Formatting Problem

I am having trouble trying to do a fresh install on my pc.It is an updated system.p4 2.8 gig,1 gig ddr ram,all in wonder ati 128 video card,asus p4P 800 SE motherboard,2 120 gig western digital 7200 rpm hard drives.

Heres the problem.The drives used to be setup as raid 0 and ran as 1 C drive,but have since been changed to non raid and run as seperate C and D drives.This was done at the shop where i bought it.The cables connecting the drives in the tower are not the typical wide ide cables but skinny little 1\2" red cables.I'm not sure what there called.

I have done fresh installs before on other systems.the only difference was the type of hd cables.I guess i shouldn't have went so high tech with my new machine.

When i try to boot from the windows xp cd to start a fresh install it starts normally but then when the option to install or repair an installation comes up,no matter which choice i pick Windows says it CAN NOT detect any hard drives that are installed.But the machine is currently operating fine.I'm getting the occaisional blue screen crash which is why i want to do the fresh install.Is there a motherboard setting,bios setting that needs ajustment?to detect the drives?I don't want to pay some one to do this for me if i can avoid it

Primary master and slave ide are listed as my 2 cd rom drives.Secondary master and slave ide say not detected,not sure if that'll help or not.

PLEASE,PLEASE, reply or help in any way you can whether it's advice or a link to a site with some info.Thanks

Sorry if i posted in the wrong area.First post.

 

Hello, on my computer i have setup a SATA hard which use the SATA cables (the red thin cables). Now you do have to go into your bios and enable your RAID configuration. Did you by any chance update your bios before you started getting blue screen crash

 

Thanks for the quick reply cycon.I didn't update anything before the crashes started.If i enable the raid won't that make both drives behave as 1 c drive?

I would like to keep them seperate c and d in case of a major crash and backup usage.

 

Ok, I have heard of many problems with RAID setups, similar to yours. I have never setup a RAID before because of what heard. Now if you want to just do away with the RAID configuration and just set them up as two seperate drive volumes, you would have to open up your computer move the SATA cables from the RAID connectors on the motherboard to the SATA connectors. I have an ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe mobo and I have mine setup with 1 160 GIG SATA hard drive SATA controller 1.

 

you could also set it up as a RAID mirrored but I'm not too sure how to do that exactly

assuming your SATA HDDs are set up correctly in the BIOS, first you need the SATA drivers from Asus' website and put them on a FD ... then when you install you should get a prompt that says 'press F6 to install SCSI or SATA HDD' or something to that effect ... just hit F6 then when it finishes loading the rest of the drivers you should get a prompt to insert your SATA drivers FD ... just select the correct drivers and you should be good to go

 

I can help you with a more detailed explaination on how to do this if you are willing to open your computer and give a try. Let me know?

 

the SATA controller and the RAID controller are the same ... he wouldn't have to move anything inside his computer

 

The reason i said he has to getting into his computer is because on mine it has 2 SATA controllers labeled like this SATA1 and SATA2, and then has two more SATA controllers labeled like this SATA_RAID1 and SATA_RAID2. I have mine setup on SATA1. I have a P4C800-E Deluxe mobo, visit the asus website and download the manual if you are wondering what i am talking about.

 

I used to have the same board you have but it got fried somehow,not sure what happend there.The guy at the shop said power surge.who knows.

The drives are working seperately right now with with seperate cables each going to the mobo.But from what i can see on the mobo there doesn't seem to be any other spots to plug the cables in other than where they are now.

It must be a settings issue.It sure seems like a lot of crap to go through just get windows to see a hard drive.THanks a lot Bill gates.

I guess i'll try some of the raid settings in the bios.Hope i don't really mess things up,gotta learn somehow i guess.LOL.....thanks again.

 

I took a look at my fried P4C800-E Deluxe mobo and there are 4 slots like you said.But the board i have now p4p800-se only has 2 slots so i can't move them.

 

I was looking at your mobo manual, and there is only 2 SATA controllers so you have to go into your bios select NO where it asks configura SATA as RAID. Try that and see if it works. The setting is under IDE configuration

 

Good news...I checked the bios and changed 2 things.
Changed raid to sata which didn't work by itself,but after changing mode from enhanced mode to compatible mode in the ide configuration settings the 2 changes together allowed the fresh install proccess to continue.

Thanks a lot to cycon76 and Pyrate for all the help.You guys just saved me some money and a big headache.