Hard Drives not dectected by windows setup

[Juice Box]

Ok, so i was setting up my computer to reformat, setup a raid 0 array, and to install xp professional. I have a 80 gig 7200 and a 20 gig 7200. My mobo has 4 IDE ports, 2 of which i think are raid only. im not sure. I have 4 optical drives, so they are all plugged into the top two ide ports. I plugged each HD into its own raid port and went to the HiPoint raid config utility. I configured a raid0 array with the two drives then went into XO setup and it said it cold not install because it could not find suitable hard disk drive to install to. I even tried plugging them into my PCI IDE expansion card and make an array there but xp stil doesnt get it. Do you have any suggetions?

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

I believe you have to setup raid/install drivers before you install Windows if you want Windows on the raided drives. Otherwise you can only set up a separate raid array. I think that answers you question

 

[Juice Box]

i just found out how big of a moron i am.... Im not gonna make a raid array with 80 and a 20, thats just dumb. Ill try resetting the CMOS and seeing if that worsk

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

Yeah that 80 and 20 coming out to 40 would suck. I didn't even see that part lol

 

[Juice Box]

ok, nevermind, it still doesnt work! I reset my CMOS and plugged in only the 80, ill do the 20 after XP is done. But XP STILL wont recognize my hard drive being Plugged in. My raid controller sees it and says its fine, why wouldnt windows?!

 

[Juice Box]

any ideas?

 

[JetBlack69]

Have the drivers for the raid controller on a floppy disk. During the XP setup, press F6 when it asks for scsi drivers. Then it should find your raid drives.

 

[KF]

As michaelpatrick33 said:
"I believe you have to setup raid/install drivers before you install Windows if you want Windows on the raided drives. "

Except for HDs on the main chipset controller, you have to install a driver. When the XP installer says to press F6 if you need to install a driver, that's what you do. Then insert a floppy with the Highpoint controller driver on it. If you didn't get such a floppy, then you have to make one.

You probably also have to set the BIOS to boot from the Highpoint controller. On the DFI NFII, you set the BIOS to boot to SCSI instead of HD0. Also set "RAID or SCSI boot" to RAID. The way this works is that alternative controllers, like Highpoint, behave like a SCSI card. That's why you set the boot drive to SCSI. Setting "RAID or SCSI boot" to RAID chooses the onboard Highpoint rather than a plug in SCSI card. I believe it is the same even if the drive(s) are not RAIDed. It's not exactly obvious, is it?

 

[Juice Box]

ok, i got ti to work bu plugging in my HD to a normal IDE port. I dont know if im allowed to say this, but i installed a cough crack copy of XP. it had a built in activation thing (this is the winbeta 8 in 1) and it said its activated. When i went to reboot however i was stuck in an endless loop of it wanting to activate and it saying its already activated. Now, when i go to reinstall windows, i get a BSOD saying IRQL_NOT_LEsS_OR_EQUAL. And now i have no idea what to do in order to reinstall

 

[Mavrick007]

Buy a legit copy of XP

 

[Juice Box]

honestly, i do not believe that is the problem

 

[JetBlack69]

Sorry, I don't support illegal copies of Windows XP.

 

[Juice Box]

would u help me if i told you it was legit?

 

[JetBlack69]

Sorry, cat's out of the bag.

 

[Juice Box]

what cat..... shhhhhh