VeeshanVault

Having a problem getting XP installed into my friends new PC. I am running a RAID 0 SATA array, but short of actually seeing the bits flipping, I'm sure it's configured correctly. Here's my issue:

I get Windos installing from CD, everything looks like it's going well, it takes the RAID driver no issues. It reboots and comes back up to the main setup, copies the files to the drive, but when it should do the final reboot to the actual desktop, I see the splash screen for a split second, a BSOD for a split second, and then the machine is rebooting.

WTF kind of issue is this? I'm leaning to bad/incompatible RAM, but honestly, that's just a guess at this point. I tried slowing the clocking of the RAM down, but no luck.

possible bad/incorrect raid driver ?

Used the floppy that shipped with the mobo. Plus, I was able to partition and format the array (and it was the correct size), so I think that's not likely. I will make a new disk with the raid drivers for my next install just in case.

Not all HD's are made equal, you could try installing w/o RAID first and see if it loads OK. If so there's something RAID related; drivers and/or motherboard/HD's.

Could also try safe mode and see if the raid driver is loading when it crashes perhaps.

Which Windows version are you using? I know that SP 2/3 have better support for a lot of disk types, if you're using an old SP disk, you might want to try a newer version.

I don't have much for suggestions beyond that.

I had a problem installing WinXP on an ABIT mother board with an AGP card once. I had to take out the AGP card and install with a PCI one, then switch them up. I don't remember what caused it, but it sounds like a similar situation to what you are having now.

This was about 4 years ago, though!

I'm using WD Raptors in this system, same drives I've used in other systems in this configuration. Guess I'll just have to start removing components one at a time.

Take them out of RAID and try to load it to a single disk. Bet it works like a champ. I've never been able to get 2k or XP installed onto a RAID array without having the boot sector loaded from a seperate, non-RAID disk. Win_X pukes on install every time.

Works great on server platforms, doesn't seem to on regular PCs.

I've had it work like a champion straight out of the bubble wrap every time in the past. I am using a non-top of the line MB though, so it's RAID support might be lacking.

I also had a wireless NIC in one of the PCI slots, when the BIG YELLOW STICKER told me specifically not to install it until after loading the software into windows, so it could be an ole-fashioned IRQ conflict.

Will update more after I play with it tonight.

The problem was the floppy that had the RAID drivers on it. It wasn't corrupted, but they tried to put so much shit on it that they either overwrote or could not fit all of the XP drivers on it. I had to make a custom floppy with just the driver I needed to get it working.

Call of Duty 2 looks really fucking sweet on a 45" HDTV, even though it's only doing 720p resolution. The African was very pleased.