Special Drivers for WinXP and Vista

[~~Alan~~]

I have two machines that dual boot WinXP and Vista. One has a built in on
the motherboard, an Intel SATA raid controller, and the other has a
Highpoint RocketRaid 1640 raid controller card. Both machines have their
respective controlllers set so that the connected drives are seen by the
BIOS as a logical single c: drive.
If I boot to DOS from a CD or floppy, I can see the c: drives without any
problems. I can also see the drives as a logical primary drive from various
Linuxes. Yet when I install WinXP and/or Vista, the installation does not
see either controller/drive unless I first load the necessary drivers (F6).
Why can't XP and Vista see what the BIOS provides?

Or do I have it all wrong? Just wondering.....

~alan

 

[philo]

I have two machines that dual boot WinXP and Vista. One has a built in on
the motherboard, an Intel SATA raid controller, and the other has a
Highpoint RocketRaid 1640 raid controller card. Both machines have their
respective controlllers set so that the connected drives are seen by the
BIOS as a logical single c: drive.
If I boot to DOS from a CD or floppy, I can see the c: drives without any
problems. I can also see the drives as a logical primary drive from
various Linuxes. Yet when I install WinXP and/or Vista, the installation
does not see either controller/drive unless I first load the necessary
drivers (F6). Why can't XP and Vista see what the BIOS provides?

Or do I have it all wrong? Just wondering.....

~alan

It's simply a case of whether or not the OS has the drivers built-in or not

 

[Andy]

XP and Vista does not use the bios to access the hard drive.