The basics: I am in looking to put a new hard drive in my computer and am looking for advice/tips. I have purchased (2) WD Caviar Black 500GB Serial ATA HD 7200/32MB/SATA-6G drives. Because of some proprietary software that I need to run I will be installing the 32 bit XP Pro OS - I'm stuck with that for the foreseeable future. I also want to set-up an IIS server on it with PHP and CF support and a mail server. I am undecided on if I should set-up these drives as a Raid array or as a simple main and back-up/storage drive system. I have been looking for a good tutorial on the subject but am finding conflicting information (imagine that). Also I am somewhat of a novice since I don't do this on any regular basis and can't stay up to date on the latest/greatest information. I should add that the current drive has an IIS server on it with CF9 support and I have hmailserver installed. So what I'm looking for is any advice/recommendations/tips as far as what order I should install the software. I do realize that I need to install the OS and update to SP3 from MS first but after that I'm unsure how this should go. I also know this is a somewhat complex/time consuming operation and if anybody has a link to a decent up-to-date tutorial on the subject(s) I will be much obliged. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks in advance, nospryexpert
I'm pretty sure your first step should be to download WindowsAIK for XP family
Thanks skilly. I had never heard of that before. That should tell you something about my knowledge base. I did a search for it to find out what it was about but it looks like it's for Vista and Win7 OS based systems. Maybe I'm missing something here? I'm not setting up the drive to be only a server. I need the IIS and PHP/CF for dynamic web development. I use Dreamweaver but need a local server that knows what to do with PHP and CF code. I can set-up the IIS with my XP cd, I can get the CF9 from Adobe and the PHP from php.net but now I'm confused. Maybe I'm in over my head (it wouldn't be the first time) but I am thinking that there must a logical order for how this should go. My thought is that I should set-up the IIS/PHP/CF stuff before I install any other software. Also I was wondering if I should install the PHP or the CF first. Does that make sense or does it not really matter which order I install them? Although I did this once already (on the existing drive) it was some time ago and I recall I had some problems but eventually worked my way through them. I would like to avoid as many problems as possible this time. Thanks for the reply.
I assume having a server on a pc means you're using virtualization.
and xp3 & server 2003 have the same family for auto installion.
i will search for the appropriate link...beware it can be challenging to understand & use, but install includes help files....
-edit the closest i could find is xp(sp2)family AIK here the address:
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=10333
Virtualization? You've lost me again. I guess what I'm actually looking to do is set-up a testing server for my dynamic website development with as much flexibility and support options as I can get. I don't have time to check out the link you left right now (it's getting late here) but will be back tomorrow to see what that's about. Maybe I'm just in way over my head. I also sent an email to my web host support guys asking them for ideas/suggestions/tips or a decent tutorial on the subject but have not heard back from them yet. You may be able to get me through this yet. Thanks for your help - I do appreciate it.
VMWare is popular, and Microsoft VirtualPC for pc's and HyperV for multiple virtual servers on a single server to cut costs like the city i live in is doing :)
Thanks skilly, I guess I'm just going to have to work my way through it and see what happens. Not sure exactly what I'm up against but hopefully I'll be able to figure it out. Here's what I got back from my web host guys for what that's worth -
"For the simplicity, I would like to recommend you to setup both the HDDs as normal setup instead of RAID. You can always use a free software to backup your data from one drive to other. You can use use Windows Schedular to schedule it once 24 hours or as per your requirements.
You may also like to check - http://www.wampserver.com/en/ . WAMP can install Apache, PHP and MySQL etc... all with one software.
Also, 32 bit OS is better for personal use. There are many hardware devices for which I cannot find 64 bit drivers :( "
Also, even though I've marked this thread as solved, if anybody has any other suggestions or comments please feel free to add them. Any and all responses will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
First let me say i know nuttin ! just a google fan . and an opinionated person ,lol, so i would not install it in raid ,either
installing iis info
http://www.webwiz.co.uk/kb/asp-tutorials/installing-iis-winXP-pro.htm
check the link on the page for free software to use like rich text editors .
http://www.webwiz.co.uk/web-applications/
google has info on setting up the mail server as well .something i never had need to do so have never done ,sometime i wish i had more to do with computer than fix them and sit and read help forum post .lol
http://tinyurl.com/3eqza8o
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