Need Raid Help!!!ASAP!!!

I just built a new system consisting of:
Intel e6420
Asus Commando
eVGA 8800gts
WD Raptor 74gb
2 x Hitachi Deskstar 320gb
Creative XFi soundcard
Samsung Sata DVDWriter
Samsung Floppy
Crucial Ballistix DDR-1000 2gb

When I first started the system up, I did not have the 2 deskstars hooked up. I loaded winxp on the raptor and installed all the drivers. Everything worked great.

I am now trying to install a raid 0 array on the 2 deskstars. I connected the drives, went into the bios and changed the sata to raid. Booted into the Intel Matrix storage manager and created the array. I named it HitachiRaid0, put the stripe at 64k and created it. Everything was good so far. I then exited the storage manager and rebooted the system. It boots like normal but when it gets to the winxp screen with the scrolling bar, it flashes to a blue screen for a split second and reboots itself. If I disable the raid in bios but leave the drives attached, it boots like normal and the drives are seen in the device manager.

I dont know if it matters, but I have the raptor in the sata 1 slot. The dvd writer in the sata 2 slot and the 2 deskstars are in slots 3 and 4. I tried moving them to 5 & 6 but the same thing happened.

Please Help.

Thanks,
Matt

Try disconnecting the drives, and with the RAID controller enabled, boot into Windows and install the RAID drivers for the controller. Then shut down, connect the drives and create the array then boot into Windows.

Tried that and it still does the same thing with the blue screen, then reboots.

Anybody have any ideas.

I forgot to mention that I am running caseless right now and do not have my drives in a drive cage. Case comes in on Wednesday. I dont think improper grounding of the drives would cause this, but I will test that out when the case comes in.

If thats not it, then Im stumped. Windows recognizes the drives, I was even able to format them and start using them independently. It seems that only when I enable the raid controller in bios, the system wont go into windows.

Contemplating RMAing to newegg at the end of this week if I dont get this working, as raid0 was a big reason for me to build a new computer in the first place.

Have you tried to clone the raptor to the raid drives?

stunt said:

Have you tried to clone the raptor to the raid drives?

Click to expand...

It is not that simple, it is having a problem with the RAID controller.

blackbird007 said:

Anybody have any ideas.

I forgot to mention that I am running caseless right now and do not have my drives in a drive cage. Case comes in on Wednesday. I dont think improper grounding of the drives would cause this, but I will test that out when the case comes in.

If thats not it, then Im stumped. Windows recognizes the drives, I was even able to format them and start using them independently. It seems that only when I enable the raid controller in bios, the system wont go into windows.

Contemplating RMAing to newegg at the end of this week if I dont get this working, as raid0 was a big reason for me to build a new computer in the first place.

Click to expand...

You said you installed the RAID drivers, are you sure they are showing up in the Device Manager as installed and working? To make sure they are working, you need to have RAID enabled in the BIOS with no drives actually in the RAID (don't even hook them up).

That is the problem. Once I enable raid in bios, no matter if drives are attached or not, it wont boot into windows.

I am going to reformat the drives and try a fresh xp install with the drives not attached, and using the F6 drivers during the install. I am going to give this a try when I get home even though xp will NOT be on the raided drives.

Well I did a fresh xp install with only the raptor connected. Installed the F6 driver, and did all of the windows updates. Rebooted into bios and changed the sata to raid. Rebooted the system and as soon as the windows load screen comes up, it flashes blue and reboots again.

This was with the 2 drives that are going to be in the raid detached. If I connect them, reboot - control + I to make the array, then reboot again, it does the same thing.

blackbird007 said:

Well I did a fresh xp install with only the raptor connected. Installed the F6 driver, and did all of the windows updates. Rebooted into bios and changed the sata to raid. Rebooted the system and as soon as the windows load screen comes up, it flashes blue and reboots again.

This was with the 2 drives that are going to be in the raid detached. If I connect them, reboot - control + I to make the array, then reboot again, it does the same thing.

Click to expand...

If you have no drives attached when you boot and it still crashes, your HDD are perfectly fine (I saw your post in a different thread). What you need to do, is do a force install of these drivers. Most motherboards come with a CD that you can insert and run a program to install the drivers. Try running that with the RAID turned OFF. Reboot once more with RAID off, restart and try with RAID on.

Have you tried installing the drivers in safe-mode (with RAID enabled)?

I just realized earlier that I accidentally used the x32 driver instead of the x64 driver during the xp install. When I get home I am going to install xp again with the x64 F6 driver and see if that fixes the problem.

****thideras, thanks for the help.

Well I have officially given up on the raid thing for awhile. I will try again at another time.

I think what you need to do is connect all 3 drives to you system. Then setup the SATA controller as RAID, but only include the 2 drives you want in the RAID system during setup, leave out he Raptor. Then install windows as you would normally.

What's happening is after you install windows to the Raptor, you can't change the SATA controller over to RAID, you have to do that before you install windows.

Hope that works.

When I get my hdd back from RMA I will be updating the bios, and trying what you suggested. Thanks.