Raid Configuration Utility problem?

Hi there,

This is the first time i’ve used a forum for a PC problem so apologies in advance if don’t follow correct protocol!

I have a 4 year old PC, which due to virus attacks etc I have decided to reformat and reinstall windows XP.

Ive booted from CD and which starts the windows setup (ignoring the F6 for raid driver) and gets to the welcome to setup page, pressing enter and agreeing to the license gives me a unknown Disk (there is no disc in this drive) error.

So thinking it was a problem with the raid drive, ive rebooted and entered (F4) the Raid Configuration Utility (silicon image)deleted the existing raid set which tells me ‘no raid set exists’ so i choose the option to ‘create raid set’ which gives the choice of striped of mirrored, i highlight striped, press enter which takes me to the auto / manual configuration, press enter to create a raid set automatically......and nothing happens, the machine appears to freeze, no key strokes have any effect including Ctrl-E to exit.

So do i need to install the drivers at the F6 stage of windows installation first, from floppy, and do they need to match the Bios exactly? I can only find Sil 3112A SATARaid Ver 4.2.50, and my machine reports Bios version 4.2.49.

Sorry if this is an obvious or stupid question but its so frustrating trying to figure this out on my own, thanks in anticipation!