Hard one - No floppy, with sata, won't boot and can't do system re

[Guest]

MMM.

Somethinhg happened on the pc - this blew the floppy controller and affected
the sata raid. The raid did a scandisk (it's xp by the way), but now gets
stuck on std and limited boot.

OK - so I try to get into to recovery console to recover to an earlier time
with system restore.
But I can't see the disks - they are via raid sata - they need a specific
raid cintroller mass storage driver - but I can't load it cos I have no
floppy. !!!!

Any ideas. I have usb's, bootable cd rom - but can not think of any way to
get access to the drives.

I can boot into linux - so can download any software.

Then I try and ask Microsoft - and they want the product ID - and you need
windows for tht - all I can see on the packaging is the product key - and
that does not work

Now - that's a problem !!!!

Help please


Mike

 

[Guest]

Best place for help is your computer manufacturer's web site.

 

[Vagabond Software]

MMM.

Somethinhg happened on the pc - this blew the floppy controller and
affected
the sata raid. The raid did a scandisk (it's xp by the way), but now gets
stuck on std and limited boot.

OK - so I try to get into to recovery console to recover to an earlier
time
with system restore.
But I can't see the disks - they are via raid sata - they need a specific
raid cintroller mass storage driver - but I can't load it cos I have no
floppy. !!!!

Any ideas. I have usb's, bootable cd rom - but can not think of any way
to
get access to the drives.

I can boot into linux - so can download any software.

Then I try and ask Microsoft - and they want the product ID - and you need
windows for tht - all I can see on the packaging is the product key - and
that does not work

A very awkward workaround would be to install a hard drive on the IDE
channel (assuming there is one) and install a bootable instance of Windows
on that disk. You should be able to install the RAID drivers on that
instance to access your RAID drives.

I have done this once before on Small Business Server 2003 and the continued
reliance on floppy diskettes, one of the most unreliable computer media
available, is mind-boggling.

Once you've done whatever it is you need to do on the RAID drives or created
a bootable Windows CD with the RAID drivers, you can simply unplug the IDE
drive and revert to booting on the RAID array.

Good Luck,

Carl

 

[Guest]

Carl,

The "what I need to do" - I think is to recover a system checkpoint - which
would meen booting onto the sata drives - so maybe this would not be enough

But creating a bootable cd-rom >> that sounds interesting - how do I create
a cd-rom that has all the elements to boot (as the distribution cd) - but has
the raid drivers?

Thanks for your reply.

Mike

 

[Vagabond Software]

Carl,

The "what I need to do" - I think is to recover a system checkpoint -
which
would meen booting onto the sata drives - so maybe this would not be
enough

But creating a bootable cd-rom >> that sounds interesting - how do I
create
a cd-rom that has all the elements to boot (as the distribution cd) - but
has
the raid drivers?

You would slipstream a bootable Windows XP SP2 CD with your RAID Drivers.

Here are the instructions for adding your RAID/SATA drivers:
http://unattended.msfn.org/intermediate/drivers/raid.htm

Here are instructions for slipstreaming a bootable CD:
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp


Good luck

Carl

 

[Guest]

Thanks Carl, that's great

I will give it a go - looks hard - but doable


Again - many thanks
Mike

 

[Vagabond Software]

Thanks Carl, that's great

I will give it a go - looks hard - but doable

The whole concept of "slipstreaming" sounds a lot harder than it is to
actually do. I don't do many, but the few I have done were a snap. I
believe I may have used some free slipstreaming tool, but I have since
forgotten what that may have been. It may have been nLite, which is now
nLiteOS, a very cool looking tool.

http://www.nliteos.com/nlite.html

Good Luck,

Carl

 

[_R]

MMM.

Somethinhg happened on the pc - this blew the floppy controller and affected
the sata raid. The raid did a scandisk (it's xp by the way), but now gets
stuck on std and limited boot.

OK - so I try to get into to recovery console to recover to an earlier time
with system restore.
But I can't see the disks - they are via raid sata - they need a specific
raid cintroller mass storage driver - but I can't load it cos I have no
floppy. !!!!

Any ideas. I have usb's, bootable cd rom - but can not think of any way to
get access to the drives.

I can boot into linux - so can download any software.

Then I try and ask Microsoft - and they want the product ID - and you need
windows for tht - all I can see on the packaging is the product key - and
that does not work

I guess I shouldn't ask about booting from a raid array, but I still
try to stick with standard ATA non-raid hooked to the motherboard. My
data drives are SATA and/or RAID.

In any event, there's a PE-like boot CD called BartPE that accepts
plugins. I have NO idea whether you'll be able to kludge your raid
drivers in place. Just wanted to point you to the site in case it's
of use:

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

 

[_R]

You would slipstream a bootable Windows XP SP2 CD with your RAID Drivers.

Here are the instructions for adding your RAID/SATA drivers:
http://unattended.msfn.org/intermediate/drivers/raid.htm

I had just posted about BartPE (http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/), which I
believe allows slipstreaming some mods. If the driver additions work,
then BartPE may be able to create a bootable CD with SATA Raid
support. That would be interesting to see.

Mike, if you try that, please report back on whether it works.

Here are a couple more URLs that I had jotted down re BartPE:
PE Builder: http://www.paraglidernc.com/
Forum: http://www.911cd.net/forums/