Raptors Won't Load XP

[Morganz0r]

Hey everyone.
I'm trying to reformat with raid 0. Computer in sig below. I created the drivers from the asus cd and everything worked great, raid is selected in the bios; intel raid 0 is also set up. Now when I load the drivers with f6 everything is fine, but when I try to create a partion my computer says I have no hard drives detected! In the boot menu it shows up as intel 0 and at the bottom when you just hit tab and see some basic computer info it shows two identical drives.
I have no idea what could be wrong.
Thank you for your time.

 

[Mondoman]

Did you set up your RAID 0 array in the RAID BIOS (this is a second BIOS whose boot message usually appears after the POST phase of the main BIOS)?

 

[Morganz0r]

Do you mean creating a raid array with the intel way by hitting control+i? If so yes, if not I'm not sure what you mean. I think you mean IDE configuration and yes, that is also set to raid. It shows the harddrives in boot order too as intel raid 0. So I'm not sure exactly what you mean but I think I have everything set up correctly, but apparently not if it doesn't work.

 

[Morganz0r]

Can someone please help? I have an even worse problem now. It turns out my settings weren't right in my bios, but I can't even get into my bios. When I turn on my computer and am prompted to hit del to enter the bios, my cpu fan turns off and my computer freezes. Would this be a bad fan, or bad luck?
Would it be a mobo problem or a fan problem that stops the computer from posting due to failure?

 

[Codesmith]

You should repost in the motherboard section.

In general if a system won't post.

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Disconnect as much as possible. I am serious.

All you should have connected is the CPU Heatsink & Fan, keyboard, video card, and powersupply, and the case connections.

Don't be lazy. Actually disconnect everything that isn't essential to the system Posting.

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Reseat Memory & Video card and ensure that ALL PSU connections to the motherboard are secure.

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Clear the CMOS

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Sometimes it help to start the computer once without the memory and video card. You should get some beep codes.

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Many motherboards will not start if the a fan is not connected to the CPU fan header and spinning above a certain RPMs.

When building system with Zalman Heatsinks, I often have to boot with a normal heatsink fan, then change the BIOS setting.

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Still not Posting?

Test the PSU using a multimeter by disconnecting it then shorting the green & black wire on the 20-24 pin connector.

Some PSU can't handle having no load so you should connect a Hard Drive or a CD Rom or something.

If you don't have a mutlimeter you can just see if the PSU starts up and powers up any drives connected to it.

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All else fails its time to test components in a working system.

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If none of this help you will probably have to swap parts with another system to find out what component(s) are causing the problem.

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PS if your BIOS sees the drive but XP install doesn't it you didn't load the correct driver when you press F6

XP won't complain when you add drivers for devices which are not present on your system.

In fact if you have more than one controller card adding all the drivers you can is a good idea. It often lets you switch controllers later without tricks.

You only find out if you used the correct controller when XP shows you the drives/arrays connected to the controller.

 

[BustedSony]

Can someone please help? I have an even worse problem now. It turns out my settings weren't right in my bios, but I can't even get into my bios. When I turn on my computer and am prompted to hit del to enter the bios, my cpu fan turns off and my computer freezes. Would this be a bad fan, or bad luck?
Would it be a mobo problem or a fan problem that stops the computer from posting due to failure?

This is probably similar to a well-documented bug with the P5W DH and some combinations of hardware. Let the system cycle through the turn-on then turn-off stuff without you doing anything, or skip this step if the system DOESN'T turn off on its own. Then next time turn on the system again and immediately press and hold the "Insert" key on the bottom right of the keyboard until the system POSTs and you can then press Delete and go into Bios properly. .

 

[Morganz0r]

I took your advice and now my computer can go into the bios. For some reason my floppy doesn't always get along with my computer. There is still the problem that I can't load windows onto my raid 0 raptors. The raid disk is complete and I load the files, it shows intel raid 0 disk shows up as a boot option as well. When I go to load windows on to the drives, it says there are no drives detected. Do I need to disable anything j-micron or what?
Please help, I'm going crazy with this and I hate to say it, but I'm on the verge of selling it all and buying a Pre-Build computer. *Rips hair out*
Thanks for your time.

 

[BustedSony]

I took your advice and now my computer can go into the bios. For some reason my floppy doesn't always get along with my computer. There is still the problem that I can't load windows onto my raid 0 raptors. The raid disk is complete and I load the files, it shows intel raid 0 disk shows up as a boot option as well. When I go to load windows on to the drives, it says there are no drives detected. Do I need to disable anything j-micron or what?
Please help, I'm going crazy with this and I hate to say it, but I'm on the verge of selling it all and buying a Pre-Build computer. *Rips hair out*
Thanks for your time.

If you're using EZraid, the Sata slots at the bottom which uses a jumper to set Raid 0 or 1 , you don't need additional drivers. You do have to have the type of Raid reset in Bios. It's in the manual. If you are using the Intel ICHR7 for Raid, (recommended) then you do need to load the drivers at the beginning of setup. The floppy is created using "makedisk" on the P5W-DH CD. Stick with it, this is a great motherboard and I've achieved an excellent overclock on mine. And the wireless is nice.

 

[Morganz0r]

I am using the intel ICHR7, I created the floppy from the asus cd. But it says
I have no harddrives connected. Could I be using the wrong ports? Currently, I am using sata 3 and 4, does it make a difference?Do I need to use the red sata hook up?

 

[BustedSony]

I am using the intel ICHR7, I created the floppy from the asus cd. But it says
I have no harddrives connected. Could I be using the wrong ports? Currently, I am using sata 3 and 4, does it make a difference?Do I need to use the red sata hook up?

For Intel Matrix Raid the Sata drives go on ports 1 and 3 (or 4, but 3 is preferable). 3 and 4 are both slaves to 1, so at LEAST Sata 1 must be connected. See page 2-34 of the manual.

 

[Morganz0r]

I took your advice and no luck. One in the red another in port 3, still not recognized. Even worse this time my usb floppy turned off when trying to load files, but that's a whole 'nother issue. Should I try the j-micron raid since I'm having such bad luck with the intel?

 

[BustedSony]

I took your advice and no luck. One in the red another in port 3, still not recognized. Even worse this time my usb floppy turned off when trying to load files, but that's a whole 'nother issue. Should I try the j-micron raid since I'm having such bad luck with the intel?

First of all, sorry, but the only dependable way to get files onto the system using F6 during initial XP install is to use a floppy drive connected to the floppy connector. A piece of junk from a Goodwill computer with the old floppy cable is all you need. Or the files can be slipstreamed, but that just complicates your install for now.

... ADDITIONAL: In fact that's your whole problem. The USB external floppy is not a Floppy drive but a "USB Device" and XP is hardcoded to require a floppy. It might as well be a USB stick, which also won't work. Pressing F6 just sets up install properties, later on you should get a dialogue saying "Insert floppy disk and press Enter." It will then let you know if it's succeeded. If you're not seeing all this then the drivers for Raid aren't being loaded, so of course it won't work. ...

With the board on its side as it would be in a tower case, the Orange EZraid Silicon Image ports are on the bottom of the board, the two Intel ports to use are side by side in a horizontal line next to the Southbridge chip, hard against the front-facing IDE port. Those are Red1 and Black 3, the odd one below it is Port 4, which is a slave to the Silicon Image controller.

Raid (not AHCI) has to be set in the Bios, see page 4-15 of the manual. Also Hare Drive order has to be set with "Array 0" as the first drive, though you shouldn't have other drives in the system while doing this anyway. (DON'T have the floppy as first device in Boot order!) This does work, I'm using it myself. In fact I migrated a working Boot Raid set from an older ITE Raid setup on a P5GDC-V and it was recognized after setting stripe size correctly.

As a fallback you can indeed use the EZraid, but bandwidth is shared between the two drives, it's easy to set up but a functional compromise. That's what I first used when I got this board.

 

[Mondoman]

...
First of all, sorry, but the only dependable way to get files onto the system using F6 during initial XP install is to use a floppy drive connected to the floppy connector. ...
... ADDITIONAL: In fact that's your whole problem. The USB external floppy is not a Floppy drive but a "USB Device" and XP is hardcoded to require a floppy. It might as well be a USB stick, which also won't work. ...

A USB floppy drive works fine for me...

 

[BustedSony]

...
First of all, sorry, but the only dependable way to get files onto the system using F6 during initial XP install is to use a floppy drive connected to the floppy connector. ...
... ADDITIONAL: In fact that's your whole problem. The USB external floppy is not a Floppy drive but a "USB Device" and XP is hardcoded to require a floppy. It might as well be a USB stick, which also won't work. ...

A USB floppy drive works fine for me...

Yes, I said the only "reliable" means, it works sometimes..(though technically it shouldn't since XP is not seeing a floppy) And the OP is losing his floppy on USB, so...

 

[Mobius]

RAID 0 is TEH ST00PID.

You will be very unhappy. I guarantee it. Believe it.

See signature.

 

[Morganz0r]

That's the thing. My floppy worked before to load the files, now it doesn't. I never got my other floppy to read the disks, (my internal one) so I guess I'll try to make it work somehow. Atleast the disk is already created more to come; hopefully not, though.

 

[BustedSony]

That's the thing. My floppy worked before to load the files, now it doesn't. I never got my other floppy to read the disks, (my internal one) so I guess I'll try to make it work somehow. Atleast the disk is already created more to come; hopefully not, though.

You wouldn't by any chance have the floppy cable connected to the internal drive upside down? I make that mistake all the time. Pin 1 can either be towards the power connector or to the other side at the back, there is no standard. Also the DC connector can be shifted over one pin. The floppy on the P5W DH has always worked for me, regardless of what piece of crap is being used. Even a 5 1/4 drive was connected to copy some old index files. I don't have one connected permanently since the case space is better used for flash disc slots.

So the problem is simply that you are not loading the controller files. At this point you may want to look at slipstreaming the files onto a copy of the XP install disc.

 

[XORRO]

I had the exact same problem as far as my computer saying thay nod hdds were installed and a wise old man from lucent told me " Don't fuk around with all of that overclocking bullshit set it to optomized defaults and try it." and IT WORKED I don't know why or how but set everything to optomized defaults and make sure your bios are set up correctly as well as your controller card ,if your using one. and make sure your plugged into the correct ports /read the manual. set to optomized defaults.