Hi,Being a complete noob to any form of linux I would like to know if you can install drivers for raid cards and how to do that.I built a smaller rig for my media and went with xbmc live install.My movies were put on the disks in a windows inviorment. Is it possible to have them to be added to the files list in xbmc once the drivers are installed.Can ntfs file system and linux stuff work together?I have way too many flicks to redo them. Thanks and have been a xbmc user for a long time.
So make sure I have this right: you have a windows machine with your movies on it in a raid setup, and a newer smaller machine with a linux based xbmc setup. You want to access the movies on the windows machine via your LAN and watch them on the linux machine?
If i have that right, simply get windows to share the folder with the movies in, using regular windows network file sharing (it's called CIFS, the successor to SMB, but you don't need that level of detail).
Then on the linux xbmc machine add the share via SMB protocol. (Click browse in the Add Videos... dialog)
So you installed a RAID card under Windows and formatted the device with NTFS and now you have a bunch of movies on it? It could work in Linux but that depends on the RAID card in question. More expensive ones will naturally work as they show the RAID array as just another device. Cheaper ones like your motherboards built-in drivers are recognized by mdadm which is the software RAID component in Linux.
Try an Ubuntu live CD on the machine that has the RAID array and see if it gets recognized, that's the only way to make sure.
OK to clarify.I took the drives out of the windows machine to build 2 smaller machines.One still has the windows install(this one is ok np).I built a media server with 2 raid cards for the drives I took out of the windows machine.The media server is running xbmclive.I need to know how to install the drivers for the xbmclive media server so I can acess the drives to have them show up in xbmc.Can I access ntfs file drives through xbmc if/when I install the drivers for the raid cards.I sort of know what type of file they are I just don't know what version of the driver or how to uncompress it and how/where to put it in xbuntu.the raid cards are HighPoint RocketRAID 2680 SGL.The drives are WD green 1TB I have 9 of them.Everything shows up in the bios so thats all set.The type of files are gzip if I'm looking at the right one from highpoints web site.Looking at the ubuntu driver.Thats all I can give you right now...THANKS for the help and any info. oh ...I have no dvd/cd drives installed only using usb sticks for installs/file stuff.I have like 10 or 11 drives in this thing in cluding the os.