I recentley had a new motherboard and graphics card replaced in my computer but i am having some problems. My computer was running fine until earlier when i booted up i had the "Start Windows Normally" screen or i had the choice to start in safe mode. I took the Normal start up choice and then windows started to load but after the windows Logo load screen a blue error screen appeared for a split second then restarted my computer. I have tried to repair windows and format windows using the Windows XP Professional CD but whenever i try i get the message "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer" my hard drives are connected through the Raid IDE port so i have also tried to reinstall the raid drivers whilst on the windows setup. after i loaded the drivers to the setup i still get the same error saying no hard drives installed. I am stuck for clues now and i do not know much about RAID at all which is why i am soon going to use a SATA Hard drive for windows so i dont have this problem reoccuring. Does anyone please have a solution how i can get passed this problem or get to install a fresh copy of windows to my hard drive. Thanks in advance for any help

Give us the computer setup you have !!! How many drives ?? How many SATA drives if any ?? What model Mother Board ?? Is your XP version with or without SP1 or 2 ?? Did you setup your bios correctly ??? Did you set up the raid controller correctly ??? What raid type did you choose ??? IF IT AINT BROKE, DONT FIX IT A8N-SLI Deluxe AMD X64 3500+ Wnchst Corsair 2x512 DDR400 Dual Channel GV-NX6600128D PCIX Graphics Card Ggbyte GT Pro CPU Cooler Zalman VF700-CU VGA Cool

Ok here is my setup I have a Intel Pentium 4 LGA Prescott 3.6Ghz Processor Asus P5GDC Deluxe Motherboard 2 x PC3200 DDR Crucial 512MB Memory 1 x Maxtor 160GB Hard Drive 1 x Maxtor 200GB Hard Drive Asus 6800 GT Graphics Card I have Windows XP Professional With SP2. My bios should be setup properly I have chosen RAID Mode for the IDE setup. I am not to sure what raid is and i think that is where the problem is i chose RAID Mode instead of Standard IDE for the bios setting what else do i need to do? I have recently had a new motherboard and graphics card as my other ones blew so i had to have new ones installed. I had this problem with the raid before and didnt know how to make windows recognise my hard drives so i had to take the computer back so they could sort it out for me! when the computer is posting it shows that my hard drives have been found when it searches for IDE Devices. i just dont know what to do i have tried loading the RAID drivers when i have gone to repair windows but it still does not detect the drives. Any ideas?

Thanks for the info just noticed your post. I will have a look at the board spec and come back asap. But just from the drives you have quoted you cant go with a raid setup... IF IT AINT BROKE, DONT FIX IT A8N-SLI Deluxe AMD X64 3500+ Wnchst Corsair 2x512 DDR400 Dual Channel GV-NX6600128D PCIX Graphics Card Ggbyte GT Pro CPU Cooler Zalman VF700-CU VGA Cool

Hi Nice board but complex !!! But what you didnt tell me is are the hard d rives both IDE drives or are they both SATA drives. or are they 1 of each ?? As your oriignal post says IDE and SATA Never asume the bios is set correctly unitll you have seen it for yourself !!!! As for raid !!! You can to go with it your drives are 2 different sizes, if you go in that direction you will loose about 40 or so gig of storage space...The raid setup will reduce the larger size to the same size as your 160 gig, so you would only have 320 gig instead of 360 gig total. Raid also treats 2 individual drives as one whole drive.. There are perofmance advanatges but there are disadvantges also. Since you have never delt with raid before I would suggest you stay away !!! But if you do wish to go down that track I can talk you thorugh the process... I suspect the Raid Array has not been created and that is why the drives are not being found.. Once you tel me what the drives are, and do you ahve any CD DVD Drives / Burners etc ??? Once I have that info we are half way home.... Nice components though !!!! Pity you didnt go with DDR 2 as your board can take it... But not a majour issue at all...Crucial is nice ram !!! IF IT AINT BROKE, DONT FIX IT A8N-SLI Deluxe AMD X64 3500+ Wnchst Corsair 2x512 DDR400 Dual Channel GV-NX6600128D PCIX Graphics Card Ggbyte GT Pro CPU Cooler Zalman VF700-CU VGA Cool

thanks for the info so far. On the motherboard u will notice that i only have one standard IDE port and then a RAID IDE port. When my last mother board died i took it to a shop to have one replaced. The setup they gave me are as follows I have a DVD Writer and a CD Writer Combi on the the standard IDE port cable and then i have my 200GB Hard Drive as a master and the 160GB hard drive as a slave going into the RAID IDE port. Sorry for the confusion Both of my Hard drives are IDE not SATA what i was saying in my first message was that im thinking of upgrading to SATA as Raid is giving me to much bother. What do u mean by raid array is not created? All i know about the raid i have on my board is that it needs the Drivers that came with the mother board to detect the hard drives. Even though i have tried to load them up during the Windows XP repair/Format they still find no hard drives. I am not sure what happened to the computer as it was working fine in the morning and when i came home and turned it on in the night it wudnt work. But it still shows both hard drives when Search for IDE Devices on the bootup! I am in my BIOS at the moment and this is the setup i have: on the main menu i have Primary IDE Master: [LITE-ON COMBO SOHC] Primary IDE Slave: [HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GS] Theb under IDE Configuration: Configure SATA As [RAID Mode] Onboard Serial -ATA BOOTROM [Enabled] I also have an option under ADVANCE which is ITE8212F Controller [IDE Mode] but this can be changed to Raid Mode or Disabled. Under BOOT i have a Hard Disk Drive option which shows both of my hard drives inside so im assuming it must be the raid that is stopping the hard drive detection. I would of gone with DDR2 but at the time i didnt have enough cash so just got Budget Ram unfortunately. Well i hope this information helps you figure out my problem i really dont wanna take this pc to the shop again as they believe i owe them £30 when the last time it messed up it was there fault :). if u need to know anything else let me know. Last thing. I was also woundering is it is possible to have the Hard drives on the standard IDE Port then have the CD/DVD Drives on the Raid ports or is this not possible? Thanks.

Thanks of the info !!! First !! Go into the bios and select the Load set-up Defaults option save the changes, reboot the comp and go back into the bios. The fact you have both of you hard drives showing in the boot section confirms my suspicion...The raid array has not been created. If the raid array was created the boot section would be showing one entry... It would have the description of SCSI with the total drive space of 320GIG and not 2 individual descriptions which you have. To set the raid array up correctly your ITE 8212 controller needs to be set to raid, and your SATA needs to be disabled as you have no SATA drives. Once you have configured that part of the bios for raid you will see that the boot section will change. Now you should have 3 entries in the Boot Screen.. A SCSI and your 2 cd/dvd Liteon drives. Change the boot priority so your Primary Ide drive Liton Combo Sohc is in position No 1. Move the SCSI to position No 2. Prepare the floppy drive with the IDE raid Drivers on it... One should have come with the mother board.. Reboot the computer, and when it starts up you will see the normal post screen and a message saying Press F4 or similar to enter raid bios or set-up !!! Once you have entered the raid bios set-up screen you will need to set the raid bios to a specific Raid Array Type... You will need to refer to your raid manual, but you will be asked to create a raid array, Like Raid 0, Raid 1 , Raid 0+1, or Jbod. Choose raid Type 0 Stripe, leave the cluster size setting at Optimum, you than will need to allocate the hard drives to the raid array. Both of the drives will be listed, highlight each one at a time and press the enter key or whichever key it tells you.. I am not sure of the exact sequence the above steps takes place on your board. Once the raid array is created you will see a summary of the total disk size eg 320 GIG, remember that I said before if you use 2 diff size drives the largest will be reduced to the same size as the smallest drive. When the set-up is complete prepare your windows CD, Place the CD in the optical drive you set the computer to boot from and restart the rig. When the post and raid bios options complete their thing you will see the normal Press any key to boot from CD rom, do so !!! The instant you get the first blue screen press the F6 key once or twice and wait a few seconds.. When you get the message screen saying insert floppy disk with raid d river and press the S key, do so and in that order... The floppy will be read and the drivers will be listed fro you..One of them should carry the description of ITE8212 etc. If not already highlighted, do that your self and hit the enter key. The drivers will be loaded and the install will continue, at some point you will receive another message saying Press S to load drivers etc. Ignore that message and press the appropriate key to continue with the installation of windows. Do Not remove the floppy from the Floppy Drive !!!! When you get to the partition stage you will see only one hard d rive listed with the max drive space of 320 gig and not 2 individual drives.. Create a 20 gig partition which will be the C drive. Than create more partitions to suit your own personal needs. I would say 3 more partitions of no more than 100 gig each... The drive letters may not be showing C,D,E etc don't worry about that, it can be corrected once windows is loaded... Format the C partition and install the OS, if you receive a strange message saying the the raid drivers haven't passed windows authentication just press the continue button...this is normal. When the OS boots fort he first time remove the Floppy disk and the windows cd. Load all the drivers from the Mother board support CD, restart the comp, jump back into the bios and change the boot sequence so the SCSI is shown in the No1 position. From there you can load all your updates and programs as normal.... Hope that helps, let me know how you get on !!! regards Yes you could swap the drives arround but why would you, you will get better performance with the hard drives connected to the ITE8212F controller, regardless if set up as raid or not. than the other way arround.. IF IT AINT BROKE, DONT FIX IT A8N-SLI Deluxe AMD X64 3500+ Wnchst Corsair 2x512 DDR400 Dual Channel GV-NX6600128D PCIX Graphics Card Ggbyte GT Pro CPU Cooler Zalman VF700-CU VGA Cool