nForce 4 NF4 RAID solution (install windows with nforce 4 RAID drivers)

Comments

• TheBaron Austin, TX

  May 2005 edited May 2005

  MediaMan wrote:

  If you are setting up a RAID 0 or RAID 1 array then you should only see ONE drive when windows stops and asks you to create a partition and format a drive.
  
  This is where things can fall apart for some...including myself. It has been reported that no matter what combination, be it either or both drivers at the F6 command...two drives appear when there should be one.
  
  This is wrong if you only have two drives connected and want a RAID 0 or RAID 1 setup. RAID 0 or 1 combines the drives and only one virtual drive should be shown.
  
  I've tried umpteen combinations to get around this and here is what I've found as a possible solution.
  
  Install and connect ONE DRIVE ONLY. Allegedly you don't even need the sata floppy drivers for this and it worked for me. Just put your windows install disk in the drive and reboot the machine. Go into nVIDIA BIOS and set it as RAID 0 (Striping). This will allow windows to see the single drive and you can install the OS. No need to press F6.
  
  Once windows is up and running then you can install the standalone kit drivers and the NVRAID tool.
  
  Connect your second drive and reboot the PC.
  
  Once you are at desktop then you can use the NVRAID tool to detect the secondary drive and then create a RAID array at the desktop level. It takes quite a while depending on how large your drive is to build a new array but, allegedly, data will not be lost. I began the process and it seemed to work but I had to leave the machine chewing on rebuilding the new array as I had to go to work.

  
  This is not at all the experience my friend and I had when using NVRaid on a NF4 Lanparty UT. we found that when windows detects hard drives it correctly detects the raid array, but if an additional IDE drive is detected it deemed it necessary to put the boot sector on that drive, regardless of which drive was set first in the HDD boot order.
  
  the solution? boot up without any extra backup/data drives connected and do the install that way, then plug the drives in later. or, what we ended up doing (because we were far too lazy to go back and reinstall) was to set our extra IDE drive as the primary boot device (even though our windows install was on our SATA RAID) and let windows sort everything out

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• MediaMan Powered by loose parts.

  May 2005 edited May 2005

  Interesting...I assume that the DFI board has a choice between RAID and ATA HDD (regular SATA or EIDE HDD) in the boot order...while the Gigabyte board only has HDD.

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• TheBaron Austin, TX

  May 2005 edited May 2005

  it lets you choose the boot order of the HDD devices that it detects, but will automatically place PATA over SATA

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• MediaMan Powered by loose parts.

  May 2005 edited May 2005

  TheBaron,
  
  Did you install WindowsXP to a RAID 0 array successfully or did you migrate using the NVRAID GUI tool from a single OS disk to RAID 0?

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• Mt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian

  May 2005 edited May 2005

  When in bios SATA 3=1 on the board and SATA 4=2 on the board and vice versa. When I set mine up I simply disabled the ones not being used for the XP install and enabled them after it was done.

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• TheBaron Austin, TX

  May 2005 edited May 2005

  MediaMan wrote:

  TheBaron,
  
  Did you install WindowsXP to a RAID 0 array successfully or did you migrate using the NVRAID GUI tool from a single OS disk to RAID 0?

  simply installed straight to the raid array, windows read it as one device. as to which version of the drivers we were using -- whichever came with the lanparty board
  
  interestingly enough, the nvraid setup said we would need to do something with the device in windows in the administrator console (im too lazy to look at what this is) but we didn't seem to have any issues whatsoever (other than the boot sector being on an ide drive... hell, maybe this is another secret solution to your problem...)

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• MediaMan Powered by loose parts.

  May 2005 edited May 2005

  Actually...yes.
  
  I'm watching the secret solution progress as I type. Hold on and I'll update my post above with a successful solution.

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• Spinner Birmingham, UK

  May 2005 edited May 2005

  MediaMan wrote:

  Actually...yes.
  
  I'm watching the secret solution progress as I type. Hold on and I'll update my post above with a successful solution.

  That info will prove very usefull mate. I can already hear all of those suffering nForce 4 users hurtling towards this thread.;)
  
  Thanks for your efforts. You should pop into Storage and Controllers more often.

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• pfilippone

  June 2005 edited June 2005

  I found a super easy solution to my RAID install dilemma. I'm sharing this info in the hope that it might help others.
  
  The problem: XP install was seeing two individual hard disks instead of the single RAID array I set up in BIOS and RAID setup (F10)
  
  BTW I have Nforce4 Ultra SATA2 RAID on the Abit Fatal1ty AN8 motherboard.
  Although the hardware is fast and good quality, their documentation is lacking a bit. Anyway, I found the answer online.
  
  The trick is to install both the "NVIDIA RAID CLASS DRIVER" and the
  "NVIDIA NForce Storage Controller" (in that order)
  You do this by pressing F6 during initial XP install, and using the supplied floppy disk.

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• JannPadley

  July 2005 edited July 2005

  pfilippone wrote:

  The trick is to install both the "NVIDIA RAID CLASS DRIVER" and the "NVIDIA NForce Storage Controller" (in that order). You do this by pressing F6 during initial XP install, and using the supplied floppy disk.

  
  Yes, this makes the two drives appear correctly as one, BUT, in some cases XP then goes on to fail to install the NForce4 RAID driver from the floppy. For example, on my Asus A8N-E motherboard with two SATA drives, XP allows me to specify the drivers, format the (single, RAID1) drive with NTFS, copies files, then fails to copy nvraid.sys (or any of the other NForce4 RAID driver files) from the floppy. I believe this will be solved by MediaMan's patch for txtsetup.oem.
  
  By the way, during the course of the eight hours I have spent on this problem I also discovered that:
  i) It appears to make little difference which version of the NForce4 IDE drivers you use (but I am going to try MediaMan's linked download first).
  ii) Strangely I had no problem with an older copy of XPSP1 Professional. It might only be a problem of Windows XPSP2? NVidia warn that you must use at least XPSP1.
  
  Thanks for the excellent thread.

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• pfilippone

  July 2005 edited July 2005

  JannPadley wrote:

  ... BUT, in some cases XP then goes on to fail to install the NForce4 RAID driver from the floppy....

  
  Hmmm... Now that I think of it, I first tried setting up my 2 disks as a RAID1 mirrored array but that failed. Perhaps it was the same error you were getting. But then I tried setting it up as a RAID0 striped array, and that worked. At that point I decided to go for the performance boost and size increase instead of the redundancy. Of course if I bought two more hard disks of the same kind, I could setup a RAID0+1 mirrored and striped array, which would give me the best of both options. For now I'll just have to do backups to protect myself.

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• JannPadley

  July 2005 edited July 2005

  Follow-up:
  I'm afraid your txtsetup.oem patch didn't work for me MediaMan.
  
  But the solution MediaMan actually employed (install to RAID0, Striping) worked for me too. Actually, I had both disks installed and enabled for RAID, but just created a RAID0 (Striping) array with the first disk, and installed XP onto that. XP could see the second disk but didn't seem to mind. Once XP was running I installed the nVidia nForce4 Standalone Kit linked by MediaMan above, added the spare disk to the RAID0 (Striping) array, and converted the array to RAID1 (Mirroring). I left it overnight so I don't really care how long it took.
  
  I'm sure there are several variations that will work fine. Also, take a look at these manuals which make a lot of sense now:
  
  Here are nVidia instructions on how to install W2K on bootable nVidia RAID, but I suspect they will work for all versions of XP aswell:
  http://www.epox.cn/downloadfile/ftp/W2k_Marphing_step_by_step.pdf
  
  Here are two more manuals that mention the same limitation on W2K (the fact that you have to use the desktop software to convert the array from RAID0 to RAID1 after installation of the OS) along with some other useful and interesting information on nForce, SATA, RAID etc:
  http://www.foxconnchannel.com/pdf/NFPIK8AA-Raid_manual-V1.0.pdf
  http://asia.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/FileList/Manual/manual_sata_raid_os_nforce3_e.pdf
  
  So, pfilippone, you can convert your RAID0 array to a RAID1 array using the desktop software if you can bear to halve your disk space and take a performance hit!

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• JPetz San Diego

  July 2005 edited July 2005

  My problem is a little different, I'm using the NF4 NVidia SATA 2 RAID controllers, but I'm just trying to replace my old boot drive (250G Maxtor SATA type 1) with a newer 250G Western Digital SATA 2. It's a Gigabyte K8N Ultra SLI motherboard and I have turned off the RAID function of the NVidia controller. This means that the new drive is recognized on the first page of the boot up, rather than by the (F10) Raid BIOS.
  
  The old drive boots fine to XP and everything works. I cloned it to the new WD drive using GHOST 9 and it gave no errors. When I configure the system to boot off the new drive, it boots fine, but DEVICE MANAGER will NOT appear no matter what I try. I also can't run Computer Management or Add/Remove Windows features.
  
  I can get the old drive to still boot if I change the boot order, and all these features work. But if I boot off the new drive, Windows is hobbled. I've actually used two other utilities besides GHOST to copy the Maxtor drive to WD, but they all result in the same nonsense. I've also been unsuccessful trying to just install XP onto the new disk after deleting its partiions. XP setup says I have no hard disks though I didn't try the "slipstream" method.
  
  Could this be an activation problem, i.e., Microsoft thinks my license isn't valid?
  
  BTW, thanks for the explanation of the Gigabyte SATA BIOS settings, the manual makes no sense whatsoever.

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• JannPadley

  July 2005 edited July 2005

  JPetz, I hope I am not teaching grandma to suck eggs, but my first thought is drive letters. Windows XP really doesn't like having its drive letter changed, but even worse, it sometimes goes belly up just because it detects another installation of XP somewhere in the system and starts trying to use bits of it.
  If you booted up your new Windows XP disk for the first time with the same disk hardware configuration as when you copied it (I imagine the Maxtor on say SATA channel 1 and the WD on channel 2) then the damage may already have been done. To test this, remove the Maxtor from the machine. Does Windows XP on the WD still boot up? What is the system drive letter? If it is not C:, you are better off starting again. Just an idea...
  If XP cannot see drives that are just standard, empty SATA disks (not enabled for RAID), then it has a more serious and lower level problem than activation. Almost sounds like a hardware fault... Why don't you disable the RAID and remove the Maxtor for the moment to avoid confusion?

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• JPetz San Diego

  July 2005 edited July 2005

  Yea, one of the things I noticed about Windows is that drive letters seem to be associated with a specific drive, so if you clone it, the Windows Registry entries that used to apply to the old drive seem to get ignored.
  
  It is possible that the working system when booting off the Maxtor drive is actually using something on one of the other two drives (another Maxtor SATA 200G drive) or a 120G IDE drive) -- using one of them for some XP files.
  
  But your post gives me a couple ideas. First, try and see what happens if I try to run the computer with just the Maxtor drive connected. Will it boot? If it does boot, there will be lots of missing shortcuts, etc., but will Device Manager and Admin Tools work?
  
  But what I will try first is to swap the drive connections between the Maxtor and WD SATA drives instead of just changing the boot order in the BIOS. When it works properly, the boot order is as follows:
  1. Maxtor 250G SATA on NVidia #1 (drive letters C and D)
  2. Maxtor 200G SATA on SI 3114 #1 (drive letter E)
  3. 120G IDE drive (drive letter F - it once had Windows XP on it)
  4. WD 250G SATA 2 on NVidia #2 (drive letter G and H, if I have it connected)
  
  When I swap 1 & 4 in the boot order, Windows boots, but stuff doesn't work
  
  So I'll try not just swapping 1 & 4 in boot order but also swapping the connections on K8N Ultra SLI. Also, eliminating some of the other disks.
  
  J Petz

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• JannPadley

  July 2005 edited July 2005

  The drive letters are associated with volumes (things can potentially be used as drives) in the registry at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
  On a simple system, with a standard C: (Hard Disk), D: (Optical), E: (Card/USB etc), it is USUALLY safe to blow away the contents of this registry key and the NT-based OS will rebuild it at next boot. This can sometimes help with drive letter problems. However, if your NT-based OS gets this wrong while booting (like if the system drive is E: instead of C:), you will not be able to log on, and you will have to put the OS registry under the knife (as a second disk in another NT-based OS, manually loading the hive and replacing the contents of the key from your backup - you did make a backup didn't you?). You get the picture.
  
  JPetz, with the number of disks and drives you have there is plenty of scope for confusion. I narrowly witheld this suggestion in my last post: You could search the entire registry for C:\, D:\, E:\ etc. If you don't care about install paths for CDs, and you know where your data is, you can just change everything to point at your system drive (usually C:\). If anyone is going to try anything like this, you must know what you are doing or (and) be prepared to lose the OS (carefully backup anything that you want to keep).
  
  One last point - we are probably in totally the wrong thread here. The actual fault (failure of device manager and admin tools) clearly appears to be something wrong with the cloned copies of XP, but might be nothing to do with disks and drives...
  
  Other random suggestions:
  Run SFC /SCANNOW from the command line.
  Make sure your system is scrupulously free of nasties.
  
  Good luck.

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• Gobbles Ventura California

  July 2005 edited July 2005

  Two drives showing instead of 1 was a common problem with older promise controllers. Especially when using a imaging utility.

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• JPetz San Diego

  July 2005 edited July 2005

  JannPadley wrote:

  The drive letters are associated with volumes (things can potentially be used as drives) in the registry at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
  On a simple system, with a standard C: (Hard Disk), D: (Optical), E: (Card/USB etc), it is USUALLY safe to blow away the contents of this registry key and the NT-based OS will rebuild it at next boot. This can sometimes help with drive letter problems. However, if your NT-based OS gets this wrong while booting (like if the system drive is E: instead of C:), you will not be able to log on, and you will have to put the OS registry under the knife (as a second disk in another NT-based OS, manually loading the hive and replacing the contents of the key from your backup - you did make a backup didn't you?). You get the picture.
  
  JPetz, with the number of disks and drives you have there is plenty of scope for confusion. I narrowly witheld this suggestion in my last post: You could search the entire registry for C:\, D:\, E:\ etc. If you don't care about install paths for CDs, and you know where your data is, you can just change everything to point at your system drive (usually C:\). If anyone is going to try anything like this, you must know what you are doing or (and) be prepared to lose the OS (carefully backup anything that you want to keep).
  
  One last point - we are probably in totally the wrong thread here. The actual fault (failure of device manager and admin tools) clearly appears to be something wrong with the cloned copies of XP, but might be nothing to do with disks and drives...
  
  Other random suggestions:
  Run SFC /SCANNOW from the command line.
  Make sure your system is scrupulously free of nasties.
  
  Good luck.

  
  Jann, I've pretty much given up cloning the disk anyway because the original disk got somewhat messed up when I left it connected rebooting from the new disk. So now I tried just installing XP SP2 afresh, and the damn thing fails halfway thru. I disabled NVidia RAID support in the BIOS, since I don't expect to use RAID. That lets XP install see the disk as an IDE. It goes through the first part of install and then reboots. Shortly after that the install fails trying to copy IEXPLORE.EX_. But the file open window clearly shows that the file is right there on the CD. I even put it on a floppy and it still won't copy it. So I conclude that the NVidia drivers are NECESSARY even if RAID is disabled in the BIOS. Possibly this is because I really, truly have an SATA 2 disk, and I read someplace that SATA 2 features cannot work using the BIOS's SATA-->IDE conversion.
  
  So, I tried installing XP on this disk but connected it to an older NForce3 150 motherboard (Shuttle AN50R). In that case, there is no BIOS-level SATA-->IDE translation, so I F6'd the Si3112 drivers from floppy at the beginning of install. I let the system reboot off the HD, and the same damn thing happens in a few minutes -- it can't copy IEXPLORE.EX_!
  
  So I figure, the disk must be bad -- two motherboards, neither can install XP. But, no, it passes the DLGDIAG tests with flying colors (floppy version). Another thought occurred to me, that when the system reboots after the initial file copy, but before XP is really "installed," that I need to boot off the CD instead of the HD, and use F6 to load the NVidia drivers (both, I suppose).
  
  Searching for answers, I've read that you NEED to have the drivers loaded to get SATA 2 improved queueing working anyways. So a better option is to give up on keeping the NVidia RAID BIOS disabled. So how do I do it? If I re-enable the F10 BIOS, it will just complain that it can't to RAID with one disk. JBOD is not an option in the NVidia RAID BIOS. And from the top of this long thread, it appears that the drivers can't even be loaded from floppy anyway.
  
  PS - sorry I never saw your post until today.

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• JannPadley

  July 2005 edited July 2005

  Hi JPetz,
  i) I have seen similar errors to your IEXPLORE.EX_ problem. I suspect that the Windows XP you are using is corrupt and will do this on any system (or maybe the CD itself is ropey). You can ignore it and carry on, but of course if XP installed you would have to repair the damage caused by the missing files.
  
  ii) I have successfully done all of the following with Asus A8N-E and Maxtor disks;
  a) Installed XP to a disk on a SATA channel, with all RAID BIOS functions disabled.
  b) Installed XP to a disk on a SATA channel, with the RAID BIOS Enabled but no disks enabled for RAID.
  c) Installed XP to a disk on a SATA channel enabled for RAID and configured as a RAID0 array.
  d) Assigned a disk containing existing XP installation to a RAID0 array:
  Install XP as in (ii)(a) or (ii)(b) (whichever works for you - (ii)(a) is probably safest course)
  Install the Windows XP/2000 - nForce4 Standalone Kit (6.53) from http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_nf4_winxp2k_6.53.
  Reboot and enter the BIOS. Enable the RAID function. Boot XP to ensure PnP recognition.
  Reboot and enter the BIOS. Enable RAID for the SATA channel containing the XP installation, and any other channels that you want to include in RAID arrays. Enter the RAID BIOS and configure the disk containing the XP installation as a RAID0 array.
  Boot XP and use the nVidia RAID Manager for Windows to convert the RAID0 array containing the XP installation to a RAID1 array or whatever you want.
  e) Converted a RAID0 array containing an XP installation to a RAID1 array:
  Install the Windows XP/2000 - nForce4 Standalone Kit (6.53) from http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_nf4_winxp2k_6.53.
  Reboot and enter the BIOS. Enable RAID for any channels that you want to include in RAID arrays.
  Boot XP and use the nVidia RAID Manager for Windows to convert the RAID0 array containing the XP installation to a RAID1 array or whatever you want.
  
  Have you tried (ii)(a), (ii)(b) and (ii)(c)?
  What are the results?
  What is the error you mention: "If I re-enable the F10 BIOS, it will just complain that it can't [install] to RAID with one disk."?

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• javs1979

  September 2005 edited September 2005

  Hi guys,
  
  I'm new to this forum and my english might suck, so be gentle with me ;-)
  
  I just bought a computer with a friend of mine with a RAID 0 configuration (two 80 GB Seagate SATA drives) and it seems that the normal installation procedure is not working at all (F6 in the XP installation process isn't working, copying the driver files at first boot isn't working either, using a slipstream version of XP with the RAID driver files isn't working, nothing works !).
  
  So I found this thread using Google and I decided to try to install RAID at the desktop level. So I...
  
  - Enabled RAID in the BIOS for a SINGLE DRIVE then installed XP then installed the standalone drivers
  - Reboot, enabled RAID in the BIOS for my SECOND DRIVE then restarted XP. At this point the NVIDIA STRIPE has an error but I still manage to start Windows XP.
  - I installed the NVRAID tool in Windows XP to modify the RAID array by adding the second drive to the first one then I started the conversion process, which took about an hour)
  
  Then I said GREAT, now it's working !
  
  - Right before booting, my one and only NVIDIA STRIPE is fine (149.06 GB, healthy)
  - My device manager only sees the NVIDIA STRIPE (still at 149.06 GB) as a single hard drive
  - Before modifying my RAID Array I used to see two drives, now I see only one.
  - Even better ! The booting process is faster than it used to be with a single drive plugged in.
  
  ...
  
  BUT (there is always a « but ») the drive properties windows tells me the total disk space is ONLY 80 GB.
  
  What the hell is going on ? Have I done something wrong or Windows isn't able to recognize a RAID array that has been created at the desktop level ? Should I have formatted the SECOND hard drive BEFORE starting the conversion process ?
  
  There is one thing I didn't try though : starting the hard drive manager in Windows XP to see if there are two drives used for the RAID Array.
  
  It's weird that the whole thing worked well but Windows can't see the real total hard drive space used by the RAID Array.
  
  Please help, I'm starting to go nuts with this mess. Thanks ! ;-)
  
  - UPDATE ! -
  
  After several tries, I finally managed to install RAID 0 without a hiccup on my Asus A8N-E. How ? Simple. I :
  
  - Updated my BIOS to the latest version (1009.001, September 13th 2005 release)
  
  - Re-created my RAID array using the F10 utility
  
  - Installed Windows XP using a special unattented install CD (the details are described here). Take note that I used the first method and I made sure that ACPI was enabled in the BIOS. Also, when you are updating the WINNT.SIF file, make sure that you insert all the necessary lines. The missing lines are described here.
  
  And that's the end of it. My RAID 0 array is working fine now.
  
  I dunno if using a floppy disk instead of an unattended install CD would've been better but my method (or MSFN's) worked fine.
  
  I'm willing to share my experience with anyone having problems with RAID on nForce4-based motherboards

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• stakenyf

  September 2005 edited September 2005

  Hi javs1979. I'm new to this forum. I stumbled upon this thread by googling info on RAID for Nforce 4.
  
  Now that you're confident that your RAID array is working properly, perhaps you can tell me if mine is. he he. I know this osunds kind of silly but I'm not sure it is or not.
  
  I have a nf4 motherboard and here's what I did:
  - I enabled RAID in Bios and enabled the 2 and only (SATA) drives in my system for RAID.
  -Rebooted and then went into the RAID utility by pressing F10 during post.
  -I selected Striping (RAID 0) for RAID type, Optimal for unit size, then added my 2 drives to the array in the right pane.
  -I cleared the data and extited
  -Back in the pevious window I could see my RAID array. I opted to to set it for BOOT just yet.
  
  -I exited and rebooted witht he windows install cd. At the prompt I hit F6 and installed the NVIDIA RAID and RAID controller support from the floppy disk.
  
  -When I got to the part when the Window installer asks you which drive you want to install windows to I could see just a single drive equaling my 2 drives in size listed there. I created a small partition big enough for the OS and then some (around 5 GB) and left the remainder unpartitioned.
  
  -Windows installer formatted the partition in NTFS and proceeded with the installation of Wndows as usual, sometimes picking at the floppy disk drive.
  
  -At Reboot, I'm in Windows, I go into the Computer management in the admin tools,
  clicked on storage and saw my C drive in which I installed Windows and the unpartitioned portion of the rest of my array. I selected this and created a new NTFS partition with 16k unit allocation size. ( I read somewhere this was the optimal size for this but I'm not sure that I did the right thing there.)
  
  -So here I am now. I've got 2 partitions. Windows is running fine. When I reboot my RAID array reads healthy but I can't tell weather I'm running a proper RAID array or not.
  
  Can you?

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• profdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio

  September 2005 edited September 2005

  stakenyf wrote:

  ...I can't tell whether I'm running a proper RAID array or not.
  
  Can you?

  If you're seeing the two drives show up as one drive (approximately double-sized) then it sounds like you've got it.
  
  You might try running the ATTO HD Benchmark and post the results in a new thread in the Benchmarking Forum. You'll likely get a few hints for tweaking things even more.

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• javs1979

  September 2005 edited September 2005

  Hi stakenyf,
  
  Sorry for the delay
  
  Well, I'd say this : if the admin tools see that you have two distinct and equally-sized drives, you're boned.
  
  Windows must see your two drives as if they were one and only one (no unallocated space, no unformatted partition, no nothing) because you told your hardware, at the BIOS level, that your drives are meant to function as is. In your case, you wanted two distinct partitions but that's a different matter. The partitions are physically located in the same RAID array.
  
  Otherwise, everything should be fine.
  
  You should run HD Tach once, to see the benefits of your RAID configuration...
  
  Hope this helps.
  
  Have fun !

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• Spicy

  December 2005 edited December 2005

  need help on my raid setup enabel raid in bios and did the setup and did raid 0 i got that working and went ahead to install windows so i F6 and install NVIDIA RAID CLASS DRIVER and NVIDIA NForce Storage Controller and after that it went into setup screen showing one hard drive so i formated and installed windows boot once finish when trying to boot after the windows logo it will go into a boot loop and now im ???stumped?? on what to do need help

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• javs1979

  December 2005 edited December 2005

  Hey Spicy,
  
  If I were you I'd consider updating my BIOS to the latest version before doing anything else.
  
  When I was trying to setup my RAID configuration I told myself this is the last thing I'd do but I was wrong.
  
  Update your BIOS, enable everything that is RAID-related in it THEN install the latest RAID drivers using a customized, slipstream version of Windows XP (never tried using a floppy though). That's what I did and it worked just fine.
  
  Hope this helps

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• Enverex Worcester, UK Icrontian

  May 2006 edited May 2006

  Ok this just flat out doesn't work for me. It has the same issue that trying to do it any other way has. It detects my array, lets me pick that drive to use, I tell it to install Windows and just before it begins copying the installation files, it just asks me to insert the NVIDIA RAID (SCSI) disk or whatever it's called, despite the disk already being in the drive, and if I may add it doesn't even check the drive if I put another disk in anyway.

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• alby

  May 2006 edited May 2006

  hi
  
  i recently bought an asus a8n32 sli delux mb and am trying to raid 0 using 2x 74gb raptors
  
  i have tried everyting suggested here including single disk raid install, slipstreaming with drivers etc but nothing works
  
  windows sticks at 'windows is starting screen' and give errror message 0x0000007b. so i cant even get to the stage of formatting my drives.
  
  everything works fine if i disable nforce raid or use silicon image raid for 1 drive
  
  are the drivers in this guide compatable with my mobo? and if not how can i slipstream them into my setup disk
  
  many thanks

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• SVBorg

  May 2006 edited May 2006

  My problem is even more tricky
  
  I have 2 Maxtor 300Gb SATA 2 Drives
  Abit Fatal1ty AN8-SLi motherboard
  
  The 2 Maxtor drives are attached to SATA Port 1 and SATA Port 2
  
  1. When I try and install the NForce4 SATA Drivers, the system reboots and then hangs on startup with a permanent Drive LED
  
  2. When I put them on the RAID controller as two RAID0 drives, an Unknown Device appears in device manager, I install the RAID Driver and again on reboot the system hangs with a permanent Drive LED
  
  3. When I perform a setup from the XP CD and specify either the SATA or the RAID Driver, when the setup process comes to check the hard drives, again it hangs with a permanent drive LED
  
  Fortunately I live round the corner from Maxtor in Ireland and have logged it with them, before anyone asks why I want to create a RAID0 en each drive is for performance, the system will only run the drives at 3G if they are in RAID Mode, and yes RAID0 on a single drive is possible, I deal with RAID every day in my job as a Server Analyst for a very large Computer company here in the Green country.
  
  Anyone else had the same issue?
  
  I have tried various drivers downloaded from ABIT, original Board drivers, but I have exactly the same effect on them all, so at the moment I am running on the Stock Windows XP Enhanced IDE Drivers
  
  

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• alby

  May 2006 edited May 2006

  i solved my problem using this method
  
  http://vip.asus.com/forum/topic.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&board_id=1&model=A8N32-SLI%20Deluxe&page_size=10&page=5&count=1709
  
  look for my post on alternative raid0 solution (asus forums always get stuck on the loading screen at this time of night for some reason)
  
  i also sure i read somewere that u may need new firmware with maxtor drives but i cant be totally sure tbh

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• netizenk

  August 2006 edited August 2006

  I also had problems installing Win on SATA RAID and this is my experience with this issue, the solution I describe here worked for me doing the clean install of Win XP, it might not work for you...
  
  When you extract the nVidia nForce drivers you'll see a folder named IDE. Within that folder you'll see "WinXP" folder with a couple of subfolders.
  
  Contents of folder named sataraid should be copied to the floppy and the floppy should be used during install after pressing the F6 key.
  
  All this is documented on nVidia website in a PDF file named "ForceWare_MediaShield_RAID_Floppy_install.pdf". When you go to download the drivers you will see the link on the left hand side, the name of the link is "RAID Floppy Disk Install".
  
  However, windows installation WILL NOT recognize this floppy until file txtsetup.oem is ranamed to oemsetup.inf. I consider only that small part to be my contribution to the cause because other instructions are in the PDF file I mentioned a couple of paragraphs up.
  
  Once I did that, XP installation correctly recognized the drivers, I installed both
  
  NVIDIA RAID CLASS DRIVER (required)
  NVIDIA nForce Storage Controller (required)
  
  and the setup than recognized both disks as one large disk and formatted as such...

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