Win98 SE won't install properly on RAID configured HDs

[masar1]

I put together this sytem myself. It's a RAID MOBO, MSI K7T266 Pro-RAID. I have 2 60GXP Deskstar 40GB drives hooked up to 1 of the RAID ports: 1 master and the other slave on the same IDE cable. The controller is a Promise Fast-Track. The controller is enabled in the BIOS, and I made a striped array with the drives.

The next step I try to install Win98 SE. The setup begins nicely. It formats drive C: and I then go through all the prompts leading up to the Win OS files to be copied. There are no hangups during the file copy process. The system then restarts, scan disk finds errors. I have it fix them. The computer locks up a few seconds into the loading.
I've tried installing win98 several times. I've tried mirroring the drives and I get the same problem.

The only thing i can think to try is to get another IDE cable and have each drive on it's own port. Anyone heard of this problem that may have an answer or suggestion??

Thanks!!

mitch

FYI:
The other system components are as follows:

Enlight 7230 case w/ enlight 300W PS
Athlon 1.2 266
ATI Radeon 64MB VIVO
Toshiba 16XDVD
Lite-On 12X10X writer

 

[sandorski]

Hmm, don't know for sure, but check the mobo driver cd for a readme for the Promise Controller. It may contain special instructions for installing Win98.

 

[keyed]

Your two drives are on the same cable?

Aren't they supposed to be on separate ide cables so that both drives can be accessed at the same time?

You might try putting each drive on its own ide cable. I don't have much experience with raid, but I thought the whole point of raid was to achieve performance increase by splitting data between 2 or more drives simultaneously. If they're on the same ide cable, only one drive can be accessed at a time.

I could be wrong though.

Hope that helped.

 

[NelsonMuntz]

Yes, definitely put each drive on its own cable. The RAID array will work much better. I don't think this is your problem, but it is a good idea. Did you set up the RAID array in the BIOS? I would suggest that you lowlevel format the two drives and then re-partition and try to reinstall after making sure the array is set up properly.

 

[dhslammer]

EACH DRIVE ON ITS OWN CABLE NOW BEFORE IT EXPLODES!!