P4C800-E, NO XP install with RAID? ya, got floppy.

OK, I can't install XP pro on my P4C800-E. I first needed a floppy to install the raid drivers

<omit f'ing MS bashing about still needing a floppy to install their flagship OS ..... >

I went to a freinds, copied the /drivers from the CD to a floppy. Durring XP install, hit F6, asks for floppy, I put floppy in, says found VIA RAID XP drivers, blows, up, blue screen of death, no keys work.

1) Any suggestions?
2) My mobo has a PROMISE raid controler, why would there be via raid drivers on the CD ROM?

help,

Thanks,

My experience with RAID and Win2K was that it can be a finicky process to get it to run.

I'd advise you to simply download the latest onboard drivers for your OS from Asus (Promise offers no specific on-board drivers), and put these (extracted) on a floppy.

With Win2K, I had to choose the right driver manually from a menu that was a bit misleading because it suggested having only a few choices, while it was in fact scrollable- coincidentally revealing the proper choice in my case.

Sounds like you've got the wrong drivers on the floppy. I would make sure you download the correct driver version that matches the firmware version for your board's controller. By that I mean they've updated the raid firmware with one or two of the bios updates, and the driver needs to match the firmware update. XP shouldn't be choosing the driver from the floppy either - it should display a list of what it sees and let you pick from the list.

also make sure you are connected to the promise controller ports if using promise drivers and not the intel ones.

Thanks all! TC was right, wrong drivers. grrr ....

I had the cdrom, but no floppy, gave CDROM to a friend, asked him to copy the raid drivers over.

Guess what? The asus CDROM that comes with my motherboard has drivers for different raid controlers, e.g. a VIARAID that DOES NOT work with my board, and a PROMISE RAID that does.

Now why would asus have drivers on the cdrom that would not work with my board? Well, because they're lazy.

OH, and the via ones are labeld VIARAID while the promise is just labeld promise. SO, my friend copied over the only thing that said "raid" on the cdrom, and it was the wrong drivers.


<rolls eyes>

Hopefully Microsoft will get into the new milenium sometime in my lifetime, and not require a floppy for raid installation. I mean, 2 CDROMS are not all that uncommon, buy who needs a floppy anymore? OR <GASP> why not make an install program that could use the raid drivers right off of the windows CDROM ? The promise raid controler is not too new .....

Sorry for the rant, thanks for the help.