WinXP 64 install

[DiscipleDOC]

Ok....tonight I will be going RAID 0 with 2 Western Digital 160GB (16 MB Cache) hard drives. I will be installing WinXP 64 bit on the machine I have in my sig.

Are there anything that I need to pay close attention to? Are there different drivers that I need to download? I already have the 64-bit version of nforce and my vid card d'loaded (did that last night)....is there anything else I'm missing?

[nekrosoft13]

you probably will have to get a floppy and load the sataraid driver before windows setup starts.

i don't remmember if windows xp 64bit does or doesn't have nforoce drivers build in, but probably doesn't

[DiscipleDOC]

I won't be able to load the drivers via a cd?

[S.SubZero]

XP64's installer will only accept 3rd-party drivers from a floppy disk.

[DiscipleDOC]

I decided to go WD Raptor 74GB instead of the raid config.....the raid config is too much trouble imo....

[XDanger]

Cant you fake a usb flash drive as a floppy?
striping is as easy as pie most of the time just put the driver in when windows asks for it and run the raid controller setup doohikey,job done.

I HOPE!!

I got my vista 64bit and e6400 and case etc today, will I have any problems getting things working?
I'm thinking maybe I should stick with xp pro for now...

I didnt really do any research, Is Vista 64bit just as compatible with drivers/games as the 32bit version?

[S.SubZero]

Cant you fake a usb flash drive as a floppy?
striping is as easy as pie most of the time just put the driver in when windows asks for it and run the raid controller setup doohikey,job done.
With XP64 I don't think you can. It uses the "traditional" XP/2003 installer, and only does what that does. You need to think five years ago.
I got my vista 64bit and e6400 and case etc today, will I have any problems getting things working?
I'm thinking maybe I should stick with xp pro for now...
With Vista64 you will have an uphill battle, since not only will you need Vista-friendly drivers, but you will need 64-bit Vista-friendly drivers. The best thing to do is catalogue the parts of the PC, and see if the various manufacturers have drivers you need.

Between XP and Vista it's going to be rough. You either stay with XP and lose out on forward compatibility (the first DX10 game, the "Vista only" drivers from companies like nVidia), or you switch to Vista and lose backwards compatiblity. Vista is the long-term solution. XP is the short-term. I do expect anything not specifically made for Vista (DX10 games) to run in XP, since it's not like XP is going to disappear anytime soon. Heck, there's still stubborn people on Win2K boxes out there.
I didnt really do any research, Is Vista 64bit just as compatible with drivers/games as the 32bit version?
Vista32 has it's own compatiblity issues. Vista64 will only compound those issues. I'm told that in order for software to have the "Made for Vista" logo, it has to be able to run in both 32 and 64-bit Vista. Older titles of course are under no such obligation, if they run under either.

[BrianG]

I decided to go WD Raptor 74GB instead of the raid config.....the raid config is too much trouble imo....
I keep a floppy around for just his reason. Well RAID drivers and to flash mobo BIOSs. RAID0 performs very well on x64, best it seems with 32K stripes. One idea I like if you do not want o be able to see the drive is to install it the floppy inside the case so you need to open the case to access. Just a thought...

[saturnotaku]

Or you could get a USB floppy drive.

[BrianG]

Or you could get a USB floppy drive.
True, but most people hhave floppy from previous builds sitting around that they do not want to install. Go stealth.