HELP! XP install cannot load RAID driver

[Bolareni]

I've gotten myself into a bit of logjam. Please bear with me as I describe the process, since I hope it'd help locating the cause and solution.

1. I've had my computer working:
Soyo P4S Dragon Ultra MoBo (with built-in Highpoint 372 RAID controller)
1G DDR (total, PC2100 and PC2700, overclocked to 150MHz)
P4 2.4G (overclocked to 2.8G)
XP Pro

2. Then I thought, hey, why not RAID? So I got 4 Maxtor DiamondMax 10 160G ATA133 HDs, set it up (RAID 0+1, simple volume, dynamic partition in XP, and set the primary master disk as bootable in ightpoint Raid bios), partitioned it, formatted it, fired up Norton Ghost to clone my C drive to the nifty zippity RAID. Ghost did its stuff and asked me to reboot. Sure.

3. Missing Operating System. Oh sh*t...

4. I mentally reviewed my options. System recovery disk. Poped it in. Uh, seems like I fried the floppy drive as I was reshuffling all six HDs, two DVDs, and the floppy.

5. No biggie, reinstall. BSOD (SPDDLANG.sys).

6. Maybe I need to install the Raid driver first? OK, reboot, wait for the F6 prompt. Press press. "Press F2 for Automated..." WTF?

So here I am, pressing F6 (with the driver CD in the second DVD drive) does nothing. Yes, keyborad is fine since F2 works in bring up the Automated System Recovery screen.

Another bit of info: My current (well, "former" at this point) C drive has dual boot of XP on C and D, plus the recovery console. Where's D you ask? Another long sad story. Suffice to say here that it ain't there no more.

I may get another floppy drive ($100? $*%&@) to try system recovery. But is it worth the try?

Any other ideas? I'm pretty sure the C drive is still intact. It's just the MBR and boot sector might have been screwed by Ghost.

Many thanks in advance!

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Welcome to TechSpot

So here I am, pressing F6 (with the driver CD in the second DVD drive) does nothing.

It needs a floppy disk, not CD/DVD.

I may get another floppy drive ($100? $*%&@) to try system recovery.

Normal (internal) floppy disk drives should be around $10.

 

[Bolareni]

It needs a floppy disk, not CD/DVD.

F6 cannot use drivers on a CD??

Normal (internal) floppy disk drives should be around $10.

Last one I bought (2 yrs ago) costed me $40. But I just saw CompUSA has one for $10.

Thanks!

 

[tbrunt3]

SATA controller driver

Your Motherboard or SATA controller card requires a driver to work properly. If you did not get a Floppy Disk with the SATA driver included with your Motherboard you will have to make one. The SATA drivers can be located on the installation CD that came with your Motherboard or preferably, download the latest SATA controller drivers from the manufacturers site. Once you have located the drivers copy them to a formatted floppy disk. Make sure they are in the root directory i.e. not contained within any folders.

BIOS settings

When you turn on the PC hit the Delete key when prompted and you will enter the BIOS (Basic Input Output System). Here you set the first boot device to be the CDROM drive, the option is usually found under the Advanced Options section but this depends on your BIOS and you may have to look around for it. Once you have done this save and exit.

Installing the SATA controller driver

Once you have set the PC to boot from the CD make sure the XP CD is in the CD drive and start the installation as per usual. Within the first minute or so of the installation Windows will prompt you to press F6 to install RAID or SCSI drivers, do this. Windows will continue to install then ask you to locate the driver. now with the floppy disk created earlier in drive A: select the driver and hit Enter.

With the SATA drivers installed you can now continue the Windows installation as usual.

BIOS settings revisited

Once Windows has finished installing you will need to make sure the PC is set to boot from the SATA drive. To do this make the first boot device SATA if the option is available. If not you have two options: HD0 - If there are no IDE HDs present, or SCSI if you do plan on running an IDE HD as a secondary device.