Help with setting up RAID 0

[cptCuervo]

I'm having trouble... I'm setting up my first Raid0 array with the on board Promise Raid controller on my Gigabyte 7VRXP Motherboard. I got the Raid Bios to see the 2 harddrives only if they are on the IDE 3&4 Controllers. I set up the Array and ran fdisk with a bootdisk.

However, When I go to install WinXP Pro the installation says that there is not Hard drive detected on my system. Under my System Bios, there is no HD listed either (but I believe that is because the drives are on IDE 3&4). I can't figure out what I am doing wrong.

As I'm typing this, I realized that I did not try loading any 3rd party Raid drivers when installing Win XP. I should try that..

Any other insight would be very helpful..

-Cpt Cuervo

 

[PaperclipGod]

Originally posted by: cptCuervo
I'm having trouble... I'm setting up my first Raid0 array with the on board Promise Raid controller on my Gigabyte 7VRXP Motherboard. I got the Raid Bios to see the 2 harddrives only if they are on the IDE 3&4 Controllers. I set up the Array and ran fdisk with a bootdisk.

However, When I go to install WinXP Pro the installation says that there is not Hard drive detected on my system. Under my System Bios, there is no HD listed either (but I believe that is because the drives are on IDE 3&4). I can't figure out what I am doing wrong.

As I'm typing this, I realized that I did not try loading any 3rd party Raid drivers when installing Win XP. I should try that..

Any other insight would be very helpful..

-Cpt Cuervo

you need to press F6 at the beginning of the XP installation when it tells you to. wait a few secs, and then it'll ask you to load in the drivers. might need one or might need several, depends on your setup. after that it should work.

 

[cptCuervo]

Should I have the drives set as Master on both channels (IDE 3&4)? Or should I/ Could I slave them.. If there is an option, which gives better performance.

 

[ThatDumbGuy]

Having the drives as the only drives (and therefore, masters) on their own channels will give you the best performance. Just keep in mind that only one drive can use the cables at once, for the most part.

 

[cptCuervo]

Ok, So I got my array set up and installed the Raid Drivers during Win XP setup. The setup copied the setup files over after formating my array. GREAT! Can't believe that I forgot to do that

However, When I boot up again to continue that WinXP setup the drive is not recognized as a bootable drive.

I checked my Bios settings, and here is the weird part.. Before I started the WinXP set up there was an option in my BIOS to boot off a RAID, now I only have SCSI, Floppy, and CDROM. I selected each one that I could... None worked.

Is there any reason that the option to boot off the RAID would disappear? I made sure that the RAID controller is enabled, and that the RAID Bios kicks on boot up.

I'm confussed... any more ideas or things I'm missing?
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