Installing RAID card during XP installation

[elburro]

I'm having problems loading RAID card driver files during installation of XP to my computer.

Description of system:

I got two Seagate 120 GB SATA HDDs that I wish to use with my KX400+ PRO Albatron motherboard. I wish to set the two drives up in a RAID1 configuration. (mirroring)

The KX400+ PRO doesn't support RAID, so I got a HighPoint RocketRAID 1640 host adapter that goes into a PCI port on the motherboard, and I can connect the two SATA HDDs to this adapter.

When starting the computer, BIOS can find the HDDs without any problems. And I boot from the CD-ROM to install Windows XP. I press F6 to 'specify additional adapters', and later insert the floppy disk required. I got no problems partioning the C drive and formatting it to start installation.

But... when the computer starts to copy files from the XP CD to the HDD it stops and says:

'Setup cannot copy the file: hpt374.sys

- to retry press Enter

If you are installing from a CD make sure the Windows XP CD is in the CD-ROM drive

- To skip this file press Esc'

I've tried:

- Downloading the latest drivers from HighPoint

- Copying the driver files to a CD to let the computer read the CD instead of a floppy

- Just skipping the file by pressing Esc, which gives the blue screen.

I can't get past this file copying error.

Any help would be deeply appreciated.

[Rayza]

I've used quite a few of these RAID cards and the first thing i always do to them is upgrade the BIOS on the card. I dont know if you noticed when selecting your drives if it still said 'primary' and 'secondary' which is not posible with SATA drives. I think the BIOS still has settings from IDE drives. When you upgrade the BIOS it removes this problem. For me it also removed my problem of not copying the sys file over....

[mark strelecki]

Make sure that floppy diskette with the driver is STILL in the drive.

Setup will need to copy it at the beginning of the file copy phase.

When the Setup is finished, you'll be prompted to remove the diskette.

Can't see any other reason you'd get that error, and I've installed a few Highpoint and Promise controllers. Just a few....

Best of luck from Atlanta, GA USA.

MARK STRELECKI

WWW.STRELECKI.COM/LINKS.HTML

[elburro]

Thanks Rayza & Mark,

Unfortunately, I'm not making much progress.

1) Both the BIOS and RAID card drivers are the latest version. (V2.05)

From: http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA/bios_rr1640.htm

2) It says nothing about 'primary' and 'secondary' drives. So I think IDE setup is not a problem. It has [none] in BIOS. Only the CD-ROM is present as IDE Secondary slave.

3) The floppy disk is in the drive at all times. It still cannot read the file. The weird thing is that it reads it earlier, it just when it starts to copy files to XP that it cannot read it.

4) I'm never prompted to remove the diskette, so that must be after the stage I can't get past.

Some questions...

1) I've created the RAID 1 array in BIOS already, and done the mirroring. So when XP asks me to do partitioning it only sees 1 disk. Would it make a difference if I created the array after the Windows XP installation?

2) I got first boot device set to SCSI and second to CD-ROM. ok?

(and yes, in the RocketRAID BIOS utility, the array is also marked as BOOT)

3) If I go into RocketRAID BIOS setting utility, the two disks are at channel 2 and 4. Should they be in 1 and 2? Does this make a difference?

4) The disk mode is now ATA/150. Is it possible that this is too fast and that I should set it to a slower mode like. ATA/66 or ATA/100? The motherboard isn't that new. I'm not sure what difference the mode makes?

Edited August 10, 2005 by elburro

[shsurury]

Slipstream the drivers in your XP installation CD. I had similar problem with Promise RAID controller and no matter what I do it will not read the drivers from the floppy, but after a slipstream it just installs every thing without any problem. Search on this forum on how to slipstream drivers for your card.

Hope this helps

[elburro]

Problem solved.

Seems there was something wrong with the Windows XP CD. I got another version with SP2, and it works.

Thanks!

[D.Celt]

3) The floppy disk is in the drive at all times. It still cannot read the file. The weird thing is that it reads it earlier, it just when it starts to copy files to XP that it cannot read it.

I think there's a bug in text setup mode regarding this, the workaround was not to have the disk in the drive until you were prompted for it, ie - don't have the floppy in the drive during the boot process.