After a BSD crash, I was not able to recover my system. I reformatted my RAID 0 drives and cannot get past the screen where you press F8 to agree to the licence agreement when I try to reinstall XP Home. Nothing happens at all after pressing F8. FDISK has verified the integrity of the array and the Fastbuild Utility for the Promise RAID conroller confirms the array is correct and functional.I have also cleared the CMOS and checked all BIOS settings, and they are correct. Any ideas? MS was of absolutely no help at all!

Power management options disabled in the BIOS have made Windows XP fail to install? http://www.legge40.freeserve.co.uk/Tips.htm http://www.pcmech.com/bios.htm http://www.pcmech.com/show/bios/22/ You may have turned off the power management options in the BIOS because they were problematic, or you were advised to because they are not necessary on a desktop PC, but Windows XP requires them to be enabled or it will lock up during the installation process. The system will keep locking up at the Windows Setup screen. Just the blue screen will show - there will be no error messages, or any other kind of feedback. So, if you are having an installation problem of this kind, change the BIOS settings for ACPI Aware OS to Yes, and Power Management to "Enabled". Moreover, if you are having problems shutting down Windows XP, or if it suspends indefinitely without turning off, use the right mouse button to click your Desktop, select Properties, click the Screen Saver tab, click the Power button, ================================= Boot without cd rom support ( using W98 boot disk ) From the A prompt > fdisk , reboot & format c: Then from the A prompt > fdisk /mbr Or, format c: Then from the A prompt > fdisk /mbr Reboot with cd rom support using W98/me boot disk with emm386 & smartdrv on . Execute SMARTDrive by typing smartdrv from the A prompt . It will only take a couple of seconds to load. Type drive:,( where drive is the drive that contains the Windows XP CD-ROM )and then press ENTER . Type cd\i386 and then press ENTER . ( hit R if unable to load ) Type winnt and then press ENTER . Windows XP Setup starts . Type the path to the Windows XP installation files , and then press ENTER . For example , type d:\i386 ( may already be there ) Setup will then begin copying all of the Windows XP system files to your machine , which can take quite a while ( hours if smartdrv has'nt engaged ) Note : Always press Enter or hit the space bar to try again , for any can't copy messages . If XP will not install . Try using a different HAL, when set up says to press F6 for third party drivers, press F5 and choose Standard PC for the type of computer . If the above HAL fails , more here . http://www.billssite.com/clean.htm http://www.networkcert.net/xp/install.htm http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307848 http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;811267

Apparently I was infected with a boot block virus. I have tried both fixboot and fixmbr with no results, the system still hangs at the licence screen. This is totally frustrating. Anyone have another idea. Also thanks to johnw for his response. If I boot into win 98, will it recognize a RAID 0 array?