XP setup doesn't recognize my hard drive (s) - please help me install XP?

[Great Weather]

Please help me somehow...

I just built a system from wholesaler, but it didn't come with the OS
installed and now I have a major problem installing windows XP since after I
put the disc into the CDROM drive.... after about 2 minutes it gives me a
message saying something like:

"XP Setup didn't find any hard disk drives installed on the computer....
check the connections, power, software guides etc...."

Then XP Setup has no option but to quit the installation process.

The computer on startup however recognizes my 2 hard drives because I see
the text that appears on startup showing Primary, and Secondary found as my
2 hard drives.

I have P4 chip, with ASUS P4P800 deluxe motherboard.

2 hard drives, one is WD 1200JB 160 GB ATA133 EIDE set up now I guess as
primary master, and the other HD is Maxtor 6Y120L0 160 GB ATA100 EIDE setup
as slave. Both HD are connected on the same bus cable to the RAID port on
the motherboard. The technicians that build the system have prepared the
hardware most likely the correct way. I just can't seem to get XP to
install.

Appendix A: (my use)
I want to use the main hard drive to install my Windows XP and use this
drive
for everything.
I want my 2nd hard drive as a separate drive letter to be only used to copy
backup files when ever I choose. So that I can simply copy over any big
files by dragging them into the backup drive letter on my desktop, the way
my old computer has it setup. Therefore both drives are independent.

Somehow all this RAID 0/1 stuff gets me confused. I don't know if the way
the drives are connected its possible to have what I want described in
Appendix A.

So therefore how am I supposed to get XP to recognize that I have 2 HD on
the system and get XP setup to install windows onto the master HD only.?

Please help, please be clear and explicit since I am novice to this subject.

 

[jaeger]

2 hard drives, one is WD 1200JB 160 GB ATA133 EIDE set up now I guess as
primary master, and the other HD is Maxtor 6Y120L0 160 GB ATA100 EIDE setup
as slave. Both HD are connected on the same bus cable to the RAID port on
the motherboard. The technicians that build the system have prepared the
hardware most likely the correct way. I just can't seem to get XP to
install.

They connected it wrong, or at least poorly. You need to install the
VIA IDE drivers from a floppy at the point where XP setup asks you to
press F6 if you have SCSI/RAID drivers. But since you aren't using
RAID, and the VIA controller is sort of crappy anyway, just move the
drives over to the Primary IDE port on the mobo and XP will see them.

 

[Len]

When attached to a non-IDE controller DOS seeing them or not is less
important than XP seeing them.

If XP doesn't have the proper driver (which it does not for the VIA RAID
controller) then you must provide one during the early portion of setup.

Use the F6 key as mentioned earlier. Don't be confused... what XP needs is
a way to see the controller, it is not relevant whether the drives are RAID
or non-RAID configured. Once it sees the VIA controller then it can see the
drives attached to it!

Good Luck,
Len

 

[JxD]

Open the box to see how the two hard drive are connected.

Are they both connected on the same IDE cable to the Primary IDE port (look
at your Motherboard diagram for which one, usually blue).

If they are, that's easier. Next to check the IDE jumper configuration pins
to see if they are setup correctly as master and slave.

a basic guide could be found here

http://www.buildyourown.org.uk/misc.asp

For Jumper settings for the WD HD (under Dual Master)

http://support.wdc.com/techinfo/general/jumpers.asp

Similarly for the Maxtor - but double check with their web page

If they are connected to the RAID controller, it's a different story. If
not using raid, you have to go into the bios and change to IDE instead of
RAID. You have install the driver via a floppy disk at the beginning of the
windows XP installation (press F6).

Good luck

JxD

 

[rstlne]

I think he might be asking if there is no active partition, will XP

set it to active? The answer is that XP Setup can install on a HD
that's not even partitioned at all. If it finds an unpartitioned or
unformatted drive, it will handle that.

Nod, That was my question..
I was just trying to think of "Common" problems as to why ide drives dont
show up in the system

 

[Great Weather]

Hello Everyone,

Most of the replies missed the point of my question.

I do not wish to move the drives over to IDE since it will slow down
the entire point of this motherboard. They are now connected over
to the RAID as far as I can see inside the computer box.

So based on what Caroline suggests - pressing F6, things should
work out I guess. I just have to find the disk., I think it is a CD
actually.

If I keep the hard drives on RAID, will they still work out the way
I want them to with only 1 hard drive being used for the operating
system, and the 2nd only showing up as a drive letter on win xp---
whereby I use it as back up?

 

[Great Weather]

Caroline,

The wholesaler did not supply a disk A floppy.

Thus now what can I do? Can't use CD ROM to
install these drivers can i?

Please help me somehow...

I just built a system from wholesaler, but it didn't come with the OS
installed and now I have a major problem installing windows XP since after I
put the disc into the CDROM drive.... after about 2 minutes it gives me a
message saying something like:

"XP Setup didn't find any hard disk drives installed on the computer....
check the connections, power, software guides etc...."

Then XP Setup has no option but to quit the installation process.

The computer on startup however recognizes my 2 hard drives because I see
the text that appears on startup showing Primary, and Secondary found as my
2 hard drives.

I have P4 chip, with ASUS P4P800 deluxe motherboard.

2 hard drives, one is WD 1200JB 160 GB ATA133 EIDE set up now I guess as
primary master, and the other HD is Maxtor 6Y120L0 160 GB ATA100 EIDE setup
as slave. Both HD are connected on the same bus cable to the RAID port on
the motherboard. The technicians that build the system have prepared the
hardware most likely the correct way. I just can't seem to get XP to
install.

Appendix A: (my use)
I want to use the main hard drive to install my Windows XP and use this
drive
for everything.
I want my 2nd hard drive as a separate drive letter to be only used to copy
backup files when ever I choose. So that I can simply copy over any big
files by dragging them into the backup drive letter on my desktop, the way
my old computer has it setup. Therefore both drives are independent.

Somehow all this RAID 0/1 stuff gets me confused. I don't know if the way
the drives are connected its possible to have what I want described in
Appendix A.

So therefore how am I supposed to get XP to recognize that I have 2 HD on
the system and get XP setup to install windows onto the master HD only.?

Please help, please be clear and explicit since I am novice to this subject.

You need to load the RAID drivers. This fooled me when I first installed
XP onto a RAID system. As Windows Setup is starting it says "Press F6 if
you need to install disc drivers" (that's not quite right but I can't
remember what it said. I *do* remember that it's F6 you gotta press).
Then you load the drivers from the floppy that should've come with the
system saying something like "HPT Driver Disc".

HTH

Caroline



Caroline Picking, (e-mail address removed)
Milton Keynes, England.

 

[Caroline]

Hello Everyone,

Most of the replies missed the point of my question.

I do not wish to move the drives over to IDE since it will slow down
the entire point of this motherboard. They are now connected over
to the RAID as far as I can see inside the computer box.

So based on what Caroline suggests - pressing F6, things should
work out I guess. I just have to find the disk., I think it is a CD
actually.

If I keep the hard drives on RAID, will they still work out the way
I want them to with only 1 hard drive being used for the operating
system, and the 2nd only showing up as a drive letter on win xp---
whereby I use it as back up?

Yup, should be fine. I'm using a different mobo ATM but that's the setup
I've got.

You have set the boot order in the BIOS haven't you? On my Abit mobo, I
had to select RAID as the boot disc. Then do the F6 bit for installing
XP. Copy the files from the CD to a floppy - XP will only load the
drivers from the floppy.

(I'm reading this board cos I'm about to splash out on a A7N8X Dlx with
an Athlon 3000)

Regards

Caroline

Caroline Picking, (e-mail address removed)
Milton Keynes, England.

 

[Caroline]

Caroline,

The wholesaler did not supply a disk A floppy.

Thus now what can I do? Can't use CD ROM to
install these drivers can i?

Presumably you got a CD with mobo drivers? They need to be copied from
the CD onto a floppy (doesn't need to be a bootable floppy).
Otherwise, collect the info on startup for the make of your RAID chip
and find them on the web. They should be on your mobo maker's website
but people like Highpoint have websites too. Even if that doesn't work,
there are a load of sites out there (can't remember url's...
www.drivershq.com??) with driver collections and I bet you'll find them
there.

Can anyone remind me of some web driver databases?

Best Wishes

Caroline


Caroline Picking, (e-mail address removed)
Milton Keynes, England.

 

[Paul]

Response inline...

Presumably you got a CD with mobo drivers? They need to be copied from
the CD onto a floppy (doesn't need to be a bootable floppy).

But he keeps saying the company he got the computer from did not install a
floppy drive so he cannot copy the files to a floppy. Even if he took the CD to
a friend who had a floppy drive, it would not do him any good when he got it
back to his computer since there is not drive to stick the disk into.

Otherwise, collect the info on startup for the make of your RAID chip
and find them on the web. They should be on your mobo maker's website
but people like Highpoint have websites too. Even if that doesn't work,
there are a load of sites out there (can't remember url's...
www.drivershq.com??) with driver collections and I bet you'll find them
there.

Personally, I stick with the mobo manufacturers drivers for all onboard
controllers. I have had problems using drivers from the chip makers websites.
But this is my personal preference.

 

[Caroline]

Response inline...

But he keeps saying the company he got the computer from did not installa
floppy drive so he cannot copy the files to a floppy. Even if he took the CD to
a friend who had a floppy drive, it would not do him any good when he got it
back to his computer since there is not drive to stick the disk into.

Oops. Stupid me for not reading the post properly.... I read it as
"don't have a driver disc".

Oh dear.... I think maybe the poor guy's screwed then?

Caroline

Personally, I stick with the mobo manufacturers drivers for all onboard
controllers. I have had problems using drivers from the chip makers websites.
But this is my personal preference.

Caroline Picking, (e-mail address removed)
Milton Keynes, England.

 

[Stanley Krute]

Hi Great Weather

Some practical suggestions:

[1] For $20 buy yourself a 3.5" floppy and
stick it in the system

[2] For simplicity's sake, attach just ONE hard
drive to the system while installing XP. Once
XP is installed, and running correctly, shut down
the system, attach the second hard drive, and re-boot.

[3] In some cases, using SCSI drivers via the F6 hook
is flakey during installation. There's a simple workaround:
I've always been able to set up XP with the
hard drive connected to the mobo's standard IDE
connection, then, once all is cool, shut down and
attach the drive to the RAID connector. Then boot up. The system
will still (in most cases) ask you for the appropriate
SCSIish drivers upon that first boot, but that's cool,
give it what it wants.

stan

 

[Paul]

Hi Great Weather

Some practical suggestions:

[1] For $20 buy yourself a 3.5" floppy and
stick it in the system

[2] For simplicity's sake, attach just ONE hard
drive to the system while installing XP. Once
XP is installed, and running correctly, shut down
the system, attach the second hard drive, and re-boot.

[3] In some cases, using SCSI drivers via the F6 hook
is flakey during installation. There's a simple workaround:
I've always been able to set up XP with the
hard drive connected to the mobo's standard IDE
connection, then, once all is cool, shut down and
attach the drive to the RAID connector. Then boot up. The system
will still (in most cases) ask you for the appropriate
SCSIish drivers upon that first boot, but that's cool,
give it what it wants.

stan

Stan,
Your suggestion for [2] and [3] will work only if he is trying to set up a RAID1
(mirroring) array. If he is trying do RAID 0 (striping) for the speed
advantage, then this won't help because the data on both drives are destroyed
when you join them together for striping.

Step [1] is probably the quickest way for him to get his system loaded. As an
alternative, he might be able to take the CD with the RAID controller drivers to
a friend and make a bootable floppy with those drivers on the floppy. Then, make
a bootable CD from this floppy. When he gets back to his computer, boot from
this new CD, switch out the new boot CD for the XP installation CD, start the
setup program and when it asks for third party drivers, hit the F6. After
swapping the two CD's a couple of times, he should be on his way to installing
XP without having a floppy drive at all.

Paul

 

[Paul]

Response inline...
Paul

I don't think so.

It won't slow anything down. You have said you don't understand RAID - take
your own word for it. You don't even want to use RAID from what you said.
RAID is a way to make disk storage faster or safer or both. RAID turns
multiple physical drives into one logical drive. You say you want two
physical drives and two logical drives, not a RAID array. The RAID ports
will not make drives set up as you describe work any faster!

In most RAID controllers the disk benchmarks show faster response from RAID 0
than single IDE drives and single IDE drives connected to RAID controllers are
usually slower then plugged into their IDE controller counterparts.

I don't think this will work, but you're welcome to try. Has anyone used a
CD to load storage drivers like this???

Unfortunately NY/2000/XP will always look at the A: drive for 3rd party drivers
for controllers.

If you don't initialize a RAID array you can use the physical drives as
separate logical drives.

This may have worked on some early built-in RAID controllers. It will not work
with the one that came on my motherboard. I have to initialize the drive via
the RAID controllers setup utility even if it is to only establish a single disk
RAID array (not a true RAID, but this is how the controller reports it during
the POST).