Windows XP SP2 Fails to Recognize SATA Raid 1 Array

[Guest]

I recently purchased two Western Digital 2500JD hard drives. They are SATA
drives and 250 gigs each. My motherboard has an onboard Sis180 Raid
Controller which includes a setup utility which is not part of the BIOS but
seems to be hardware driven.
I have connected all cables properly. In the initial setup the RAID utility
recognizes the RAID 1 drive that I have set up. In my current installation
of Windows XP Professional, the drives are recognized, assigned drive letters
and formatted as one drive in two partitions.
My whole goal in purchasing the SATA drives was to get rid of my IDE drive.
Clearly then, I'd like to do a clean install of XP on the new drives. Of
course as everyone else has discovered, XP doesn't seem to have the necessary
drivers. I am trying to install SP2 Home Edition. I used the slipstream
utility to integrate the drivers. I put the drivers on a floppy and pressed
F6. Windows Setup claims to have loaded the drivers. However, when I get to
the point where I am supposed to choose where to install the new copy of XP,
my SATA drive does not appear.
Any input on this one?

 

[DL]

You say "I used the slipstream utility to integrate the drivers"
then say "I put the drivers on a floppy and pressed F6"

That makes no real sense, either you integrated the drivers into your
slipstreamed copy or you didn't.
If you mean you created a slipstream copy with win sp's then proceeded with
the install, using F6 at the appropriate moment to load sata drivers from
floppy, and the hd isn't then detected. I'd suggest you re read the mobo
manual for the specific instructions for setting up a sata boot drive.
The instructions vary with manufactureres of the mobo/controler, they can
involve bios and or mobo jumper specific settings.

 

[Guest]

DL,
Thanks for your input on this matter. Obviously I wasn't clear enough in
what I had done. My point was that I had tried multiple methods to get XP to
recognize the RAID Array. I not only slipstreamed the drivers into the
installer, I also created a floppy disk, pressed F6 at the appropriate time,
and loaded the appropriate driver from the floppy.

The installation instructions go...
-Boot from CD, Press F6 when the message...
-When the setup window is generated press S to specify...
-Insert the driver disk in drive A and press Enter
-Choose "WinXP SIS Raid/IDE Controller and press Enter

After all this, XP does not recognize the RAID... Same old story. I'm sure
that part of my problem is that my computer didn't originally come with the
disk that XP seems to be so interested in, but I've downloaded the most
current drivers and tried five or six different versions thereof.

So some questions...

Isn't XP SP2 supposed to have RAID support so that I shouldn't need to go
through all this?

Why can my installed version of XP manipulate these drives after using the
installer found in the same zip and the XP Setup cannot?

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks in advance.

 

[DL]

WinXP doesnt have raid support, raid is provided by the raid/sata controler,
and its bios/driver
There are numerous raid controlers winxp doesnt have built in drivers for
all, only some, which is why you have to follow mobo manual instructions,
which can differ by manu and or controler.
What is the make/model of the motherboard?

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your assistance in this matter. I finally figured it out myself.
I had the zip file from the manufacturer. For some reason, it differed from
the file on the driver cd that came with the motherboard. That CD had a
makedisk.exe which shockingly enough, made the appropriate 3.5 in floppy that
made the whole process work.
I'm not sure what the answer is for other people with a simialar problem,
except that checking multiple sources is a good idea.

Thanks again for your time,
Kevin