Hi everyone from a new member!

I am struggling to set up my first SATA Raid 0 array.

I am using 2 x 120GB Maxtor SATA drives on an Abit IC7 mobo. The only other drive installed is an LG Tri Format DVD Writer.

Whenever I enable Raid in the bios I can not boot from the SATA drives. If I set the SATA drives to normal IDE mode I can boot normally.

In Raid mode, I have set up the Raid array in the SATA raid bios and started to install Windows XP. Windows installs all files onto the SATA Raid drives then attempts to reboot but can't find the hard drive!

I know that I am probably overlooking something very simple but hours of research and trial and error have not helped!

Please help me before I go totally Bald!
SATA Raid Chipset is Intel ICH5R

Two things for when you're trying to install your OS (Windows) onto a raid array:

1) Some raid controllers require you to push a key (F10 or similar) during their startup every time you boot until you've installed the Windows drivers. May or may not apply to you; see the manual for your raid chipset.

2) Early on during the install from CD, 2k/XP will display for a few seconds:
"Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver"
This applies to you. Push F6, and give it the windows driver for your raid chipset on floppy or CD.

Start your Windows install again from scratch following the above (first ensuring that you're using the raid mode that you want) and all should be well.

It is always good practice to have the OS on a separate non-raided drive. That way you install the OS without having to install any drivers. Once the OS is up & running, you install the drivers for your RAID card & at the next reboot, your raided volume is now available.

Thankyou for your replys. I will try pressing F10 however my manual doesn't mention this.

As far as installing the OS on a separate drive, in future I will do this when a customer requires SATA Raid (Most customers want thus because they are editing large Video files)

The problem is more complex than simply hitting F6, and involves both HD and other (e.g., NVidia) RAID drivers. The world seems to be trying different things, and sites like this one are ahead of the OEMs. Here are two links to investigate. Sorry not more help.
http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion...hp?t11449.html

http://www.msfn.org/board/Integratio...04#entry352404