ericthered8

Hi Fernando, Your work on this subject is impressive and much appreciated But having said that, I've to admit I can't get my system installed after the latest hardware upgrade It looks as if I can use some help, so here's an exact description of what's happening. First, the hardware specification: Asus A8N-SLI DeLuxe, BIOS 1016, NVIDIA RAID BIOS 4.84 4 x Seagate ST3300622AS 300 Gb SATA-II in RAID0+1, capacity 558.92 Gb, stripe block 64K. The goal is to install Windows XP 64 Professional x64 onto this array, using a CD with integrated drivers prepared with nLite 1.0 RC7. I tried integration of all drivers described in the first post on this thread: the Legacy drivers from the 6.67 release, as well as the drivers from the 6.69 release, plus some combinations of both methods just to check if this would change something. But it doesn't - no matter which drivers I use, the installation of XP x64 onto the RAID array always goes wrong in exactly the same way. After defining the bootable RAID0+1 in BIOS the installation starts smoothly: Setup loads the necessary files and reaches the point where partitions can be created. Unpartitioned space is reported correctly as 558.92 Gb. I always choose C to create a 20 Gb NTFS partition, then for installing Windows onto this partition. Next, the Setup program starts the installation by formatting the partition. This gives the first indication that something is wrong: formatting takes an unusually long time. Even a quick NTFS formatting is problematic: the system seems to hang after formatting the first 20% - it takes 5 to 10 minutes at least before suddenly the rest of the formatting is shown as 'completed' and the Setup program continues. After the necessary files have been loaded, the system reboots. Then it becomes clear that the RAID array is not what it should be: the system suddenly reports 2 arrays. Array 1 is RAID0+1 with a capacity of 558.92 Gb, 'Boot' is reported as 'N/A', and the status is 'Error'. Only 1 drive is specified as being part of this array: the drive on adapter 1 channel 0. Array 2 is RAID0+1 with a capacity of 558.92 Gb, 'Boot' is reported as 'Yes', and the status is 'Degraded'. 3 drives are specified as being part of this array: adapter 1 channel 1, and both channels 0 and 1 on adapter 2. By now, I know better than to proceed with the installation beyond this point - the best option is to delete both arrays and then try again with other driver combinations. Actually, it is possible to continue the installation and get an installed system. This system is even operational, up to a point - it's slow, but appears to work. However, MediaShield reports the existence of 2 arrays as well - and any attempt to rebuild an array seems to lead nowhere. I realise there may be a hardware problem somewhere, but even if that's the case I've no idea what it might be. So, any bright ideas are welcome Eric