Once again we see that it's PEBKAC 99% of the time (everyone really should read this)

[MichaelD]

Maybe, possibly, this could go into the FAQ somewhere...so others can benefit from my mistake?


If you are trying to copy Highpoint Drivers from a CDR to a floppy for the purpose of installing them during a fresh W2K install, you NEED to read this!

I'm posting this from my new DDR rig. You know; the one I couldn't, for the life of me, get the Highpoint 372 RAID drivers to load under W2K?

I'll recap briefly:

W2K asks for SCSI/RAID drivers off a FLOPPY during initial load. My new mobo (Shuttle AK35GTR) comes w/the drivers on a CDR, necessitating copying them from the CDR to a formatted floppy.

Sounds easy, right? Wrong. Initially, I copied the following files from the "RAID" Directory on the Shuttle CDR onto the floppy. To me, an "experienced and intelligent" user, these are all I thought I needed.

1. W2K (folder w/multiple files inside)
2. WinNT (folder w/multiple files inside)
3. TXTSETUP.OEM (a file that I didn't know I needed until W2K setup told me it was missing )

Well, W2K setup accepted the above floppy at first. It went thru the formatting motions (30 minutes for a 78GB RAID 0 stripe!) but afterwards, it asked me for the HPT drivers AGAIN, and wouldn't take the floppy it took to begin with! WTH????????

24 hours later after surfing and reading and scratching my head inbetween sessions of banging my head off the wall

I saw something in the "RAID" directory on the Shuttle CDR that I didn't notice earlier. Some files. Namely:

1. BIOS (folder w/files....nondescript)
2. DMASET (an application-looking icon w/no additional info provided)
3. Disk 1 (a 1KB nondescript icon...I threw it on the floppy....just for grins...dunno if it mattered)
4. Readme (self explanatory...I threw it on there....read it...didn't give me any insight)


I put the above files on the floppy with the others listed up top. B-I-N-G-O. :Q It went thru the first time, no prob. Two hours of loading/updating/restarting later, and here I am.

I think it was the "BIOS" folder that did it. I'm not sure and I'll prolly never know for sure.

I'd like to add that NOWHERE ONLINE did any FAQ (even Shuttle's own site) give me the above info. It was trial and error. (99% error. ) I hope someone can learn from my mistakes. Good luck!

 

[Ih8canada]

Bump for a very specific problem but still very handy too bad my pc is raid5 otherwise that might have been useful.

 

[MichaelD]

Hmmm; I figured this would've generated some interest...have you no idea how much crap I went thru to test all this out for you guys? J/K LOL! Goodnight, AT.

 

[Yossarian]

Good job, it feels pretty good to figure out a tricky setup problem.

 

[MCS]

Finally making use of that DDR you had lying around eh Michael?

 

[MichaelD]

<< Finally making use of that DDR you had lying around eh Michael >>



Heheh, hi MCS! Yeah, it's only been sitting in my filing cabinet since July 2000. I figured I'd better use it before the smoke inside it, lets itself out. Hahahah!

So far, so good. Between Windows Updates and Rebooting and Norton Updates and rebooting, the only game I had time to load/play was a bit of UT.

At my same old UT settings (1152x864x32) I'm getting 72-75 FPS in the "stock maps", which is about 10FPS more than before. In some of the maps, I've DL'd from the web that are really polygon-intensive, I'm getting a nice boost of about 20FPS, which is very noticible to me. But, UT is pretty much a CPU-based game anyway.

I haven't had time to play any other DEMANDING (system-wise) games yet (MoHAA/RTCW) but I've run some 3DMark2001SE and my results are about 33% higher than before...that should translate to some real-world performance gains.

I'll be writing a "review" of the mobo (Shuttle AK35GTR) and posting some benchies either tonight or tomorrow night. So far, I'm very impressed...and happy. My only negative comment so far is the lack of info given by Shuttle (or anyone else for that matter) on the driver issue I noted in my original post above. Have a great day!