MSI P6N Platinum Raid Problem

[ncomputer]

I have a MSI Platinum P6N motherboard and am having trouble setting up raid. I have 4 SATA drives installed, and I want to have them as 2 Mirrors. In bios, if I set them up as SATA and RAID, nothing happens on boot up except I get a blank screen with a blinking cursor. In bios, if I select IDE, then the computer boots up, but without RAID--it shows 4 separate drives. I have tried everything I can think of, and I've built many computers, but this is the only one I haven't been able to set up RAID on. I don't really want or need a computer with 4 huge drives on! I'd love to hear any suggestions. Thanks!

 

[gammaray]

you have to press a key and build, set up your raid array first, did you do that?

 

[ncomputer]

Yes, I'm sorry, I should have put in more details. I did do that--in fact, I've started over from scratch where I've assembled all the parts on the table and built everything up again. That includes bios flashes, building/re-building arrays, and everything I could think of or find in forums. But I had the same end result.

 

[gammaray]

after setting up your raid array, do you have the dvd/cd player as first boot sequence so windows can install itself ? (just wondering)

 

[ncomputer]

Yes, I do. I actually worked on it a lot yesterday and got to the point where the array is set up and I need to load windows. I press F6, and windows xp asks for the driver disk in "A", but when I put the disk in, the light comes on (the disk drive) and just stays on, spinning the disk around. It's an all-in-one floppy/card reader, but I can't figure out if there's a problem with that. I've tried 4 different copies of the Raid Driver, so I'm pretty sure it's not that.

 

[ncomputer]

Found problem. It was a bad M/B. Switched with a friend's P6N, everything works flawlessly.

 

[gammaray]

that was what i was about to say, it looks like the wrong drivers windows is getting to load the raid array in memory or something's wrong with the board or windows... anyway, glad its working for you now.

 

[ncomputer]

gammaray,
Thanks so much for your replies. I frequently get a lot of help from forums like this one, but this was the first time I actually asked for help and you are the only person (from anywhere I listed) that responded. It's difficult for newbies to figure out that hardware is faulty, so I hope this helps others. Thanks again!