Promise RAID pains

[iggythebrush]

Hi, This may be a stupid question - forgive me, I'm a RAID virgin. I have an Elite L7VTA MB, which includes a Promise Fasttrak 100 'Lite' RAID controller. I am running XP SP1, and I want to run a simple mirror system off the RAID. I enable the RAID and install the driver with XP running off my IDE0 master Maxtor 80GB HD. I then get an identical HD, and connect the two as mirrored (RAID-1) drives by connecting them both as masters to the 2 IDE connectors of the RAID controller, rebooting, building a RAID-1 array using the Promise utility. Now XP doesn't boot. I reconnect the first drive as master to the MB IDE0, XP boots (but finds some problems on the drive, which it corrects).
I repeat this ad infinitum, trying every combination of BIOS boot settings, etc. All to no avail. XP will not boot.
I boot from the XP installation CD, install the RAID driver from floppy and use Recovery Console to try and recreate the boot sector on the HDs. Although I get the C:> cursor, I cannot access the drive this way, checkdisk reports one or more unrecoverable errors. I start sweating. I reconnect the original drive as master on MB IDE0. XP boots happily. I give up and get a stiff drink. What am I doing wrong?

[tmx468]

You need to scrap what is already loaded, and start from scratch again. Setup the disks with the promise utility, boot from the XP CD, load the drivers, and install anew!

[iggythebrush]

Thanks tmx468! One question - will I lose everything on the HD when I reinstall XP this way?

[tmx468]

If you did it that way, yes you would... I beleive that doing it the above method is the best way, but wait for a second opinion first!!

[iggythebrush]

OK, I Fdisked and formatted the drives, created my mirror array using the Promise utility, started installing XP. So far so good. Then, on the first reboot, I get: Unmountable_boot_volume and system hangs. Tried lots of variations (deleting partitions, reformatting, etc. Always the same error in the same place.

[ussenterprise]

Have you tried loading the drivers onto the HD that has the OS?
Then connect the second HD. For reconfiguring to RAID 1, you usually need some form of software interface (to do it easily, that is..)

[iggythebrush]

Tried everything, loading drivers onto working HD on IDE0, then moving it to RAID, etc. No go. I am beginning to think there are some serious issues with the Promise RAID system.

[sm8000]

After creating the array, reinstall Windows from scratch. During setup, watch carefully for the message "Press F6 to load a third-party RAID driver". Do so then.

[iggythebrush]

That's exactly what I did when I installed XP, using the driver on the floppy supplied by the MB manufacturer (Elite). And the message I got was unmountable_boot_volume on the first reboot. So it CAN'T be the driver - unless it has a bug...