Hi all -
I have a Dell 8400 with 2 160GB SATA RAID1 drives running WinXP Home. The RAID controller is "Intel Application Accelerator" which is enabled in the bios and accessible through the loaded os via start->programs-Intel App Accel. I have no floppy drive.
I backed up my data and am trying to do a clean install of XP pro with a copy from 2002 (SP2 is not part of the install CD - if that matters).
I update the bios to boot from CD and reboot - The install screen starts - gives me the opton to hit F6 to install 3rd party scsi or raid drivers then gets eventually to the license agreement screen (hit F8 to agree). Then I get a message that it cannot find any hard drives.
So - since I don't have a floppy I can't select F6 to install 3rd party raid drivers (although it's a Intel driver so I would think it would have it) I decide to break the mirror and disable raid in the bios.
I get into the raid menu's (CTRL-I) and break the mirror. Go into the bios and change the bios boot sequence because now the hard drives are listed differently. Select the correct boot sequence and the system boots to my XP home OS. I now have a C: and F: drive which are identical.
I now try to install WinXP pro again and again it cannot see my hard drives. Even with raid disabled and the mirror broken.
I now shutdown - go into the bios and select "drives" go to "SATA [something]" and have 4 raid options. Off hand (I'm at work now) I don't recall but they are something like:
1. Autodetect RAID - AHTA (I think AHTA)
2. Autodetect RAID - SATA
3. forget (maybe this option doesn't even exist)
4. Combination SATA-PATA
After trial and error - option 4 (combination) allows WinXP pro to see my 2 SATA hard drives. I select to format the C: drive NTFS (quick). The format completes then it starts to copy file to C:\Windows
After the copy completes it says system will reboot and continue with setup. The system reboots to the CD and it starts from the beginning again. I get to the screen where I previously selected to format the C: drive NTFS quick, but now I have 3 options; 1. format NTFS quick, 2. format NTFS, 3. skip because appears to be formatted already.
I select 3 and then get to a screen where it says that there appears to be an OS already installed in C:\Windows do I want to overwrite.
I cancel out and try to boot to my HD via a change in the bios boot sequence. The system will not boot to my C: drive.
I go back to the bios, boot to CD. Get back to the warning message about an OS already installed and select continue to reinstall.
Now I'm in a endless loop. My machine is a vegatible.
Please help! Sorry for the long post but I didn't want to leave out any details which may unknowingly to me be an important factor.
Thanks.
I have a Dell 8400 with 2 160GB SATA RAID1 drives running WinXP Home. The RAID controller is "Intel Application Accelerator" which is enabled in the bios and accessible through the loaded os via start->programs-Intel App Accel. I have no floppy drive.
I backed up my data and am trying to do a clean install of XP pro with a copy from 2002 (SP2 is not part of the install CD - if that matters).
I update the bios to boot from CD and reboot - The install screen starts - gives me the opton to hit F6 to install 3rd party scsi or raid drivers then gets eventually to the license agreement screen (hit F8 to agree). Then I get a message that it cannot find any hard drives.
So - since I don't have a floppy I can't select F6 to install 3rd party raid drivers (although it's a Intel driver so I would think it would have it) I decide to break the mirror and disable raid in the bios.
I get into the raid menu's (CTRL-I) and break the mirror. Go into the bios and change the bios boot sequence because now the hard drives are listed differently. Select the correct boot sequence and the system boots to my XP home OS. I now have a C: and F: drive which are identical.
I now try to install WinXP pro again and again it cannot see my hard drives. Even with raid disabled and the mirror broken.
I now shutdown - go into the bios and select "drives" go to "SATA [something]" and have 4 raid options. Off hand (I'm at work now) I don't recall but they are something like:
1. Autodetect RAID - AHTA (I think AHTA)
2. Autodetect RAID - SATA
3. forget (maybe this option doesn't even exist)
4. Combination SATA-PATA
After trial and error - option 4 (combination) allows WinXP pro to see my 2 SATA hard drives. I select to format the C: drive NTFS (quick). The format completes then it starts to copy file to C:\Windows
After the copy completes it says system will reboot and continue with setup. The system reboots to the CD and it starts from the beginning again. I get to the screen where I previously selected to format the C: drive NTFS quick, but now I have 3 options; 1. format NTFS quick, 2. format NTFS, 3. skip because appears to be formatted already.
I select 3 and then get to a screen where it says that there appears to be an OS already installed in C:\Windows do I want to overwrite.
I cancel out and try to boot to my HD via a change in the bios boot sequence. The system will not boot to my C: drive.
I go back to the bios, boot to CD. Get back to the warning message about an OS already installed and select continue to reinstall.
Now I'm in a endless loop. My machine is a vegatible.
Please help! Sorry for the long post but I didn't want to leave out any details which may unknowingly to me be an important factor.
Thanks.