FLiPPie

It is not easy to give you any advice.If I were you, I would break the P-ATA RAID and create a S-ATA RAID0 and use the P-ATA hdd's for backups etc. Nevertheless you may get some troubles with any OS installation onto a RAID array as long as you are booting off the S-ATA connected optical drive. You will need an IDE connected CD/DVD-ROM during the OS installation (maybe borrowed from a friend). Before I decided to use 4x 160GB PATA drives I transfered all data to the (new) 2x 500GB SATA drives. Since I have a lot of spare parts I installed a PATA DVD-writer but also in this setup the drives are separately shown. Anyway I have decided not to use any RAID setup. I will install windows 2003 on a 50GB partition. Within a few months I am thinking about buying a new computer and use the 2x 500GB SATA drives. (after I transfered all data) Hopefully my future motherboard will be able to run 4x 500GB RAID 0+1 (or a RAID 5 setup) Thanks for your help!

What is the reason for taking Partition Magic and what is the reason for such a big partition size?My recommendation: Take a tool like Acronis Disk DirectorSuite for partitioning and formatting the RAID and choose a partition size of 2x150 GB or 3x100 GB. Normally I would make a 50GB partition for my operating system and the rest I will use for data storage. but since I am testing things I thought it was easier to have one big partition. Before you began with the creation of the RAID, your BIOS should have detected each of the 4 P-ATA hdd's. All the four drives were detected prior to the RAID setup. A P-ATA-RAID array and a S-ATA connected optical drive is not a good combination at all. f you don't have any natively IDE connected CD/DVD-ROM drive, you probably will not succeed with the installation of any Windows OS onto your RAID array. Look into the pre-condition list of my guide. You have to start the OS installation off an IDE connected optical drive. This is kinda problem! the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard contains only 2 PATA ports and I have connected 4 PATA drives. the means a RAID 0 + 1 array is not possible. the only possible option left is RAID 0 or 1 with 3 PATA hard drives and 1 PATA DVD-writer. Which other S-ATA devices than the DVD burner do you have? The other SATA devices are 2x 500GB hard drives.

Further questions: Are the 4 hard disk drives of your RAID completely detected within the BIOS? If I remember right, after I enabled NV-RAID in the BIOS the actual BIOS didn't show my 4 drivers anymore. I can only check my drives by entering the NV-RAID SETUP (F10 on startup) Have you set your RAID array as bootable within the RAID utility and the RAID as first bootable hard disk within the BIOS? The RAID array I made is set boot able within the RAID utility. Do you have partitioned and NTFS formatted the RAID array? I used Partition Magic to create a 300GB NTFS partition Do you have slipstreamed SP2 into the OS CD? I haven't slipstreamed SP2 into the OS yet! What do you mean by "completely detected"? The fact that the drives aren't shown within the BIOS can be the cause of my problem. Only my SATA DVD-Writer is shown. and I have unplugged the cables of my other SATA devices. I can't figure out which setting makes the drivers visible.

The FSC_NVIDIA_SATA_RAID folder contains: ATABUSDRV (textmode) type SCSI RAIDCLASS (textmode) type SCSI I can only select them to be both either TEXT MODE or PNP MODE. The FSC_NVIDIA_SATA_IDE folder contains: PNP type HDC By selecting these drivers the problems still exists. The Windows setup shows my hard drives separately. Please have a look at this screen shot: Tomorrow I will try the Legacy modded drivers.

"double post"

I've been searching for a long time to solve my Nforce4 problems. I was really excited finding a possible solution, but after burning 5 setup CD'S I started wondering does this solution actually works? Well perhaps I am doing something wrong....? My system: Motherboard: Asus A8N SLI Deluxe Nforce 4 (newest BIOS) Processor: AMD Opteron 165 Memory: 4x 512MB RAID: 4x 160 PATA RAID 0+1 Array (Healthy) Hopefully somebody can tell me what I do wrong if I explain all steps I took creating a setup CD. 01. Downloaded Nlite (newest version) 02. Downloaded Vistabeta2 drivers (also tried other drivers mentioned in the tutorial) 03. Copied all content of my Windows 2003 installation CD by using Nlite 04. Selected "insert drivers" and "create bookable Setup CD" Inserted "nforce_vista32beta2_english\IDE\driver\legacÿ" "Textmode driver" (in my last attempt) 05. verified changes and burned the CD directly by using Nlite. 06. insert CD, run setup The result, the 4 hard disk drives installed are still shown separately. (it should be one partition of 300GB) One thing I have to mention, is it really necessary to slipstream SP2 into the Windows 2003 setup CD? So far I haven't done. Can somebody give me tell me what I am doing wrong?