. . . may be the culprit. That is, a power supply that isn't giving enough initial current when cold booting. The motors on those hard drives of your's are really big power consumers--especially at start-up, which could explain the boot process screw-up and then normal operation after things start to hum.
An under-powered power supply would be my guess.

Is there any way of checking how many wigglies the PSU is pushing out vice what it should be pushing out?

cheers

BW

. . . is to add up the total wattage of all the components on your system. I notice that you are running scsi 10000/rpm drives. Those babies suck up lots of current--especially at start-up. Depending upon what else you have in that box of yours, you could be talking about 430 watts minimum for a power supply.
What is the wattage rating of your power supply? If you are at 300 watts or below, it's time to upgrade.
Here's something else to consider . . . on two motherboards that I have worked with (your's and an Epox 8KTA3L) I simply couldn't install Maxtor drives (either IDE or SATA) and have Windows XP install itself. When I switched to Seagate SATA drives, the problem disappeared. May be just a quirk of two motherboards . . . but you never know.
If I can make one general, assumption it's that every system has its idosycracies; no two of them are alike. I've assembled systems that were identical in every respect and ran into totally different problems with each.
The problem is--I think--that things are getting much too complicated for the features they offer. I've run into more problems with my last nvidia2 chipset motherboards than I've experienced with ten non-nvidia boards in the past.
The good news is once you get them tweaked and working . . . they are incredible.
Just keep plugging away and you'll eventually come up with a solution to your problem. At least that's the theory.
Good luck.
Jank

[EDIT] Sorry I posted this before I saw the last 4 posts. A PS could be the issue [/EDIT]

That's very odd indeed. I'm wondering if the XP disk thing is what is actually "fixing" it. Because XP doesn't use those drivers until later in the boot process.

When you say "boot falls apart", what do you mean there? Exactly how far DOES it go? Do you get an error? Blank screen?

Secondly, if you hit F4 to enter the RAID config, on a cold boot I guess, what is the status of your array? Does it say whether or not it's functional or "healthy" or does it have an error?
Because here in the RAID setup is where you need to just break the array and have it re-build your data onto just one drive.

To be honest with you, I'm wondering if it's even the RAID that's the problem!

Boot falls apart - various screens with stuff (!) (including a pause with a MAC address showing, also one with Nvidia boot agent or something), always ending up with Disk Boot Failure Insert System Disk.

If hit F4 to enter the RAID config - it says there are no errors and says the array is OK when I try to "fix" it.

I dont think it is the RAID cos after the drivers are loaded using F6 etc it works fine. Maybe it is a PSU problem although the unit is rated at 480W. So dont know what to do - have tried isolating all other pheripherals that use power, still no joy. One thing I could do is have the drives powered on their own cord from the PSU but this is difficult to do without ripping out the guts of the PC and reconfiguring the PSU wiring.

Thanks for your help, any more suggestions?

we might just want to chalk this up to the mystery of nforce chipsets . . . 'cause that's the only thing that a lot of these weird problems have in common (and it's across the board with Epox, Asus and other motherboards as you've probably seen on lots of tech support sights).
So you've done all the regular stuff such as clear CMOS overnight (not just 10 seconds), isolated motherboard from chasis, one stick of ram that you know to be good, bare essentials installed (floppy, one SATA HD, graphics card, CDROM, RAM), tested PSU for correct voltages, newest BIOS flash, etc?
I'm tapped out as far as solutions, otherwise.
It's the nforce chipset curse, I'd reckon.
Please keep us informed if you ever find a cure, OK?

What I don't get is why XP won't save the driver. I don't get why it needs the driver again and again.

What I would do, when you ARE in Windows.
I don't remember you mentioning nForce chipset but if you haven't updated that, this is the Unified driver for XP:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_udp_winxp_5.10

I'm sure you updated the SIL drivers, but make SURE that Device Manager actually shows the new driver, and is not reverting to the old one (because you put the old one back in when you do the F6 thing).
See if Windows will actually get those drivers to stay put. For example, in Device Manager, go to driver details and write down the names and dates there. Then update the driver and restart. If it fails and you have to hit F6 again, keep comparing the driver details and see what XP is doing to them.

Other than that I'd have to be sitting in front of it to find out what the heck is going on!

I believe Windows puts the SATA driver on a "virtual drive" when you hit the F6 key. It's not until the actual file transfer from the XP CD to the HD that the driver is actually installed (that's why you're asked a second time during install to put the Sil 3112/3114 floppy in the drive so that the file can be permanently installed, permitting booting to the SATA drive).
One thing I didn't mention in the last reply: you might want to low level format the drive and check for bad sectors before trying an install. If you can get to an "A" prompt, PowerMax (Maxtor) or Seatools (Seagate) will check out the "health" of the drive and low level format it, too.
What this procedure will also do is remove conflicting "metadata" (drive connection information) from the drive(s) so that you can start from scratch.
Other than this, all I can say is that I have never, ever had an easy time installing Maxtor drives (SATA or IDE) on motherboards with nforce2, ultra 400 chipsets . . . that goes for Asus, Epox, Chaintech and Abit MB's. Seagate drives, especially SATA drives, don't seem to mind nforce chips as much as drives from other manufacturers.
Hope this helps.

Vigilante and Jank

I'm using the latest drivers for the F6 thing and when I go to "update driver" within windows it wont allow it as its says the one's installed are the most current. I will try a drive diagnostic tool as I havent done that yet - might be nice to get rid of any conflicting metadata. I will also update the nvidia chipset. Then we'll see if any of that works! I'll let you know.

cheers

BW

p.s. Vigilante - notice you are in AZ - I'm only in Nevada if you want to come and have a look next time you head west!

When updating the nvidia drivers, play special attention to the IDE driver. Some folks are having trouble with playing music on CDs with the driver that comes with this bundle. If you experience problems, go with previous version of this IDE driver (they are available on the XP disk when you manually install IDE drivers).
Good luck.

I know it's been a while since you started this thread, but I hope you're still keen on the idea of getting it fixed. Don't give up!

I'm still curious on the XP CD and F6 thing. I take it you are NOT actually loading Windows, or doing a repair install, or anything like that. I assume after it asks for the disk with the drivers, you just exit setup?

I don't remember but did you try a soft reboot when it fails? Like when the boot falls apart, just hit ctrl-alt-del to have it restart and it still fails?
Have you mentioned what your RAID is yet? A stripe or a mirror? Can you just screw the array and put just your one drive in there by itself?
You might also try resetting the BIOS to defaults in case there is a setting related to SATA or RAID that is interferring.
Make sure your boot order actually has the proper SATA drive in the list in CMOS.
For fun you may look at all the CMOS settings just in case something pops out at you.

It's coming down to the process of elimination. Try just one HDD, reset BIOS, check settings. Trim the system down.

Also, relating to drivers. The disk you use when you press F6, is that the original motherboard driver? Or a new nForce or SIL driver? You might create a floppy with the new SIL driver and see if XP will retain and use that.

As a last resort, check your Windows updates, on the chance that MS put out a driver they support better, and maybe that driver will work properly.

Oh, and I rarely ever leave the state. Matter of fact, I rarely leave anywhere besides my home and office

keep kickin'

I am very keen on getting it fixed !

To answer some of your questions:

HDDs are 2 120 gig Seagate Barracudas operating at 7200 rpm on a RAID 0 array ie Striped (?).

When I do the procedure I exit the setup after loading the RAID drivers ie I dont do a repair install (although I did do a couple earlier on when the problem first appeared)

Boot order is OK. Will try a BIOS default setting to see if that works but doubt it. Had a look through CMOS jumper settings last night but nothing was amiss - also look at all BIOS setting and they seemed OK. Don't want to just use 1 drive as this will mean I lose 18 months worth of stuff. I may do this in June when I get some free time so I can back all the importatnt stuff up on CD but for now I want to keep running both drives as RAID 0.

I think it may be PSU related however did an online Seagate Scan last night - said the drives had errors but they had no fix. Could not find CHKDSK within Windows (where is it?). Also is there a setting in the BIOS that allows some time between POST and boot ? maybe the drives are not spinning up quickly enough during boot up for the system to see them after the POST on a cold start, maybe indicative of a PSU problem.

Any thoughts ??

cheers

BW

The Seagate online HD check said there was something wrong with the drive(s) but can't fix it? That makes sense because you have to be in DOS in order to fix bad sectors (which sounds like the problem with your disk(s)(they can be detected in Windows, however).
Download Seatools from the Seagate site and follow the instructions for troubleshooting your drives. This tool can check each drive individually, detect bad sectors and then overwrite the sectors (so they are not detectable by your OS--at least that's the theory ).
I once had a system that refused to install XP because there were so many bad sectors on the drive. Overwriting the bad sectors enabled me to install the OS, but the drive kept on accumulating the sectors and eventually I had to dump it.
One word of caution about using Seatools . . . If you check the option to repair the sectors, some or all of those bad puppies may be holding onto some of your files. But I've never had a problem ending up with missing or corrupted files after repairing the sectors (since they were bad, anyway).
My opinion is that you have unstable voltage problems in the PS, possibly caused by a defective capacitor or two. Can you detect a slight whistling noise from your power supply? That would indicated a bad capacitor.
Got access to a known-good power supply of at least 350 watts? Try swapping.

I did download Seatools but the second floppy didnt work. I didnt have time to go through it again and download to a different floppy but I will later. Will also listen to the PSU to see if there is any whistling. Cheers.

Ya if you have it set to RAID 0 then it is stripping, which means if one drive goes, your data is caput. The only way to save your data, AND break the RAID, is if you have enough free space on one drive for all your data to be recompiled to. That is if you were to take the RAID off and remove a drive.

Hard drive checking tools, I'm not sure, may or may not have trouble checking the drives within a RAID setup. For example on a mirror, you're not even supposed to SEE the second drive, let alone scan it. And a stripped set you're only supposed to see ONE drive as well. So I don't know if that would effect the results of a hard drive checker or not. What would seem to be a "fix" of a "problem" may only be the tools not reading the drives properly. Again, I don't know.

And also, if your "18 months" of data is that important to you, note that you are NOT on a redundant array. If either drive crashes your data is gone! RAID 1 would be your choice for important data, which is a mirror. Data stripping would not help you in the case of an emergency!

cheers

. . . you fire it up and it detects each drive in the system whether they are IDE or SATA--no matter what RAID setup is invoked. One can work with one drive at a time. Also, if you happen to have, say, a Maxtor IDE drive hooked up in addition to Seagate SATA drives, it will diagnose and fix bad sectors on that drive, too. Checking for bad sectors and fixing them is a two part process invoked by the user--you don't have to fix them if you don't want to.
If there isn't a Seagate drive in the computer, Seatool will refuse to work, however. Same goes for Maxtor's PowerMax utility--it will check all drives in the system as long as one of them is a Maxtor.
Each of these utilities is much more "powerful" than ChkDsk in that they are capable of overwriting bad sectors, making them "invisible" to an operating system.
I've found that these utilities work well except when the HD continues to produce bad sectors. Then it's time for a new hard disk.

After flashing the BIOS did you go back through the BIOS and adjust everything back to where it should be for your setup?

Reviewing what has been tried so far, I see that nobody has mentioned the serial ATA jumper on the motherboard (on your motherboard it's located at about the 5 o'clock position next to the battery). Is it in the default position (pins 1 and 2 jumpered)?

Merc 14 - yes
Jank - Yes

Sorry to be blunt but all is as it should be, it just dont work

What a weird problem man.

To simplify this as much as possible, would this statement be correct:

"XP can't start, because it doesn't have the RAID driver loaded"
"Once the RAID driver is loaded (F6), Windows works fine"

Right?

If so, then all hardware aside, this would seem to be a software only issue. Coming down to a driver problem in XP.
I'm afraid my only suggestion at this point would be to reload Windows. Only because that BIOS upgrade could have changed the system layout just enough to where XP couldn't adjust. And a full reload with all new proper drivers, may be the solution.

Seems to me, XP simply refuses to retain the proper driver once you load it with XP setup. Which means perhaps the registry is being restored? Or permissions for it are wrong? Or Windows thinks it has a bad file and replaces it with an older one?

This can't be verified however, because you can't get into Windows without loading the right driver, so we won't know what driver XP is trying to load with on a cold boot.

I'm still trying to figure this one out.