XP Setup Partition Format fails

[Chris Watts]

Hi
Im currently trying to install Windows XP fresh on to a
7200rpm Hitachi Deskstar Hard Drive, 40GB. I have
installed an ATA100/133 RAID controller and run this drive
from there. XP Setup recognises the controller, drive and
the capacity./partition state of the drive, but when it
formats as NTFS (Quick or normal) it finishes by syaing it
cannot install as the disk may be damaged. Like everyone
else, i can accept a disk having a physical error, but i
have been using the Hitachi drive fitness utility to check
the drive and it has no physical errors whatsoever, and
the SMART status is good, i cannot find anything wrong. My
PC is a Pentium 2 450 using a PC Chips motherboard with
Intel (BX40?) chipset. I have 192 MB ram. Can anyone
possibly help me? P.S. this XP install was used previously
(different configuration in my PC then) and worked fine.

Thanks
Chris Watts

 

[Chris Watts]

Latest on this. I have a multi processor board, which has
1 processor. Could it be that the XP setup is using the
wrong HAL? Should i check for a HAL from the mainboard
manufacturer? Could this cause these problems?