XP Pro, SATA, RAID, new install - will not boot without CD

D

DigitalMP

Gawd
Joined
Jun 27, 2004
Messages
861
This thing is driving me nuts. Dell XPS 400 desktop. I have the Dell XP Pro SP2 CD slipstreamed via nLite with SP3 and the Intel SATA drivers.

Back in October, this lady's PC had booting issues, so I popped it open and saw the RAID setup, disconnected one drive, it booted fine, and I let her go with that. There were some profile issues, but she was content to see if she could avoid paying any more money. Then the OS turned so crappy that it was inevitable, so I took it home to reformat. But I wanted to rebuild the RAID array from the ground up...

I got the drivers off the Dell site, slipstreamed them, and the install went smooth. It hits the Desktop for the first time, then I reboot, remove the CD, and it can't find a boot device.

The RAID volume is first in the boot order...what am I missing here?
 
Please tell me someone has a suggestion...I've been so around the block with this issue that I'm not even sure where to go next.

It's quite ambiguous, and the only logic I can lean on here is that a few months back when this thing had boot up problems, I broke the RAID array and connected only one HD and started up alright. The one problem with that is that at point during this current phase, I lost track of which one I had originally disconnected. So I'm wondering if that points to the solution that a bad HD is the culprit here.

So based on that, let's say one HD is bad. I created the RAID1 array, installed the drivers and OS, and now it won't boot. How would I confirm this? Disconnect one drive, ensure the potentially healthy drive is on SATA0, kill the RAID array, and then what? Change the BIOS to AHCI/SATA? or RAID/SATA? Right now it's on "RAID ON". Depending on that selection, will I still need SATA RAID drivers, since it might pretend it's IDE? Or is that irrelevant since I've already slipstreamed the drivers into my OS CD?
 
I've never had good luck with slipstreamed drivers. I inevitably have to dig out a floppy and use that.
 
I actually used a floppy for several attempts with different BIOS configurations -- RAID/SATA, SATA only, then incorrect boot orders (the RAID volume is now first)...I just wanted to rule out that step and get them right on the CD.
 
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