[Integration of NVIDIA's nForce RAID and AHCI drivers]

You are welcome.

As you may have realized, your problem had nothing to do with the nForce SataRaid drivers.

Fine, that you succeeded at least.

CU

Fernando

I took two steps, I don't know which one solved the problem.

I suspect that the problem stemmed from the install CD I used: it was tuned, with SP3, raid drivers, and other stuff wich probably didn't fit well with the nVidia raid drivers (because that CD installed perfectly on a non-raid system).

[Integration of NVIDIA's nForce RAID and AHCI drivers]

@ Kuzco:

1. It is never a good idea to have different MBR's on the used hdd's. You got them by trying to install XP onto one of your hdd's (without RAID) and then onto the RAID.

Solution: You should create the RAID by using 2 absolutely clean hdd's. Use the Seagate Tool to low format both hdd's.

2. You should know the error message why you get the endless reboots at the end iof the installation.

Solution: Hit F8 while booting and choose the option "Don't reboot at system failure".

Oh my god, well i guess i'll do just that... and i'll keep you posted

Didn't you even come to the point, where the Setup shows your hard disk(s) with their partitions and you have to decide where you want to get XP installed?

Hmm yess when the disks are not mounted in an array I get two choices.

Thank you for your light-speed reply

Ok actually I just :

- quick-zeroed the two disks with DiscWizard from Seagate to remove all partition information (for that I used Ultimate boot CD)

- slipstreamed an older Windows XP installation disk (SP2) the way you described with the adequate Nvidia drivers (not only the raid ones but also SMBus and Ethernet)

and it worked juste fine!

I don't know which step made things work , but I suspect the fact that my SP3 installation CD be already tuned was the origin of my problems.

Thank you again for you help!

[Integration of NVIDIA's nForce RAID and AHCI drivers]

@ Kuzco:

1. It is never a good idea to have different MBR's on the used hdd's. You got them by trying to install XP onto one of your hdd's (without RAID) and then onto the RAID.

Solution: You should create the RAID by using 2 absolutely clean hdd's. Use the Seagate Tool to low format both hdd's.

2. You should know the error message why you get the endless reboots at the end iof the installation.

Solution: Hit F8 while booting and choose the option "Don't reboot at system failure".

Oh my god, well i guess i'll do just that... and i'll keep you posted

Didn't you even come to the point, where the Setup shows your hard disk(s) with their partitions and you have to decide where you want to get XP installed?

Hmm yess when the disks are not mounted in an array I get two choices.

Thank you for your light-speed reply

[Integration of NVIDIA's nForce RAID and AHCI drivers]

Hi all,

I hoped this forum would help me solve my raid problem but it seems to be trickier than I thought.

I've been trying to install XP on a SATA raid array with no success so far.

In a nutshell:

I created a CD as described by Fernando

Windows installs normally on one of the disks (NO RAID mode)

but as soon the disks are mounted as a RAID array, XP installs but endlessly reboots before GUI mode

In detail:

What I've done:

- install CD = XP PRO SP3 rev 5512 + Nvidia nForce 430 latest version found on NVIDIA website (included /SATARAID + /SATA_IDE)

- used latest nLite version

- PC BIOS updated to latest revision (Media shield v 6.50)

- Array created, bootable and healthy

- removed all unnecessary hardware : all PCI cards, CD and DVD drives, floppy, even keyboard and mouse (this is cuz i read that reboot at mup.sys was a hardware-related problem)

- set all BIOS settings to default (except raid of course)

What works:

- the installation CD seems correct; when I do a NO RAID install, the drivers are correctly installed in windows even if shown as not digitally signed. Everything works well.

What doesn't work:

install with the same CD on a RAID: windows installs normally, seems to boots, but reboots

in safe mode rebbot occurs right after displaying mup.sys

i get no blue screen or error code, just a reboot.

My Hardware:

ASUS M2NPV-VM

disks: Seagate ST160811AS + ST160815AS (exact same capacity)

Conclusion:

My understanding is that it is clearly a RAID - related problem because:

- the CD is correct

- everything goes fine when not in RAID mode

The raid array can be read/written by windows (it installs on it). But i don"t understand why the system reboots as the drivers are correctly installed (at least i think so)

Does anyone have any idea what the problem could be? thanks!