New PC boot problem

[djboyo]

Picked up new PC a few days ago (AMD 3000), didn't order an OS or CD-drive. Transferred soundcard and ethernet card from old machine, and installed new CD-rom drive.

Setup of Windows XP (legit copy) from CD installed fine, but then when it auto re-boots at the end of Setup it won't run from HD and tries to start Setup from CD all over again, saying there is already a Windows folder on the HD and if I want to overwrite. I did that, no better. I tried re-formatting the partition and starting over but the same thing happens.

Removed CD and set boot devices in BIOS all to HD, but it still says 'Boot from CD:' on restart and then nothing happens. Put CD back in and restart and it starts running Setup again.

Played with the HD RAID settings (which I know nothing about), and on non-default settings I got an error message instead of hanging on 'Boot from CD:' after startup.

Any help much appreciated.
thx

 

[djboyo]

Ok the tech guy at the store said I should disable the RAID array in BIOS. (I'm at work right now so can't try it yet).

Sound about right?

 

[ZeroRift]

Is the Hard drive IDE or SATA? Are you only using one Harddrive? If your HD is SATA, it will almost definately be on a RAID setup. If it is, you'll want RAID 0. If your HD is IDE then disableing RAID will probably fix it.

 

[djboyo]

Thanks Zero.

That's what the problem turned out to be. I finally was able to talk with Tech Support at the store and he had me play with the RAID setup. The (SATA) HD was not being recognized.

 

[JDCentral]

The first thing you should know about RAID 0 is to turn it off ;-).

If one of your drives EVER crashes, all your data is basically gone. Period.

But.. that's just my opinion. It does give you a good performance boost, though, but don't store anything 'mission critical' on it.