Disk does not contain a Windows XP compatible partition

[JRR]

Trying to setup XP Pro on a new machine with an Epox MB that has nVidia SATA
RAID support. There are two 160 Gig Maxtor SATA drives in a RAID 0
configuration on SATA1 and 2. There is also a 60 Gig Maxtor Ultra IDE drive
connected to IDE 1. The SATA RAID is set as the boot device in BIOS.

During setup I loaded the drivers for the RAID and Windows setup can see the
array. I then created a partition (60 Gig the first time) and attempt to
install XP on it. I get a screen saying the disk doesn't contain a Windows
XP compatible partition. I've tried various partition sizes and continue to
get this message.

 

[JRR]

After taking the time to read the message, I discovered that setup wanted me
to create a partition on the 60 Gig IDE because it wanted to write files to
it also. So, to keep the SATA array as the C drive I created a partition on
it first and then went back and created a partition on the 60Gig, which
became D. Why would it care about the extra drive if I wanted to setup on
the array in the first place?

 

[Viper5030]

Same Prob, different solution

Wow! It's so funny that we had just about the exact same problem with same hardware and everything. I had an array of 2 160GB set up with an extra 40 Gb on my IDE channel, too. I had the same problem, but even doing what you did didn't eliminate that incompatible-partition message for me. So, in the end I just unplugged the IDE HDD during the setup and it let me go through with it. The only thing left bothering me about this is wodering why in the world would that problem occur!!! Any suggestions?

 

[alexisbatman]

likewise

Different hardware but had 2 sata drives and an ide drive. Wanted to install XP on one of the sata disks. Had to physically disconnect the hard disks that werent being installed to and it worked fine. Very odd.