Win XP Home and RAID???

[adrianh11]

I just built a new comp. I got the abit kr7a raid, athalon xp 1700 (running as a 1900), 2 40GB maxtor ata 133 HD's, Geforce 3 and 512mb ram. I have been unable to get the RAID to work. When Windows installs it either won't detect "any hard drives" or it crashes during install. I got it to install using one HD attached to the raid controller IDE ports but it was unstable. I finally decided to install windows using the non- raid ATA ports. This means I don't even have ata 133 or raid though.

The whole process was very frustrating. I was told by someone that Win XP home doesn't support Raid- is this true? If so is there a work around? I already activated my copy of XP so I don't want to go buy pro version now. Why would my system be unstable when not using raid but using the raid ide ports? By not using them I am limited to 4 ide devices now and this is not even enough to install all of my devices! BTW I have eliminated the overclocking as a source of instability.

any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Yodums]

I believe it doesn't support raid.

At the screen did you press like F3 I think to identify third party raid/SCSI stuff?

[DarkArctic]

Are you sure that you have the right drivers? Maybe Microsoft made some crappy ones (it wouldn't be the first time). Or try a newer or older RAID BIOS. I'm assuming it's a HighPoint RAID?

-DarkArctic

[Jon]

XP requires the latest BIOS for the HPT370 controller or it will crash on every install attempt.

Problem here is whether or not Abit has modded the newest BIOS for the RAID controller into their motherboard BIOS. They are extremely slow in doing that.

Could check BIOSMods.com (www.biosmods.com) and see if they have a BETA BIOS with the new HPT370 BIOS modded in. Worth a try.

[Diggrr]

WinXP home does support raid, but it was tricky getting it to work.
The easiest way was to do a minimum install of ME, installing the newest mobo drivers, then do the clean install overtop of it. You can then ignore the F6 command during setup.
You can also search for XP drivers from highpoint, not via or abit. That's the only one that actually gives an option of "Raid driver for WinXP". It's made to unzip to a floppy disk, then use the F6 command when starting setup...watch the bottom of the screen.

[Kendan]

Here is a Link !!!!! (http://www.viahardware.com/faq/kg7kr7/kg7kr7faq.htm)
It is a very good resource for the KR7. It also has the new bios with the new highpoint bios already modded in.

[Diggrr]

Cool Kendan,
I was just going to throw in this highpoint link with them seperate. The win2k one has XP also.
http://www.highpoint-tech.com/370drivers_down.htm

[Jason]

I haven't actually used Home yet, but if it's anything like pro, during the installation process, you have the option to hit F6 to install 3rd party SCSI drivers. (Watch the status area during the first few moments after booting to the floppy/CD.) You want to hit F6 at that point, and insert the floppy containing the latest Highpoint drivers. You should be okay at this point. Hope this helps!

[adrianh11]

Thanks everyone for all of the information. I did try using F6 to install the drivers that ABIT supplied with the mobo. I also tried letting windows use its own drivers. Both resulted in crashing. I guess that from what I am getting I need to get the beta Bios with the latest highpoint drivers? Or do I need to to just find the latest highpoint drivers and install those during setup? I guess I can find the answer at the links you guys left me too. anyway thanks again