Sata Hard Drives & Raid O

[CRUTCH]

Hi,this is my first post,so here go's.

Ihave just finished building a new computer,as a suprise for my grandsons 18th birthday,so i can't go to him for help,so i hope someone here can help.

Now this computer is built round the ASUS A7V8X Delux motherboard,and i have used 2 Maxtor Diamound 9 SATA 120gb Hard Drives.plus all the other parts need to build a computer.

Every thing is finshed and ready to install the OP system which is to be Windows XP (HOME EDITION),and i want to set up the drives in to a RAID O.

The thing is i have never done hard drive set ups with SATA or RAID ever before,so this is new to me.

I have read some other post on other forums and i have got the basics on how to install Windows XP onto a SATA RAID O set up,i have listed it below:-

 

 

 

First you do need a floppy drive and access to another computer. Copy the driver files for the Serial ATA utility onto a floppy or download them from ASUS site. Next using the Serial ATA controller BIOS (Hit F4 during POST) confiure your SATA drives in RAID 0. Reboot and make sure that boot from cd is enabled in your BIOS settings. Insertyour WIN XP cd in your cd-rom and the floppy that you made in your floppy drive after the windows setup screen appears. As soon as the option to load additional drivers option appears, hit F6 which will allow you to load the drivers you put on that floppy earlier. Follow the rest of the instructions and in no time you have WIN XP loaded on a RAID 0 system."

 

Now i understand that part as described above,but do you still have to formate the drives ?.

And if so, do you do it before ,after or during the set as listed above,and is there any thing else i should know.

I would be very gratefull for any help,thanks.

[O(V)eGA_l2el)]

Before the copying of your operating system files, you will have to format the HD

(The usual procedure is to boot from the cd, then when asked to, create partition(s))

After that your HD will be formatted then the installation of your OS starts

[LobbDogg]

Yeah, out of the box the drives do not have a partition, they need a partition in order to store files on them. So partition, then format, and you'll be good to go. Nice thing is, Win XP, will do both of those when you do the first stages of setup.

 

I find the trickiest part is just getting XP to see the RAID drivers at first cause sometimes you have to keep the files in a folder on the floppy disk, or sometimes you have to use the disk creator program that comes with the mobo. Depends on which controller the mobo is using.

[sykocus]

you are correct that you need to setup the drives as a raid array before installing windows, i don't remember having to partion the drives before doing so, but one my drives may have already been partioned. i don't remember

 

easiest way to do that would be to boot to the disk, flopp or cd, and partion them. after that use f4 to create the array, so that windows will see it. then boot to the window installation cd pressing f6 at the begining. after loading a bunch of stuff windows will ask for the disk with the raid drivers so pop that in and continue.

[LobbDogg]

1. Setup your RAID array

2. Load the Drivers for your RAID controller into XP by hittin F6 while first loading windows

3. Partition and Format using the Windows XP CD when first installing Windows.

[CRUTCH]

Thanks very much fof the replies,they have been a great help.