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Installing W2K to an onboard (mobo) RAID array - special steps?

MichaelD

MichaelD

Lifer
As I sit here, shaking, on my day off, waiting for Mr. UPSdude to knock upon my door w/the gift of (alleged) hassle-free computing, I keep coming up with lots of questions. Here's one.

I'll be installing W2K onto my 2-drive RAID 0 array that's built into my mobo. I know that W2K has some kind of F-key to hit during startup (F6 or F8...I've read) that you have to hit if you're going to be using a SCSI controller. Do i need to bother with this, or will W2K ask me for my SCSI controller drivers during the SETUP process? Thanks much.
 
Win2K will ask if you have a raid controller - F6 - would be best to have the floppy with the drivers handy. Otherwise, I suggest you hook the HD to a non-RAID connector and install normally (do not tell the system you have a RAID). A couple of things happen -- it finds the controller and will select drivers for it -- or it won't. In the second case install drivers and turn off. In the first case turn off the machine. In both cases hook up the HD to the RAID controller -- Of course if you are mirroring or striping using the floppy is the best answer.
 
What motherboard is it?

I haven't had any problems setting it up. Make sure you define the RAID array in your raid screen first.

Then when you're setting up, just hit the F6 key. After a couple of seconds, it'll ask you for the drivers.

Good luck,
Sam
 
You guys rock. It's an Abit KT7R. I will create the RAID 0 array in the bios first. Then I reboot, using CDROM as First Boot Device. At what point do I hit F6, or just let it ask me?
 
I wasn't using a RAID, but when I wanted to install Win2k to my main drive which was running of a Promise Ultra100, you press F6 right at the beginning of setup when it asks for SCSI controllers.

A few moments later it will ask you to set up SCSI devices.
You press S or something like that to add a SCSI device, then it will ask you for your floppy disk with the SCSI controller's drivers on it.
Stick that in, hit enter, and it will give you a list to choose from, pick the one that is right hit enter, and it will return the screen asking you to set up SCSI devices, only it will have that one listed now.
Press S to add another or Enter to carry on, press enter.

Setup carries on, and Win2k installs the drivers for that SCSI controller and installs all it's files to that array.

I would recommend going to Promise or HighPoint's website and downloading the latest drivers and putting them on a floppy, or you can just use the one that comes with the card.

And remember any add on IDE controller whether RAID or not is treated as SCSI, the drives will show up in device manager as SCSI drives, and the card will show up under SCSI controllers.
This is quite normal, and the standard way Win2k deals with extra IDE ports.


As for when to hit F6, when the CD detects your Win2k CD, it will say:
"Press any key to boot from CD" and give you a 5 count (dots appear) to hit a key. So press enter (or space bar or "the any key&quot😉, and then a blue scren will pop up that says win2k pro setup.

Last line of the screen is a status bar, as soon as the screen turns blue it's going to say press F6 in that status bar at the bottom.
So just hit F6 basically as soon as your screen turns blue.
I think you have about 1-2 seconds to press it.
If you miss, just hit the reset button on your PC.

(You can hit F6 more than once if it makes you feel better 😉)
 
Thanks for the detailed instructions, Noriaki. That's exactly what I needed. My setup is kind of confusing, because not only do I have the onboard RAID, I have a Promise UltraTX2 controller card, that I use so that all my IDE devices can have their own channels. (I was burning coasters letting my Bup HD and CDRW share an IDE channel).

I really appreciate the step-by-step instructions. I'll be sure to load up both drivers for both the Highpoint controller and the Promise. Have a good day. 🙂
 
Just a suggestion, make your CDRW one of your built in south bridge channels.

The Promise, HighPoint and built in IDE should co-exist fine, but Win2k doesn't get along well with IDE CDRWs being treated as SCSI.
And you're welcome.
 
Yes, I found that out when I tried to put my CDRW on my Highpoint controller (before I was running a raid setup. Crash-city! I have my backup HD on the Promise controller card. I don't have the little "HD Activity" light, but that's OK, I know it's working. Plus, I can hear it click away in there. 🙂
 
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