PCI RAID controller?

Can anyone recommend a reliable, quick and feature-packed PCI RAID
controller for use with a pair of WD Raptor (WD360GD) drives? I cannot get
my Raptors to boot to Windows XP using a RAID 0 array with the ICH5-R on an
Intel 875PBZ motherboard.

Considering it refuses to boot the O.S., I've resorted to trying a PCI RAID
card instead. Using the M/B RAID controller, I get the message "A Disk
Error has Occurred, Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to Restart". I've tried the XP
recovery console FIXBOOT & FIXMBR, all to no avail.

Thank you.

@drian.

"@drian" wrote in message
...
Can anyone recommend a reliable, quick and feature-packed PCI RAID
controller for use with a pair of WD Raptor (WD360GD) drives? I cannot
get
my Raptors to boot to Windows XP using a RAID 0 array with the ICH5-R on
an
Intel 875PBZ motherboard.

Considering it refuses to boot the O.S., I've resorted to trying a PCI
RAID
card instead. Using the M/B RAID controller, I get the message "A Disk
Error has Occurred, Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to Restart". I've tried the XP
recovery console FIXBOOT & FIXMBR, all to no avail.

Thank you.

@drian.

You were able to create the RAID array, no? Excuse the presumption if you
have
tried the following, but the problem, it seems, is not your motherboard.

There is an apparent Catch-22 with RAID arrays in that you must
have the drivers for the RAID installed in Windows before you can boot to
Windows.
So, you have to boot from a separate, non-RAID disc, install the RAID
drivers from
the CD that came with your motherboard, then create an exact image of that
non-RAID
disc or partition on the RAID disc using Norton Ghost or a similar utility.
You usually
cannot just install Windows onto a RAID array without the help of another
drive.

If you have done the above, then have you checked the health of the RAID
discs using
the WD utilities? You apparently have installed XP on the RAID disc, so I'm
sure you
have RAID enabled in the BIOS.

Hope this helps,

Dave

Sorry, I read your earlier post just now, so disregard some of what I said.
If you've already set up a RAID array on that MB, then it appears that W.D.
could be blaming Intel so that they don't have to deal with the problem.
When
you boot off of a different drive, are you able to see the RAID disc and all
of the installed files? You have the latest BIOS update?

Dave

"Dave Hull" wrote in message
...
Sorry, I read your earlier post just now, so disregard some of what I
said.
If you've already set up a RAID array on that MB, then it appears that
W.D.
could be blaming Intel so that they don't have to deal with the problem.
When
you boot off of a different drive, are you able to see the RAID disc and
all
of the installed files? You have the latest BIOS update?

Thanks for your ideas Dave. I've almost exhausted my "things to try" list.

To answer your questions.

I only have two WD Raptor drives. I'm able to boot off one of the drives,
in non-RAID mode. So I did that, I installed XP successfully, then, using
the IAAR "migrated" to a RAID 0 array. So it created my array then the IAAR
tool requested I reboot. Guess what happened when I tried to reboot? The
disk error message came back and I'm hosed.

It seems no matter if I setup RAID 0 via the BIOS or via the IAAR from a
working drive, RAID 0 will flat-out fail when trying to boot with these
drives. Yet, how can the drives be faulty if they work fine in single drive
mode? The Seagate 120GB SATA drives I had, it was a non-event with them,
RAID worked as it should do.

I have the P16 BIOS. When I looked earlier today, was the latest.

So here I am, with a pair of very nice HDDs, unable to RAID 0 them (which is
why I bought them as two 36GB drives stand alone aren't much use), WD blames
Intel and Intel took $25 from me to tell me "sorry, we've no idea".

@drian.