Strange RAID PCI card problem, looking for some ideas.

[y2keable]

Any help on this issue would me much appreciated as after 3 days of tinkering, I'm all out of ideas.

The hard drive on my PC is full and I have a heap of other hard drives (old and new) that I'd rather not install into my PC as I like it to run cool and therefore quiet (can't stand a PC that makes a noise) so I've pulled a load of old computer parts together from a few old PC's to create a NAS. It's the perfect solution, pack an old PC case full of hard drives, loads of cooling and a wireles LAN card and shove it in the loft where I cnan't hear it...

The build has been going great until the the very last step where I've hit a road block. The steps so far have been:

-Build PC from old parts including Intel P4 (3.0Ghz dual core) on HP motherboard, 1Gb DDR2 RAM, 350W ATX PSU and a Netgear PCI WLAN card

-Install Windows 7 Unltamite onto 80Gb WD SATA hard drive (plugged into motherboard)

-Insert FastTrak TX3200 PCI SATA RAID card and 2x 230GB WD hard drives

-Install Windows drivers for said RAID card

-Create stripped (RAID 0) set, partition and format SATA RAID set

-Share "D" drive (Volume label "Storage") and check I can access it on the network. Done, great!

-Insert Sil IDE PCI RAID card and 2x 120GB Samsung IDE hard drives

-Create second stripped RAID set in the PCI card's BIOS and assign volume label "Backup"

-Use DOS (with Win98 bootable floppy) to partition using Fdisk.exe and format using Format.com

Now, instead of windows loading, I have a black screen with "no operating system found"

If I unplug the IDE cable from the PCI card, Windows loads as normal. I've disabled the onboard RAID facility. The BIOS boot order is 1:WD 80GB, 2:3.5in Floppy. 3isabled so the BIOS shouldn't be trying to boot from any of the RAID sets. With the IDE cable unplugged, I've loaded Windows and installed the drivers for the IDE RAID card. If I plug the IDE cable intot he motherboard, Windows still won't load (but instead, I get the message "No boot drive found. Insert bootable dist and press any key to continue")

I have a feeling Windows 7 just isn't compatible with IDE hard drives. Any Ideas?

Cheers

 

[Twiki]

Did you try moving the cards around in the slots?

 

[spynoodle]

I know from experience that if you clone a Windows 7 install that was originally installed on a SATA drive to an IDE drive, it won't boot properly without proper registry modifications; however, I feel like this problem shouldn't be affecting you. Are you trying to boot a Windows 7 install from your IDE RAID set?

 

[y2keable]

I know from experience that if you clone a Windows 7 install that was originally installed on a SATA drive to an IDE drive, it won't boot properly without proper registry modifications; however, I feel like this problem shouldn't be affecting you

No, this shouldn't apply.

Are you trying to boot a Windows 7 install from your IDE RAID set?

No, I installed Windows on a SATA hard drive (which isn't part of a RAID set) before installing either of the RAID cards and the system is supposed to boot from this (lets say) stand-alone drive.

Cheers

 

[y2keable]

Did you try moving the cards around in the slots?

Yes, I thought perhaps that the order in which they are inserted into the PCI ports would effect the boot order but, no. No change.

Cheers

 

[spynoodle]

Maybe this would help?:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1227636/how-to-change-sata-modes-after-windows-7-installation
Possibly applying one of these registry changes would fix your problem, but I would keep a cloned drive of your Windows 7 install ready in case you seriously mess up your registry and render your install unbootable. I know I have done this at times when trying to make these types of changes.