Using BartPE, SATA RAID drives not found

[jcarlile]

Hello,

I'm hoping that someone out there can help me with a problem re: SATA
RAID drives/BartPE/WinXPE.

What I need to do is copy a newly built Windows XPE image onto a SATA
RAID array. To do this, I made a BartPE boot CD with network & RAID
support. I intended to boot into the BartPE environment, reformat the
fixed disks to NTFS, connect to my build machine and copy the XPE image
to the newly formatted drives,
restart, and then let XPE go through its first boot agent.

I have two Seagate 80Gig SATA drives arranged (currently) in a RAID
array. When I boot into the BartPE environment, no fixed disks are
recognized. However, if I change the BIOS settings so that the two
Seagate drives are treated as IDE, both drives show up when I am in the
BartPE environment.

In my BartPE image I've included the plugin for RAID drivers; details
are here:
http://www.bootcd.us/BartPE_Plugin_Details/419/RAID-Adapter-drivers-p...
I've also included drivers linked from the motherboard (Motherboard:
AIMB - 750) homepage for the SATA RAID drivers for windows.
(http://www.advantech.com/support/detail_list.asp?model_id=AIMB-750)

I'm wondering if I'm missing something in my BartPE image? or if it's a
BIOS configuration error, or something totally different. I'm quite
new at this, and any help is appreciated. Also, if you have a
different suggestion of how to accomplish the goal of getting the XPE
image onto the drive, please mention it.

Thanks,
Jen

 

[KM]

Jen,

I don't use BartPE simple because we have XPe and it is much easier to create a small XPe image targeting the final hardware that
will include everything I may need for maintenance, admin and deployment options (network, CMD shell, diskpart, etc.).

You may want to first start with installing full blown XP Pro on the target. During or after the install you can configure XP so
that the SATA drives work in RAID mode. Obviously, you'd need driver support for that from the MB manufacturer.

Ether way (BartPE, XPe, XP Pro) the driver must be installed. With XP Pro approach at least you'd know whether you MB and SATA
support on it is working. If not, worth to contact the manufacturer. (obviously, BartPE approach would not be supported by the
manufacturer)

 

[jcarlile]

Thanks KM--

I actually just solved the problem!
The problem for anyone else who might be seeing something like this was
that the two drives were setup in a Raid 0 configuration (stripe), when
they should have been setup as Raid 1 (mirror). Once this was
corrected, both BartPE and my XP installation CD recognized the drives
correctly.

Thanks again,
Jen