RAID installing woes

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lazer_viking

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For chirstmas I got two Western Digital 36 GB Raptors and I want to put them in RAID 0. I started off by putting them in my computer of course. I put my old 180 GB hard drive on SATA 3, and the two Raptors on SATA 1 and SATA 2. I went into the mobo's BIOS and did some stuff (I can't quite remember what it was.. something like enable RAID on SATA 1 and 2 or something). Then I went back out and pressed F4 to enter nVidia's RAID thing. I set up "striping only" with 32kb stripes. Then I put in my Windows install disc and pressed F6 to install third party RAID or SCSI drivers and this is where the trouble began. Apparently, the supplied drivers don't work with the 64 bit operating system. I downloaded nVidia's 64 bit version of the drivers and stuck em on a floppy. When I went back to try them it's like it wasn't even reading the floppy disk. It would just say enter a disk into drive A:\ and press enter even when there was a disk in the drive and I was pressing enter. I assumed "well maybe the USB floppy drive isn't going to work here". So I went out and bought an old school one ($5.99!! didn't know they were so cheap). But now it looks like I don't have the right kind of power adapter for it. Is this a common size I can get at my local computer store??. AND, as I was playing with my stuff last night (I was just so excited about my drives, I wanted to install windows on at least one of them to see if I notice a speed difference) it said something like "please create a windows-compatible partition on this disk, even after I created the partition right there on the window's install CD. It works just fine on my 180 GB hard drive. Just for giggles I tried it on that drive to see what was up to see if it would let me format it and it did. It wont get to the formatting screen on the Raptor(s). So anyway, after deleting all partitions off all my drives and not knowing what to do now, I shut off my computer. When I tried again in the morning it said "DISK BOOT FAILURE. PLEASE INSERT A SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER" even when there was my Windows install CD in the drive.

So yeah, as you can see, I have a lot of problems now :[[. tech-forums always comes through for me when I need it the most. Don't fail me now!! lol thanks in advance :]]
 
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actually my main problem at this point is the DISK BOOT FAILURE, PLEASE INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER. no matter what i do (re-order boot priorities, etc.) it wont boot off a CD.
 
Reset the bios on your mobo by following the jumper instructions or just remove the battery for a minute or two and hit the power switch to discharge the mobo capacitors and put the battery back in. Mobo model>?????? Nvidia Raid Drivers come in 32 and 64 bit configurations, as you well know, and you need to make sure the 64 bit version is on a floppy drive. I have no clue what power adapter is needed for your floppy as they are all 4 pin 3 volt and you seem to suggest is it somthing else? you enable RAID in your mobo configuation and choose RAID 0 Stripping and use the default. Once you reboot the mobo hit F10 when prompted and then add each of the drives to the array. I would not have the 180 gig connected until after setting up the Raptors. Once you enter windows setup Hit f6 when prompted. You will get a request to specifiy the RAID drivers and there are two for Nvidia RAID. Once, the RAID drivers are selected you hit return and then format the two drives. Once windows is sucessfullly installed, connect up the 180 gig Sata in Sata 3 and make sure it is not included in you array!!! by disabling sata 3 in your Bios for RAID. I have 2 Raptors in RAID 0 on my system and they really do improve performance!!
 
i did what you instructed (reset cmos w/ jumper; it successfully reset)
i unplugged the 180 GB hard drive, leaving only the raptors in SATA 1 and 2 and enabled RAID for 1 and 2 in the bios.
computer restarted and i set up the array.
it restarted again (i changed boot priority to boot the CD first) and it still says the DISK BOOT FAILURE thing. i don't know what to do... did all of my hard drives suddenly go bad??
i found somewhere where it said i need to make XP install disks (6 floppies) and i made them but it still says DISK BOOT FAILURE with removable as the first boot priority. any suggestions? whats wrong with my computer???? :[

edit: before i started ANY of this, i un-did my overclock to ENSURE 100% stability. my overclock could run prime95 for over 2 days though ;] just thought i'd add that in case someone thinks my overclock corrupted beyond repair my hard drives.

edit 2: my mobo is a DFI lanparty UT SLI-DR expert, and i went to a computer supply and got an adapter for the wierd floppy power issue.
 
Ok......which IDE channel do you have the CD/DVD? I would put it in IDE 0 and jumper the drive as cable select. I'm getting the feeling that somehow your system cannot "see" the dvd/cd rom.
 
i don't have an IDE 0, only a 1 and 2. wierd i know... it's in IDE 1 and i've booted off of it in the past. this is a different situation now so i don't know... what do you mean by jumper the drive as cable select? i didn't see any jumpers around the IDE area. is this something i should rtfm for lol?
 
Jumper the Drive not the mobo. LOL!! Jumper the cd/dvd rom as cable select which are the pins to the far right.
 
the only jumpers on the drive are CSEL, slave, and master. it's set to master, not sure what it means though ^_^. i took the whole drive out to make sure.
soooo mr.direnzo...... whats our next step?

ty btw for helping :]]
 
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