So I bought my computer parts on newgg.com, and started assembly all the pieces last night. Turns out my Western Digital Raptor was an SATA harddrive, which is faster than IDE, but a bit more frustrating to get the Windows XP installation cd to recognize it.
Parts:
ASUS A8V Deluxe motherboard
Western Digital Raptor SATA hdd (1)
The steps are not that difficult once you know how:
1) Plug in 1 sata hdd to the first plug in the mother board with sata cable (see motherboard instructions)
2) Enter Bios, choose boot mode: 1) floppy, 2) cd, 3) hdd. At this point, my hdd was recongized by the bios (a good sign).
3) Disable Promise Raid stuff, enable BootRom thing (I forget the exact wording) - this will enable you to use the VIA raid driver from asus web site, recommended over the Promoise raid driver for speed improvements.
4) Install XP, hit F6 when it asks (bottom of screen), then type “S” to specify the driver for the hdd.
This is where it got tricky for me, I only had the ASUS CD which came with the motherboard, and XP wouldn’t read from it. So I had to buy a floppy drive :-( Then went to asus web site, and found the Via Raid drive (7mb) zip file and extracted it to c:\temp on my win2k box. There is a utility in there somewhere called “MakeDisk.exe”, just run that with a floppy in your floppy drive, and it’ll create the driver disk. Go back into the XP Install, hit F6, then S, and then insert the floppy, just choose the right driver (it should be obvious). Whallah, XP now recongizes the sata hdd so it can then format and install.
Hoepfully this will help people.
You can find the drivers on the “Downloads” page from http://usa.asus.com
Updated: 12/31/04 - Addition of ASUS tech support response:
DESCRIPTION
———–
I installed the A8V Deluxe w/ SATA harddrive, and when installing
Windows
XP, hitting F6 to load sata drivers from Asus cd won’t read the cd.
I also tried booting up into the ASUS cd, and it just ends with a blank
screen and a flashing hyphen 1/4 of the way down on the screen.
My configuration is 1 sata harddrive (not raid), and trying to install
Windows XP. Unfortunately, I do not have a floppy drive or cd burner
around.
NOTES
———–
[12/30/2004 12:28:00 PM - nick23]
Thank you for your support of our products!
Here are the directions for Installing Windows 2k/XP on the Via RAID
controller.
DRIVERS
Download:
We recommend using the latest available drivers when configuring your
RAID
controller. You can find the latest Via RAID drivers on the ASUS
download
site:
http://www.asus.com/support/download/download.aspx
If this site is slow, or is having problems, you can also use our
download
mirror site:
http://www.asus.com.tw/support/download/download.aspx
Place a disk in your floppy drive. Download and unzip the file, then
extract the contents to a newly created folder. Double-click on the
MakeDisk file, and it will transfer the necessary files to your floppy
disk.
Support CD:
If you do not have access to the Internet, then start by browsing the
support CD included with the motherboard. Look for the DRIVERS
directory.
Inside that is a directory called VIARAID. Open the DRIVER directory
that
is inside. Make sure to insert a disk in your floppy drive, then
double-click on the MakeDisk file in the DRIVER directory. It will
transfer the necessary files to your floppy disk.
INSTALLATION
1. Start with clean, blank hard drives connected to the RAID
Controller.
These drives will not show up on the motherboard’s BIOS screen.
For a STRIPE array: THIS PROCEDURE WILL DESTORY ALL DATA ON THE
DRIVES!
For a SPAN array: THIS PROCEDURE WILL DESTORY ALL DATA ON THE DRIVES!
For a MIRROR: If you want to mirror a drive with existing information
you
will be asked to copy that information to the new drive. PLEASE BE
CERTAIN WHICH DRIVE HAS YOUR DATA. We recommend setting the drive with
DATA on it as the primary MASTER, but it will also work on the
secondary.
We also recommend backing up any information you do not want to lose.
If
you copy the wrong drive, you will lose your information!!
2. Set up your Array:
Upon first boot, the Promise BIOS should tell you that there are an
equal
number of RAID arrays defined as there are hard drives connected to the
Promise controller. Press [Tab] to enter setup, then delete all of the
existing arrays. This will not remove any data from your drives.
Choose
between the defaults, which should be Performance (Stripe), Data
Security
(Mirror), Safety and Performance (Stripe and Mirror) or Capacity
(Spanning).
3. Boot to your 2K/XP CD & start the installation. As Windows is first
setting up, at the first blue screen hit the [F6] key to load a third
party mass storage driver. If you miss this, you will be warned that
there are no hard drives attached. If this happens, restart the
machine
and tap the “F6” Key a few times as the CD spins up. Windows will go
through its install routine, then prompt you for an OEM disk for your
MASS
STORAGE CONTROLLER. Insert the floppy disk you created earlier, and
load
the first driver on the list. This will allow you to use your RAID.
LEAVE THIS FLOPPY IN THE DRIVE!
4. Let Windows setup the partition and install:
Choose install to the empty disk & choose NTFS FULL format, not quick.
If
you don’t have any other hard disks on your regular IDE channels, there
may be a LONG pause after the format; be patient.
5. If your system paused during the install, it will do so again when
booting into Windows. Once the install is completely finished, enter
the
BIOS Setup, go to the MAIN tab, then change “Auto” to “None” for all
channels where no drives are connected. NOTE: This applies to your
regular IDE channels, NOT your RAID Array.
6. Let Windows run through all of its setup routines and updates.
7. You will now be able to use your RAID disk as a storage device!
Please do not respond to this email. If you need further assistance,
contact Technical Support at 502-995-0883 (M-F 8:30 AM - 12:00 AM EST).
