I have heard that it is not possible to set up a dual boot system when using Linux Software Raid (md). Is this true? And if so, could anybody please tell me why?

The reason is I have a Promise FastTrak Tx2PLus (PDC20735) quasi-hardware raid controller, with Windows and Linux installed on two SATA drives as RAID 0, using the proprietory Promise drivers. I would like to switch Linux to the GPL sata_promise.o driver (part of libata, by Jeff Garzik). The GPL driver lets Linux see the raided drives separately, and then you can set up software raid as you wish. Just wondering if it is actually possible.

The article here
may help a bit, if you have not already seen it.

Yeah, I've seen it before thanks. It actually says in the document:

"But unless you're dual-booting MS-Windows, you shouldn't care, because Linux's software RAID (kernel "md" driver) is much faster and more reliable."

Which implies that md doesn't work alongside Windows though. I was just wondering if this is the case? (And also why it might be?)

Two key words in this thread; sata and software raid.

Apparently Linux is still not playing nice on sata drives and a raid SOFTWARE install though Windows is somehow different than the Linux approach.

I do not have raid on my system, but was able to use the 1st raid connector on my system as a plain ide drive (without raid).

Trouble is, Mandrake reversed the drive designations, so that hda was hde..., so I had to add an append to lilo ide=reverse to switch the drive designations to get a valid boot.

So, do you have windows set up as software raid using the promise driver, and linux just using the second half of one of the drives?

Thanks,

Erlend