Windows XP won't install onto my SATA drives!

[t3h l337 n3wb]

Okay, so I'm at the part where the installer asks you which partition to install Windows XP on. I have 3 drives. 1 is an 80GB IDE, and 2 are 80GB SATA drives in RAID 0. I'm using the Southbridge RAID controller on my MSI Neo4 Platinum nForce4 Ultra board. I can make/delete partitions on the RAID, but when I try to install onto one of the partitions, it says that the partition type is wrong. I tried loading up PartitionMagic and formatting the partition with NTFS, but it still wouldn't work. Then I tried installing it on my IDE drive, and everything worked perfectly? What's the problem here? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[blodhi74]

take a look here .... and if it helps ... thanks MechBgon

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

Yeah, already read it. Still don't know what's wrong... It recognizes the RAID as 160GB (2x80GB), but it says that there is no XP-compible partition on the disk... I tried to make new partitions, but it's not working. Argh...

 

[blodhi74]

PM mech

 

[superfly27]

When I get real desperate, I just use fdisk with a Win98SE startup disk or even the system CD or even the C: prompt. I select delete primary partition and re-create primary partition. You can even clear CMOS and re-do all your BIOS settings.
I don't know. Just some ideas. I never installed SATA though. LOL, that's why I chose a PATA drive.

 

[boomerang]

Well, I've responded to your other thread but you've given more information here.

Download delpart and copy it to a boot floppy. Run delpart at a prompt and delete the partition(s). Do your partitioning from within the XP setup. I have more info on this in your other post.

Fdisk on a Win98 boot floppy is not capable of recognizing NTFS partitions. You will not be able to do anything regarding them using fdisk.

Delpart is available numerous places on the web, but look here. I usually just put it on a 98 boot floppy, but there may be room on an XP boot floppy also.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

I was using Norton PartitionMagic to make/delete partitions. In PartitionMagic, I first tried to make a 25GB NTFS partition, but it said that it "Exceeded the 1024 cylinder limit and could not be bootable". I reduced it to 3.5GB, and then the message went away. I thought that would solve my problems, but it didn't. So in the Windows Installer, I deleted the partition and used the installer to make a new one of the same size. It still displayed the incompatable partition problem... I'll try disconnecting the IDE drive, hopefully that will do something...

 

[boomerang]

Do the delpart thing. I have seen this before and delpart took care of the problem.

For some reason using third party formatting utilities seems to confuse the XP setup.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

YES! I disconnected the IDE drive and Windows let me install on the RAID! Installing as I type now Thanks guys.

 

[boomerang]

Glad you got it going!