You should probably do some research and find out what stripe size works the best with your Promise controller and the operating system and File system (Fat32 or NTFS) that you plan to use. Unless your doing large file transfers between multiple drives or video editing, I would recommend 16K or 32K cluster size. 32K being what I use and have found to perform the best on my mainly gaming system.
As for what you need to do, that shouldn't matter what type of controller you have so here it goes:
1. Enter your Raid Bios setup utility when you see the prompt. If I remember right its <ctrl>+f, but its been awhile since I used a promise controller so it may have changed. Select the drives you want to use, and then set your strip size. I would setup 32K strip size first and set the transfer mode of your drives (if you can...the highpoint controller allows you to set DMA modes in the Raid Bios, don't know about the Promise.) And if you only have 2 drives, I guess your going to be running Raid 0.
2. Run Fdisk from the command prompt and partition your drive as you like. Mine is setup as one big drive. After setting up your partitions and naming them, restart your computer. I usually power mine completely off and then back on using the power button, but the reset button does just as well.
3. When you boot from the floppy again and come back to the command prompt you can format your partition from there. You need to decide which file system your going to use. If your using Fat 32, you need to format with a different command depending on your strip size. If you set up 32K, then "Format C: /Z:64" will work well. If you setup 16K strip, then "Format C: /Z:32" will work. If your going to use NTFS, then you should be able to just start setup from your CD or Boot floppies and setup will prompt you to format your drive and there you would choose NTFS. I do not know how to get to advanced setup options when formatting with NTFS that allow you to setup the cluster size or if its even necessary, but I am sure someone here does if it is necessary. If your going to use Fat 32 I would highly recommend you format the drive with the above commands rather than let Setup do it for you. From my experience it usually picks an unusally small cluter size.
You only have 2 drives so your strip size is going to be the same, you can't setup a Raid 0 with 2 drives and a different strip size on each drive. You CAN partition that array in to as many drives as you want and you CAN setup different cluter sizes in each one of those partitions with the "/Z:##" switch when formatting where "##" is the actual number you wish to use. That is completely up to you.
That should get you going. If you need any more detailed instructions, I can repost on the topics you don't understand, but I would rather not write out a 600 word reply on the proper way to use FDISK and Format...lol, there are lots of resources on the web that cover that.
Good luck
Jim
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