Help! Struggling with Vista Beta installation (SATA/RAID)

[Guest]

I'm trying to install Vista, and it's driving me mad! My PC came with 2
250Gb SATA drives, set in RAID0 as two partitions, one small one of around
30Gb, and the other partition being the remainder.

As my machine has been playing up recently, I thought it might be wise just
to flatten it and start again, so I'm trying to put a clean installation of
Vista on, and just wipe the two hard drives. I don't want to have them set
up in a RAID format, as it would just cause more trouble if one of them
failed. The Vista upgrade advisor says that there's an item that won't work
(Intel(R) 82801FR SATA RAID Controller), and when i try to boot from the DVD
to install Vista, it won't see either hard drive. I'm assuming this is due
to the SATA Raid controller not being found, but I don't know how to change
this. I read that if I put the drivers onto a floppy, then I should be able
to load those, but it's the same problem, even with a floppy disc in Windows
doesn't let me browse to the disc.

Any suggestions? This is driving me mad!

 

[LaRoux]

Can you turn of the RAID setting in your BIOS?

 

[Guest]

Unfortunately it's not giving me the option in the BIOS.

Bah!

 

[Michael]

Unplug (the power connector would suffice) one of the Sata HDDs - check,
pending your mobo/HDDs configuration, in BIOS you have a Master Driver;
normally, SATA should not need pins to set them as Master/Slaves.
Also, check in BIOS that the drive is Boot-able - depends on your BIOS/OEM.
Michael

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your suggestions.

My boss also advised taking out the lead of one of the HDs, but this hasn't
helped, Vista still sees the drives as having a capacity of 465Gb (not
250Gb). The Vista installation seems to get part way through, completes the
first section (loading files) and then gets part way through expanding those
files before crashing into a BSOD.

(I should note, it's finally accepting the Intel driver from floppy disc,
just a shame we're not really getting any further)

 

[Michael]

I'd look into the SATA controller drivers - iastore for Intel. You might
need to update chipset drivers, USB etc pending your hardware. I didn't find
anything Vista Ready drivers on Intel site.

I have a bad feeling that if left as is now (RC1), for optimal performance,
Vista will require the most up to date hardware - you're looking at Core 2
Duo, 2GB fast RAM, min $300 ea. 512 MB PCI-E graphics card(s), large
(20"-24" LCD monitor) etc. Latest, top of the line, MS Vista Ready wireless
keyboard/mouse combo will retail initially for $250, the webcam sells for
$100 and so on.

Michael