SATA RAID newb help

[cauzomb]

I'm setting up a sata raid system, specifications are
A64 3400
Foxconn Winfast n48kers? nforce 4 board
memory etc..
2 WD 250gb 300mbps jumpered to 150mbps for the above boards sata raid controller.

Only issue is my video card covers the first two sata plugs, so I'm using the second set of plugs.

After post, the raid bios/post say's "invalid response" from the second set of drives so this might be the root of the problem but in the raid setup it configures the stripe and say's "healthy" and "bootable"

problem I'm having is when booting windows xp setup, xp doesn't recognize the drives as a stripe set, it see's them individually. Even after setting up the onboard raid stripe,... even tried the WD's drive utillity disc to setup a single stripe NTFS partition prior to running the xp boot/setup but the xp setup still see's two drives. Even after loading the raid controller drivers from the diskette while booting the xp setup disc...

I'm not sure if xp sp2 has the same problem as 2000 where you have to setup a single drive, then create the stripe after loading 2000 or if I need to get the 64bit version of xp or whatever.

I also haven't been able to verify that this controller/system supports drives over 130gb but it apears to detect them just fine and reports a stripe set with total size of 500gb so????

I'm all ears at this point.

(edit)~I got the nvidia drivers, I guess the included disk wasn't for my chipset, everythings detecting correctly now..

[knight0334]

Something kinda fishy for sure.

If the striped drive are truly configured, then xp2 should see them as 1 drive.

Did you set a primary boot drive? I usually pic the lower numbered of the two(or more).

Hitting F6 at the beginning to install other drivers by floppy when installing XP?? Got the last version?

Win2K never had that problem that you spoke of unless it was due to specific hardware. I never ever had a problem setting up striped arrays in bios then installing Win95 to XP on them.

[knight0334]

I cant seem to find that mobo model at FoxConn's site.

[cauzomb]

ah, K the mother***** model is NF4K8MC-ERS and according to the manual, my driver diskette isn't showing the correct "nvidia class" raid driver..... Chalk anotherone up to "RTFB" except I did RTFB the first time but I didn't catch the difference in the device driver then, musta been cause it was 1:20AM...

warning, procedural path, not english paragraph...

Started the bios raid config after post configured a stripe set of two 250gb sata's, total size 500gb :YIKES: I'm scared of big hard drives... Setup sata raid boot in bios, booted xp sp2 disc, then pressed f6 durring the first couple of seconds when it said "PRESS f6" for third party drivers, inserted the motherboard raid controller diskette, selected the via sata raid winxp driver listed, tried again, selected via sata raid winxp driver and finally it acted like it loaded the driver from the diskette. After all this it said here's two drives that you can configure to load windows onto, both are listed as
drive 0 at ID 0 on bus 0 on atapi MBR

OK enough of how I tried to install xp,

Same as you KNIGHT, never ever had this problem before.. This is the first time I've had this issue with a raid controller, I've had a couple scsi 80mbps and a couple fasttrack ata's, both worked great with 9x setup then dual boot to xp so, I might do that. I just wanted to have a squeaky fresh install without the 9x stuff, The first time I'm setting up SATA and the first time I'm trying to go directly to windows XP on the SATA RAID. I'm not convinced that this has some solution either, I've read lots of storries where you have to try different drivers and over and over again durring the f6 prompt in order to see one drive, I don't trust windows XP MBR so I might not continue to struggle over XP since it sucks so bad anyway... Might go order me a 64bit 2000 disc.. There's a section in the motherboard manual about setting up windows 2000 on a bootable SATA RAID array. It basically says install both drives, install 2000 on ONE drive, then get it running, install the RAID drivers in windows, configure a stripe using both drives, then reboot, then let the boot process and drive configuratorchingadera stripe the one drive across the two drives etc.... Either that or get sp 4. I'm going to try again with different "nv" raid drivers durring setup.

[knight0334]

ok... my brain hurts..

[cauzomb]

HAHA, yeah I know... so, it's fixed, I got the right sata drivers for the F6 floppy etc.. It's too bad I was so tired that I didn't notice, viasata diskette and viasata drivers didn't match the drivers listed for the raid controller in the mobo manual the first time around...

[cauzomb]

So my drives are showing up correctly when xp gives me the select drive to install os on etc.. The problem is after windows has installed, and restarts, it shows the windows xp startup screen, then restarts. XP does this over and over untill I turn it off... I've tried two versions of the Nforce raid driver prior to installing windows, using the f6 option and a floppy with the raid controller drivers on the floppy... Telling it each time to use the driver on the floppy.. One time I got an 0x0000007B stop error using the raid drivers that came on the motherboard CD, the other time I get contineous reboots using Nvidia's nforce4 download.. Microsoft.com suggests that the stop error is an incompatible or corrupted mass storage controller driver.. I don't want to use an ata disk for the OS...
So, is there anyone out there that has had this problem with the Nf4k8mc-ers motherboard or similar nforce4 board that knows what version sata raid controller driver to put on the floppy for the f6 option while setting up xp?

[knight0334]

The few times I've done any work on NF4 RAID I had to install (2) two sets of drivers - for the chipset and controller at F6. ....my memory is kinda foggy. But if I remember correctly, once I installed one set when prompted it asked me again if I wanted to install another set of drivers. ....which then I pointed it back at the same floppy. I cant remember though what all I had to load. Its been since early last year and the guy had an Abit mobo with (2) Raptors.

I think I had the same problem as you until I realized I had to install both.

[knight0334]

You're loading both of these below right???

[cauzomb]

yeah, both times I select s nvidia class driver, s again, nvidia nforce storage controller, then s again to make sure it's loading the driver from the floppy, in both cases it gives me antoher little prompt that says "use the driver on the floppy" after choosing those for the final time it goes on to install windows and all that, after windows installs on the boot partition it continues like xp setup normally does, asks for the number, admin pwd and all that, then goes for the reboot, boots up then gives me the startup screen "windows xp" or whatever with the annimated bar, then it reboots, then it will just reboot over and over after the xp startup screen... sometimes it will flash a blue screen really fast before rebooting. One time, using the drivers that were on the CD, moved to a floppy, f6 option, then re-installed xp and then I got a stop error 0x0000007B before it could bring up the xp startup screen... I'm going to try new sata power and data cables in a little bit. BTW, I checked the bios and it says it's the latest available from the MFG, and it apears to work correctly until windows is done isntalling. I may have to use the ata drive for the os, but that just sucks..... cause you know... it's got a raid controller and drivers, it should just work! what a pita...