I am trying to set up a raid 0 array on my new system. I have two 60GB SATA Maxtors. One is on master on channel 2 and the other is master on channel 3. I have set up the array in the RAID BIOS. I then formatted and partitioned using maxtor cd. However I am having difficulty installing the drivers. The manual was written by someone for whom English was clearly not their first language. U have to extract the files from the cd onto floppy and then use the "F6 method" when installing windows. I did this but I must have done it wrong. Windows XP setup starts and at the bottom it says press F6 to install third party raid drivers. It then copies a few more times. Then you press 'S' and install the drivers. Then it goes setup will now install windows but then it says it can't find any HDDs. The read me has this in it: *** Use one of the following command examples to extract the driver files from the different packages: c:\iata_cd.exe -a -a -p c:\<path> c:\iata_enu.exe -a -a -p c:\<path> c:\setup.exe -a -p c:\<path> When run, the installation process begins; simply click through the dialogs accordingly. This will not install the driver, it will only extract the driver files to <path>. Once the extraction is completed, the driver files can be found in <path>\Driver. To install the RAID driver, as outlined in the Microsoft* document, "Deployment Guide Automating Windows NT Setup," use the supplied TXTSETUP.OEM file included in this package and insert the lines below into the UNATTEND.TXT file. This method is available for Microsoft* Windows*. For Windows, however the iaStor.inf, iaStor.sys, iaStor.cat, and Txtsetup.oem files need to be extracted. To extract these files, use the method described in this section. Microsoft* Windows*: // Insert the lines below into the UNATTEND.TXT file [MassStorageDrivers] "Intel(R) 82801ER SATA RAID Controller" = OEM [OEMBootFiles] iaStor.inf iaStor.sys iaStor.cat Txtsetup.oem I don't understand a word of it. I could not find an UNATTEND.TXT file. I don't understand DOS commands. Sorry its so long. Hope someone can help. Thanx

OK scratch that. I don't think this has anything to do with the raid drivers. I'm pretty sure I was doing that right. I tried without the array single primary partition using fdisk and windows still wouldn't install. It says "setup could not find any HDD installed on your computer". If my 98 start up disk can find them why the hell can't windows XP. I'm at my wits end. Please help me anyone :o(

You need to copy the RAID driver to a floppy from the Motherboard CD and when prompted (F6)insert the disk to the floppy drive.

Thats what I did. I've got it working now with the two drives sepperate but still stumped on the RAID 0 problem

You need to setup the raid from the instance it boots up. shift+F2 I think? It will tell you on the boot up screen. Setting up a raid will destroy all data on both disks. Once you have setup the raid you can install the os but remember to do the f6 at the right time(to install the sata drivers). Does this help? Tt Lanfire nf7-s v2.0 XP-m 2500@209x11 SP 97 512mb pc3200 Jou Jye 550w psu FX5600 WDCaviar 160gb sata ;~}

Thanxs for your help I got it working in the end. In a moment of inspration I went to the intel site and downloaded the drivers from there. The driver that came on the CD with my mother board didn't work. Intel site was really good. Drivers came in a self extracting archive so it was much simler to get them on to Floppy then off the CD. I used the Intel(R) 82801FR SATA RAID Controller instead of the Intel(R) 82801ER SATA RAID Controller that cam with my mother board and it seems to work fine. I recomend to anyone having trouble with motherboard drivers go to your chipset manufacturer. Particularly with Gigabyte because their customer support stinks. I hope this helps others in a similar situation.