RAID0 Setup problem

Question

Hello, I have Dell XPS Gen 4 with 3 160gb SATA drives, I setup raid only config in bios, added 3 drives to RAID config, when setting up windows XP I let windows install Intel raid driver. But when i get to create partition on my 480gb partition, i get error message:   ********************************************************** To intall Window XP on te partition you selected, Setup must write some startup files to the following disk:        Unknown Disk   However, this disk does not contain a Windows XP-compatible partition.   To continue installing Windows XP, return to the partition selection screen and create a Windows XP-compatible partition on the disk above.  If there is no free space on the disk, delete an existing partition, and then create a new one.   To return to the partition selection screen, press ENTER. ***************************************************************** My drives are individually formated to NTFS, but that shouldn't matter, because i was going to reformat them anyway.  I was able to install OS on non-raid setup, but i want RAID. please let me know what's going on... I Dell or Intel supplying bad RAID drivers? Message Edited by k5858 on 01-07-2006 12:32 AM

Dev Mgr · Answer

XP before SP2 doesn't support drives over 137GB very well. A simple registry change addresses this (Maxtor large drive enabler does this registry fix for you, or SP2 does it too), but this is obviously not till you have already installed the OS. XP media with SP2 as part of it may work.

Alternatively, which is not a bad idea anyway, just install XP on a smaller partition (less than 137GB), and once you're in Windows, and have upgraded to SP2, use the disk manager to partition the rest of the drive for a 2nd partition/driveletter.

k5858 · Answer

I did use custom cd with SP2 (i slipstreamed sp2 into XP installation). But to make sure that wasn't the issue, i tried Longhorn Beta1 and i get error message 'Failed to Create a partition on the selected unused space. Error: 0x80042453'   Then I tried Windows Server 2003 Enterprise installation, i same error message as in regular Windows XP SP2 installation. I also tried making a partiton under 100 gb, that didn't work.   I will now try x64 installation with 64-bit drivers. Message Edited by k5858 on 01-07-2006 12:01 PM

k5858 · Answer

x64 didn't work. It would do 1st phase of setup, but after rebooting, i get haddisk error (not found).

Pat1 · Answer

K5858 Dells raid 0 only supports 2 hard drives so take one harddrive out of the array and you will be golden. Pat Message Edited by Pat on 01-08-2006 06:50 AM

k5858 · Answer

I set BIOS to 'RAID Only', but did not create any raid sets; I installed windows xp to IDE HD using Dell drivers, and it seems to work so far. I created RAID set from windows, but i can't install OS to RAID, get same error message 'unknown disk'.   WHY in the world would XPS need IDE harddrive in order to install an OS to a RAID0 ? withouth IDE HD, it will not detect the RAID config. what's wrong with this picture?   Don't know why,  but: if I select 'AHCI' mode, use appropriate drivers, i get a blue screen on the 1st reboot. Message Edited by k5858 on 01-10-2006 11:10 PM

k5858 · Answer

Nothing works. HELP!!! I tried to do 2 drive setup, still get same error message as above. It looks like as if the drivers that I'm using are not what windows expects. I was wondering if anyone else had a problem with dell drivers.

Storage, Drives & Media

RAID0 Setup problem

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