provides RAID on SATA disk drives. I was careful to select an
adapter card that is compatible with both Windows Vista and Windows 7.
This adapter is based on a Marvell chipset. I would describe the card
in more detail, but it really isn't a very good adapter.

Anyway, here is how I got Windows 7 working:

1. Physically install the new PCI-X SATA adapter card. No disks
connected to it yet. Note that I'm still using Windows Vista at
this point.

2. Update device driver software for the new PCI-X SATA adapter card.

3. Back up all data.

4. Physically connect my disk drives to the new PCI-X SATA adapter
card.

5. Using same backup software from step 3, perform "disaster
recovery." I mean, I re-installed Vista and restored all of my
data.

6. Reboot. Windows Vista comes up OK. At this point, my disk drives
are connected to the new PCI-X adapter card, which is giving me
software RAID. My DVD drives are still connected to the SATA ports
on the motherboard, which means they are going through the old
Nvidia hardware. Everything works.

7. Use the Windows 7 install disk. This time, it worked!

I wanted to post this for the benefit of anyone who has an XPS 710 with
RAID. No, you don't have to buy a new computer to use Windows 7. You
probably have to buy an adapter card. I was not able to eliminate that
expense.
--
David Arnstein (00)
arnstein+usenet(a)pobox.com {{ }}
^^
From: William R. Walsh on 26 Apr 2010 21:44
Hi!

> In my case, the blocking issue seemed to be the Nvidia software RAID

> This adapter is based on a Marvell chipset. I would describe the card
> in more detail, but it really isn't a very good adapter.

How serious are you about RAID? If you're really serious and need to have
it, you'll do well to get a real *hardware* RAID adapter and put that in
your computer. "Fakeraid" devices such as your chipset and this adapter card
offer are a fragile and potentially dangerous idea.

Or you could use whatever facilities the operating system provides...medium
to high end versions of Windows have had software RAID support for a while.

> 7. Use the Windows 7 install disk. This time, it worked!

It's good to know for anyone that plans to try this. Hopefully Dell or
nVidia one will get to supporting this in a future driver release. (Did you
try to get drivers directly from nVidia?)

William


From: David Arnstein on 27 Apr 2010 01:01
In article <vJWdnVv2ZacK3EvWnZ2dnUVZ_h2dnZ2d(a)mchsi.com>,
>Or you could use whatever facilities the operating system provides...medium
>to high end versions of Windows have had software RAID support for a while.

I'm glad that you mentioned this. I recall using Windows RAID many years
ago, but I totally forgot about this feature of Windows. I don't know
if my version (Windows 7 Professional) allows this. But I would have
liked to try it. In particular, I wonder how the performance (speed) of
Windows versus Marvell compares. I might try this anyway, since I have
no love for the Marvell card.

>It's good to know for anyone that plans to try this. Hopefully Dell or
>nVidia one will get to supporting this in a future driver release. (Did you
>try to get drivers directly from nVidia?)

I looked for updates from Dell, Microsoft, and Nvidia. I don't expect
to find any updates, ever. I'm not sure, but I don't think Nvidia sells
the RAID BIOS any more. As for Dell, they only care about selling new
computers.
--
David Arnstein (00)
arnstein+usenet(a)pobox.com {{ }}
^^
From: William R. Walsh on 27 Apr 2010 10:21
Hi!

> I'm glad that you mentioned this. I recall using Windows RAID
> many years ago, but I totally forgot about this feature of
> Windows.

> I don't know if my version (Windows 7 Professional) allows this.

It certainly ought to. The nice thing is that it doesn't ask your disk
controller to do anything funky.

> In particular, I wonder how the performance (speed) of
> Windows versus Marvell compares.

They'll be very close, although I'd say Windows will have a bit of an
edge. It's my somewhat educated guess that says Microsoft's
programming will be of better quality than whatever quick-and-dirty
"RAID" features were thrown into the Marvell driver package.
Microsoft's programming efforts will certainly have had more time to
evolve and improve.

RAID0 and RAID1 (probably the only modes your Marvell card supports,
and all that Windows supports the last I knew) don't ask a whole lot
of the computer. It's RAID5 that can be very demanding, as RAID5 keeps
a disk dedicated to storing parity information that is calculated on
the fly, as data is written. Still, I've seen some software and
"fakeraid" RAID5 implementations.

The Marvell IC is only a standard disk controller. It has no ability
in hardware to understand or assist RAID. You're doing RAID in
software with it, but that software comes from the adapter's add-in
BIOS and the driver package.

> I looked for updates from Dell, Microsoft, and Nvidia. I don't
> expect to find any updates, ever. I'm not sure, but I don't
> think Nvidia sells the RAID BIOS any more.

I'm only moderately surprised by that. I find nVidia's chipsets OK,
but I find their approach to supporting them lousy. Intel does a much
better job, and even VIA updates their chipset software on a somewhat
regular basis. It seems that nVidia makes one or two releases and
moves on, leaving whatever might be there as it is with the hope that
it works well enough.

William
 | 
Pages: 1
Prev: event log error
Next: Studio 1535 no boot