Upgrade - WinXP Home to Pro and RAID1

I'm trying to upgrade my Dell 8400 with 2x160GB SATA hardware RAID1 drives.

I inserted my WinXP pro CD into the cdrom and updated the bios to boot from this drive. When I select the option to install windows xp I get a message saying it could not locate any hard drives.

I have a CD that came with my system and on it is the RAID device drives. I put the device drive CD in the drive and booted from it and got to a menu option to create a RAID driver diskette. The problem is my computer has no floppy drive so I cannot create a driver diskette.

During the WinXP install setup I have the opportunity to press F6 to install other scsi or disk drivers (via "drive A:"). I think this is what I need to do and then use the RAID driver diskette. But, like I said I don't have a floppy drive.

I have another PC with a floppy drive so I figured I'd install it to create and use the diskette. Well, the motherboard on my 8400 doesn't have a FDD header so I can't even install it if I wanted to.

When the 8400 boots normally I can enter the hardware RAID config menu (CTRL-I). Here I have the option to Add/Delete/Remove RAID devices. I'm not sure if I break the mirror if I'll be able to boot from the "good" HDD.

I'm setting up a domain in my house and need WinXP pro for domain logins. Please help! I can't upgrade

Thanks.

 

If your computer does not have a floppy drive connector on the board YOU MAY be out of luck.

Though, you MAY be able to buy a USB 3.5" disk drive, so that windows can recognise the raid you setup.. I typically use this to boot to floppy running quicktech on laptops that do not have 3.5" disk drives.

 

I have an external flobby / cdrom drive that came with my IBM thinkpad T22. It's an enclosure that you can use either as a floppy enclosure or cdrom enclosure. It has what looks to be a thinkpad only D shell connector, doesn't look like usb. I don't have the laptop anymore, just the floppy. Anyway to make this work?