Asus P4C800-E Deluxe and a Raid 0 array

jesus_thats_gre

Hi

I just got my new machine delivered this morning and want to set up a Raid 0 array on the above board. I got two 37.5 GB raptors if you are interested. To set up Raid 0 I need to put the raid drivers on a floppy. I didn't buy and floppy and don't want one.

Is there any alternatives to the floppy in this case?

Thanks

neokenzo

Some people have used usb pen but mainly its floppy.

jesus_thats_gre

Secondly, forgot to mention.

The drives were OEM drives and I can't figure out what jumper settings to use for the Raid array.

There is 8 pins, 2 lines of 4 as shown in the attachment.

I have searched the Western Digital site and can only find 6 and 10 pin drives..

jesus_thats_gre

Could you put it on CD?

Col_Loki

Firstly nice sig , secondly nice rig!!

I ran into the exact same problems you are having, a total pain. I ended up getting a floppy (from a random old PC) and installing from there. I dont think you can use a CD (as windows seems to stop checking if you dont have a floppy drive)..... i suppose id advise gettin a floppy.

One thing about Raid0 that can catch you is setting the cluster size, read this and you will know what i mean ......http://forum.abit-usa.com/showthread.php?threadid=37734 . Just to insure you have the max performance from those sweet raptors :eek: .

[edit] PS AFAIK remove all jumpers as you dont need them for SATA drives

jesus_thats_gre

[edit] PS AFAIK remove all jumpers as you dont need them for SATA drives

Ah sure I am an innocent fella!!

I ran into the exact same problems you are having, a total pain. I ended up getting a floppy (from a random old PC) and installing from there. I dont think you can use a CD (as windows seems to stop checking if you dont have a floppy drive)..... i suppose id advise gettin a floppy.

Someone mentioned a USB Memory stick, would that work? I was thinking about getting one anyway!

feylya

Try getting a bootable floppy image from www.bootdisk.com, making a bootable CD in nero with it and put the drivers on there. Could be worth a shot. Use a RW if you have to.

jesus_thats_gre

Nah that wont work.. I am thinking its a floppy or nothing..

Ah well, does anyone know if the Compustore in the Sandyford industrial estate sell floppy drives?

Sir Random

Did you set the BIOS to boot from CD first? feyla's suggestion has worked for others.

Adeptus Titanicus

Yep, I've successfully booted from both a CD and USB key with that Mobo. The only difficulty I had was getting data off an NTFS partition, but that was solved with a little research and help.

As someone already mentioned, you can sreate a bootable CD with something like Nero, and the manufaturer of USB keys usually provide some utility to make them bootable (I tried Disgo and IBM)

Col_Loki

I cant see how a cd would work for SATA drivers............. ie when your installing windows XP and it wont work or search if you dont have a floppy drive. Its pretty easy to boot from a CD but how do you work arround the SATA driver thing?

jesus_thats_gre

Cool, thanks.


Another question, I cant get a difinitive answer on this.


There is 4 S-ATA sockets on my bored. Two are marked SATA1 and SATA2. There is a second labelled Raid 1 and Raid 2. Can the SATA 1 and 2 be used while the Raid 1 and 2 sockets are being used? Or would have to use the E-IDE plugs?

Its a stupid question but I can't get a difinitive answer.

jesus_thats_gre

Right, I go around to getting a floppy drive and loaded the Via drivers onto the floppy.

Configured a Raid 0 array in the Fastrack boot utility for the two 36.7 Raptors. Booted into windows setup and pressed F6 to load the Raid drivers of the floppy. The drivers copied on correctly and I got confirmation that the Via Raid drivers for Xp were installed. Then went to the next step of Windows where it searched for available hard drives, IT FOUND nothing!!!

What the fook now? The two disks are being detected by the Fastrack Utility and I enabled Raid on S-ATA in the IDE config in the bios?

jesus_thats_gre

http://www.bleedinedge.com/reviews/asus_p4c800e/asus_p4c800e_pg2.html

all makes sense now, doh!