SATA drive problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter John
  • Start date Start date
J

John

I have installed two SATA 80 gig HDD's in the striped
configuration, partitioned and set them as primary and
active. Cloned the original IDE drive to the SATA drive
set. Drivers also installed. The mainboard is an ASUS
A7N8X deluxe which has the Sil 3112A RAID chipset on board.

The jumpers are set correctly and according to the Asus
Users Manual no BIOS configuration is necessary. My
problem is that when booting to the original drive it can
see the RAID set and I can access it from the IDE drive,
however, when I attempt to boot from the RAID set
windowsXP starts to boot but stops at the splash screen
and goes no further.

I have tried to install a fresh copy of Windows XP on the
Raid set but it tells me that it can't find any drives and
the install fails.

Please help, what am I missing, besides brain cells, I
can't seem to find any help on the Maxtor or Asus web
sites.

TIA

John
 
John

Apart from brain cells.... ;o)

Because the XP installation you cloned was not on a SATA Raid array you need
to introduce the necessary drivers to enable it to function... it may be
possible to do this via a Repair Install also known as an In-Place Upgrade

How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade (Reinstallation) of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q315341

But you are probably better off performing a full clean installation.

Even with the RAID array set up, ***during*** the fresh installation of XP
you need to introduce the SATARaid drivers supplied by your mainboard
manufacturer. This is also true for any subsequent repair installation (aka
an In-Place Upgrade)

You'll need to have the SATA drivers available on a floppy
disk ready for the install process - you'll find them on your mainboard CD
or manufacturers website.

As the XP set-up begins you will be prompted to 'Press F6 to specify
third-party RAID or SCSI drivers' - at this point you should press F6 and,
when asked, insert the floppy disk with the relevant drivers. Select the
appropriate driver when asked and continue with the setup. There may be
some delays during this process and the set-up may appear to be continuing
without recognising the key-press - so don't panic.

When successful you'll be able to select the HD to install on.
If you are not given the HD you have not completed the procedure
correctly. Check you are using the correct drivers, have any relevant BIOS
updates for your mainboard, and try again.

Hope that helps
Pete
 
Normally, if we do not use the standard IDE ports, we need to "add" a device
driver to the Windows installation procedure. This is does so that Windows
can "detect" the drive(s), be it a physical drive or the RAID virtual drive.

Check to make sure that you need or add a SATA RAID driver or not.

Y.
 
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