Installing XP on a RAID setup...

[}{yBr!D^]

Never really installed any OS on a RAID setup... I've switched the two hard drives that came with my alienware laptop with two new one's so I can use both Vista and XP on seperate drives... put in the two new one's... putthem both on an array, striping... and everything (RAID 0 I believe) and when I tried to install XP Pro it tells me there is either no hard drive or somethings configured wrong. Am I doing something wrong?

 

[Mugsy]

If you boot from the Windows CD, does it see the raid'ed C: drives? Your MoBo requires special drivers, and the BIOS must be set to recognize that you are trying to boot from RAID as drive C:. Check your manual. Also note, not all MoBo's let you boot from RAID (especially older boards).

 

[CCT]

You should obtain a copy of the motherboard manual and read up on Raid creation.

Then ask questions about anything that isn't clear.

 

[CraigMc]

I'm assuming you didn't get an OEM Windows setup CD with your laptop?
Windows XP does not natively support RAID during textmode of the installation, consequently it will not recognise your Harddisk even if it is set up correctly in the BIOS.

There are 3 possible solutions to this

1. Call the manufacturer of your computer and see if they can send you an installation disk, this should have the correct drivers built into it.

2. Download the RAID drivers for your motherboard and copy them to a floppy disk, press F6 during windows setup (when prompted) to load drivers from floppy disk

3. Download the RAID divers for your motherboard, download Nlite and create a slipstreamed installation CD which has the correct drivers built into it.

Nlite is available from: http://www.nliteos.com/

Useful instructions for making unattended/slipstreamed XP CD's: http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

You need to install the RAID drivers for Windows XP to recognize the drives in RAID. Follow the 2nd step posted above my CraigMc since it's the easiest and most reliable way of doing it.