XP Pro install detects faulty HD in only SATA setup

[zolimark]

OK, so heres the situation. I setup a new system with the following components:

Foxconn 945P7AA-8EKRS2 MB
Pentium 4 630 (3.0 GHz)
(2) 1GB DDR2 667Hz
(2) WD2500KS SATAII
EVGA Nvidia GeForce 6800 GS
Lite-On SOHW 1693S DVD/CD combo drive

I have the two drives connected to SATA 1 and 2 on the MB.
I have the DVD connected to IDE1 with master jumper selected.
I have tried all combinations of device boot orders.
I have the BIOS set to SATA RAID.
I have created the RAID 0 member.
I have rechecked all connections.
XP Pro CD is in the drive.
There are NO jumpers on the HDs

After the post, during which I see that no IDE or SATA drives are detected, I receive the DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER message. Also, in the BIOS, I only see the (2) drives after a forced detect.

I have NOT been able to enter the OS install routine so I have not been able to install the RAID drivers that came with the MB via the "F6 screen."

I have read MANY posts that are similar to this post but they do not address the situation of only SATA drives in a RAID config resulting in the DISK BOOT FAILURE.

All help is appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[mpjesse]

This may sound incredibly stupid, but disconnect the SATA drives and make sure you can at least boot from the Windows XP CD.

I had a similar problem and it turned out to be an incompatibility between my DVD burner and the media WinXP was burned on.

-mpjesse

 

[zolimark]

make sure you can at least boot from the Windows XP CD. -mpjesse

It seems that the manufacturer does not place much value in accurate documentation. The DISK BOOT FAILURE was solved by changing the IDE connector. Apparently, the MB will not acknowledge the DVD (when there are no IDE hard drives present) connected to any of the (2) ATA/133 slots. When I changed it to the (1) ATA/100 connector, it booted successfully.

However, I am still having a problem with the SATA drives. I press F6 during the XP install for the RAID driver. At this point I have one of two problems:

iaStor.sys error (1024) on line 2113 (If I attempt to load the driver)

or

XP install determines that my HDs are not functioning properly (If I reset BIOS to non-RAID, delete RAID member, and bypass driver install for a traditional install)

The HDs are powered/spinning and are detected by BIOS. Doesn't this mean that they are communicating "properly?" ...sigh... Albeit not the reason for which I chose SATA, my understanding was that SATA should be an easier install.