sownedmonehp

I have an alienware with the K8V motherboard and an SATA configuration. When I try to boot the computer it says no harddrive found, and I know this harddrive to be good as I just took it out of another computer and installed it into the Alienware. When I try to put in the windows XP cd and install windows, it says it cannot perform the action as there are no harddrives installed. I tried to use a boot disk and got the error "NTLDR is missing, press any key to reboot". I've also gotten the error that no array was defined.

So I went into the utility to define the array and did so, and in that menu it showed the Western Digital 75GB Harddrive but still no luck. It won't find the harddrive. I've checked all of the cables and they're plugged in correctly and configured correctly. And it can't be a bad installation of windows b/c its store bought and the OS worked fine on the other computer. Its the 3rd harddrive I put in and it won't find any of them. We can to this problem one day when the computer just turned itself off and when we tried to power it back on it didn't see the harddrive. But when I put that harddrive it lost into this computer it works just fine.

magnethead

Are you using the right ports? Some may be for RAId and others not. Sounds to me like you're trying to use RAId when you cant for only 1 hard drive.

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sownedmonehp

Well its SATA, and I'm on the motherboard slot "PRI SATA". What other port would I use? And someone has mentioned the raid issue previously, so how do I get past this?

dai

set it to be seen as ide in the bios
if the port is capable of raid you may need to load the raid driver to enable the port with f6 during the install
it's also illeagal to install from the same windows disk on a second computer

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sownedmonehp

I tried that, I went into bios and changed it from raide to IDE and I defined the array and still no harddrive. When I changed it to IDE though, it'll let me get to the windows XP loading screen, and when its done loading and the screen goes black just before the welcome screen, the computer restarts.

dai

we seem to be at cross purposes here
are you setting up raid or a single drive
if you are setting raid you set the drives to raid in the bios
single drive set to ide and don't define an array

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sownedmonehp

Hey, I am setting up a single drive so I guess I dont need raid based off of what you fellas have said thus far. But I've already defined the array thinking I had to, how do I "un-define" it so to speak?

To make sure I have this straight...

I should un-define the array and set the disk to IDE in the bios (even tho its on an SATA connection), yeah?

dai

yes set it to ide
if the drive is on a raid capable port,to enable the port you need to load the raid driver with f6 during the setup

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sownedmonehp

Alright, I've seen the screen to push F6 to install RAID but where do I get the RAID drivers to install? I dont have a floppy on this computer to transfer the drivers to. But do I need to set it as RAID if its just the one harddrive?

dai

loading the raid driver does not set raid,it enables the port the drive is plugged into if it is a raid port
if it's not you don't need to load it,just setting sata as ide in the bios should do it
if it needs loading and you have no floppy you will have to slipstream it into the xp disk
then use the slipstreamed disk for the install
the driver will be on the m/b setup cd

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sownedmonehp

And in the event I dont have the motherboard setup cd? heh. Sorry but I dont have the original CD that came with the harddrive, so would I download the K8V RAID drivers and put them on CD and boot to CD/install RAID?

sownedmonehp

Even when I go into bios and change it to IDE, it'll ask me if I want to start in safe mode or start windows normally and no matter what I pick when its done with the windows xp loading screen it restarts

sownedmonehp

And also, its not giving me the option to press f6 and install raid drivers anymore. Or was that when I had the windows CD in?

dai

tap f8 when starting and try from the options
last known good configuration

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sownedmonehp

When I do last known good config, it still does the windows xp loading screen then restarts

dai

boot into the recovery console and run
fixboot

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sownedmonehp

whats the command to run fixboot? and how do I boot into recovery console?

dai

boot from the xp cd and choose install
when it says press R
press R and you will be in the recovery console
run fixboot
a full list of the commands available in there you can see bu typing help and pressing enter

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