Hi Olivia
I believe the reason you are getting this error is that in running the Windows XP setup disc I assume you were running it to install Windows XP onto the PATA HDD while the Raptors were still connected to the PC and without making any changes in the BIOS Boot Menu or RAID Configuration Utility.
You selected the Install option and selected the PATA disk drive as the disk drive to install to and its got so far into the setup i.e. gathering all the info needed to install windows, formatted the PATA HDD, and then started the initial file copy, but then it hasn't been able to complete the install for the following reason:
1. You didn't install the RAID drivers for the Raptor RAID 0 disk after the PC re-booted after the initial file copy, where you need to hit the F6 key to install third party drivers where you then insert the floppy disk with the RAID drivers on. So then Windows couldn't properly detect and install drivers for the Raptors as a RAID 0 disk which it was detecting it as in the hardware configuration page.
Then when you've tried to install it again after removing the data cables form the Raptors if you havn't disabled the RAID controller in the BIOS, when Windows setup starts searching for the Hardware Configuration, even though the drives aren't connected the BIOS still says there is a RAID array enabled, so Windows keeps looking for it, and can't progress with the install until it finds the RAID array which it won't be able to do, as the drives aren't connected so it keeps looking and looking etc....
Then when you've tried to put everything back as it was i.e. reconnecting the Raptor data cables, and booting without the Windows CD in the PC......
Its possible that when you've reconnected the Raptor data cables that you have put the cables into different SATA ports for each of the Raptors,
(an easy mistake to make trust me...:) I did the same thing which is how I know about all this...:O )
When Windows was first installed the Master Boot Record (MBR) makes note of where each drive in the RAID array was situated on the mobo so that Windows can send/retrieve data correctly form the drives, if the drives are now connected to different ports the MBR would find a conflict between the current setup and the original setup and would not be able to detect the drives correctly..
Ok so now we want to put things right, first of all lets try to get it back working the way it was:
- Disconnect the PATA drive from the IDE cable
- Re-connect the Raptor data cable to the SATA ports on the motherboard they were originally connected to.
- Start up the PC and enter the BIOS (press Del)
- Check to see that the Raptors have been detected - you should see the drive information on the first page (model no., capacity, etc.)
- Exit BIOS and see if it boots to Windows - hopefully the original MBR on the RAID 0 disk has been unaffected
- If it succesfully boots to Windows and all seems to be running ok then post again here and we'll address installing Windows to the PATA drive.
- If it doesn't boot to Windows try swapping the Raptor data cable connectors at the motherboard end of the cable only ,and try booting to Windows again.
If it still doesn't boot to Windows succesfully post here and I'll post steps on how to re-install Windows again, but that will probably mean losing the data on the RAID 0 Raptors, which hopefully we can avoid by doing the above.
Hopefully the above will get you back into Windows and then we can look at how to install it to the PATA drive.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Kaz