Help with installing new WinXP 64 on Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD4 raided SSD

[dhsieh9]

I am trying to intall a new WinXP 64 on Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD4 on a pair of OCZ Vertex 60G SSD raided on Marvell SATA ports. I built a bootable USB thumb drive from WinXP 64 ISO with added Marvell's RAID drivers through nLite.

I was able to boot up the USB as if from CDROM. However, when I reached selecting available partition for WInXP 64, it complains that the 120G paired raid0 SSD space can not be recognized. I wonder where might it goes wrong with splistreamed bootable image on USB?

 

[tigsounds]

I have learned never to assume anything on a poster's computer.

You made some kind of a RAID, or you just plugged in two drives and think you have a RAID.

Did you enter the RAID setup utility and specifically setup the RAID?

Did you do anything to partition the RAID, even if all one partition?

 

[dhsieh9]

I create RAID0 thru Marvell's setup with <ctl>m key during the boot. WinXP 64 instllation should be able to fromat the 120G RAID0 SSD but fail to do so. I problem lies in that WinXP requires floppy drive to import 3rd party RAID driver. Unfortunately, current m/b eliminates floppy & IDE and support only SATA

 

[tigsounds]

Good to see you built the RAID with the RAID setup utility.

I don't know for sure that Windows Setup can format a drive that's not partitioned first. It's been a long time for me to run Setup, so I just don't remember if partitioning is required first or not.

A USB floppy drive will work when all else fails. You may need to make a BIOS setting to get it accepted, but it comes in as Drive A when the machine gets booted and Windows setup will use it correctly.

 

[dhsieh9]

There is no floppy drive or IDE ports in new m/b including the one have: GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD4

 

[tigsounds]

There is no floppy drive or IDE ports in new m/b including the one have: GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD4

A USB floppy drive will work when all else fails. You may need to make a BIOS setting to get it accepted, but it comes in as Drive A when the machine gets booted and Windows setup will use it correctly.

Like one of these HERE

Once you buy one, you'll always have it for any computer needing floppy access.

 

[dhsieh9]

What about fdisk on sata drives?

 

[tigsounds]

Since you do come back to report your progress, I'll give a link to get a program to partition and format your RAID. The program will not see that you have a RAID, it will see whatever the RAID is as a drive (if the RAID is setup properly).

The program is an ISO Image file that must be burned to CD by a program that can burn an ISO back to standard CD. Not a big thing, but you can't just make a data disk out of an ISO image, it must be done right.

Boot the computer with the new CD you make from the ISO image.
Click the second button down "Setup Hard Drive"
In the next screen, check the box "Add the drive as additional storage"
and...
Check the box that says "Select this box if you want to change advanced options"
and...
Check the box that says "Custom Partition"
Then click "Next"
It will show your current partition information, click the "Delete" button

Now you can specify the number of partitions by dragging the slider to the size you want the primary partition to be. If you want it all in one partition, drag it all the way to the right.
Choose the file system you want to use (NTFS) and continue as prompted.

If you want more than one partition, drag the size slider only as far as you want the primary partition to be. Repeat for each additional partition until all space has been allocated. Follow prompts and finish.

When it is done (only takes seconds to do everything), the drive will be ready to install an operating system. You still need to have a way to supply Setup with the RAID driver by pressing the F6 key and have a floppy drive of some sort with the driver disk as needed since you cannot get a slipstream install to work.

The ISO file is named "Hitachi" and is downloaded by clicking HERE.

To burn the ISO to CD, Nero Burning ROM will do it. When it sees it is an ISO and the only file you are burning, it will offer to make it a regular CD, go for it.

If you don't have Nero or another burner program to make the ISO a regular CD, you can download one free, HERE