It's always difficult in a case like this to be positive about what
happened. A lot of details here regarding boot sequence, what was attached
prior and after OS installation, mobo idiosyncrasies, etc. That said, it
sounds like you may have a case where the mobo drive assignments (C:, D:,
etc.) are different when certain hardware components are attached.
For example, I have several USB external HD enclosures. If I leave them
running when I reboot my Abit AI7 mobo, then the "system" sees the external
enclosure as the bootable drive, despite the fact I've told the BIOS it
isn't. No matter what I do, if that USB external enclosure is running, the
system INSISTS on trying to boot it. So w/ every reboot, I have to make
sure the enclosures are shutdown.
The same thing could be occurring w/ your IDE channels. Your BIOS and/or
Windows may be insisting that if anything is attached to the IDE channels,
it must be the bootable item. Of course, we know it isn't. I suspect the
reason it gets to the XP logo and craps out is because it's NOT the new
install, but the OLD install that's trying to boot. The old install doesn't
match the new hardware, and well..., all kinds of problems can creep up now.
The fact you added the IDE drive AFTER XP was installed may have exacerbated
the problem too.
I have several suggestions, perhaps none of them ideal. You could install
XP on the RAID partition again, but this time make sure the IDE drive is
attached and running at the time. XP will install the boot files on the IDE
drive, of course, but the OS will be running off the RAID/SATA drives
(probably as D
.
Another option, if you want to force the RAID/SATA drive to be C: is,
install a boot manager on the PATA/IDE drive first (e.g., BootIt NG). Only
requires a small 8-16mb partition. Now install XP on the RAID/SATA drive.
When the system boots, it will boot the PATA/IDE drive, *but* that will only
boot the boot manager! From there, your boot manager can boot XP (as C
.
This is what I've done on my system. I *always* use a small PATA drive for
my boot manager, which in turn boot various OS's from my RAID0 (stripped)
array (in my case, PATA/IDE too). I then use the remaining space on the
PATA/IDE drive for additional partitions or storing image copies of
partitions on the other drives, so it doesn't go to waste.
Bottomline is, I know this varies a bit from vendor to vendor, but there can
be problems in controlling boot order when mixing interfaces, despite
whether the BIOS settings might lead you to believe otherwise. Many mobo's
insist on a particular sequence that *may* not jive with your intentions.
And that's what I suspect has happened in your case. To circumvent the
problem, I've simply made it a habit to maintain a small PATA/IDE drive for
my boot manager, then have the boot manager boot the various OS's I have
installed. Sometimes you have to know when to NOT fight the system
HTH
Jim
"D" wrote in message
...
I've got a Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI motherboard.
It has two RAID controller chips, of which I use one to controller a RAID
1
array of two Seagate ST3160827AS SATA 7200.8 160GB drives.
The O/S is Win XP SP2.
All was working fine, even after adding my old IDE harddrive from my old
PC
(continuing with the boot disk being the RAID 1 array).
However, I wanted to wipe my old IDE drive to allow it to be used for
backups... Before wiping it, I decided to make it the boot drive to bring
my old install of XP up to allow me to run the transfer wizards to ensure
I
had all the settings and data I might need from the old HDD. (The old
install of windows complained about hardware, given the install had
occurred
on my old PC, as expected. I was still able to run Transfer Wizard
succesfully).
The problem arose when I switched in BIOS to make the RAID array the boot
disk. On boot, just before Windows XP shows it's logo, it would blue
screen. The blue screen would flash by before I could read it and the
system rebooted automaticaly. This occurred continuously. This was
stopped
by uncabling the old IDE drive, which allowed Win XP to start, but then I
kept getting dirty bits on two of the partitions of the RAID drives (which
after many repetative checkdisks, finally stopped).
All seems to be working well again; but I've lost faith in being able to
recong drives at will. I have re-configed drives in my PC for many years
and never had this problem; although this is the first time I've done it
whilst having a RAID array.
I still want to be able to attach another HDD (with the RAID array remaing
the boot drive) to allow backups of my significant volume of data (too
much
for DVD burn even - 50Gb), but am now wary of changing my config. I now
know I can change Windows System option to not reboot automatically on
crashing; to allow me to see the blue screen details, but am wary of
cabling
the IDE drive back in to further troubleshoot in case I lose all my data.
- Why would changing the boot sequence and booting from an old windows
install affect the RAID parition integrity and reverting the setup back?
- Before cabling the IDE HDD back in, should I perform some action or add
it
with specific considerations?
- Should I uncable the two SATA drives in the array, cable the IDE drive
in
and then run a harddisk test from a bootable CD?
Thanks in advance,
D.