Windows XP not seeing RAID

[Greg]

I have an Asus A8V motherboard, which has two onboard RAID controllers
(Promise & VIA). For months now I had no problem with using both RAID
controllers. I have two Western Digital 36.7GB 10,000 RPM SATA in RAID 0
for my C drive using Promise and two Seagate Barracuda 80GB SATA as my D
drive using VIA. Even with all of the Windows updates I managed to get some
spyware that just kept coming back (Adaware would get rid of it, but somehow
it kept coming back). So I decided to format and re-install Windows.

After Windows XP completed the install, it was showing my VIA RAID as two
separate drives in Disk Management. So, I installed the RAID drivers hoping
that would help (Windows only let me provide one RAID driver during
installation, so I provided the Promise drivers since that's for my boot
drive). I re-booted, but nothing had changed and the VIA RAID Utility says
there isn't a RAID. So, I rebooted and deleted, then created the RAID
again. I went into the BIOS and it does show the RAID properly. I booted
into Windows, but still it shows the drives separately in Disk Management
and again the VIA RAID Utility still says there isn't a RAID.

The two drives for this RAID also show up in the Device Manager, insteading
of showing the RAID.

Any one know what the problem is?

 

[Rube]

Try setting up the 2 x 36's first. Do not connect the other 2 x 80's. (You
may even want to disable the VIA controller)
In Asus's bios, make sure to boot from the promise controller.
Boot into promise's bios and setup the raid 0.
Install XP using F6 with the promise disk supplied by asus.
Verify windows boots reliably after shutting down.
In Asus' bios, re-enable the VIA controller
reboot.
Let windows install the driver. It will see the controller (hopefully) with
no drives.
reboot
Install the 2 x 80's and create the raid in VIA's bios.
reboot.
check disk manager.

 

[Guest]

BobbyM wrote

It sounds like you did not use the F-6 button when booting up ???,you
will nee a copy of the driver copied from your asus CD before you begin the
process, I have a asus PNP-800-E and had same problem.But once you get used
to using SATA you realize just how much easier it is to install over the
Fdisk and Format process with IDE.