windows xp install with raid ga 7n400 pro2

[spie]

right now I am tring to install xp in raid 0

but when I go to install the ite driver it gives me an error 18 and line 2108 I tried 1.41 drivers and the drivers that came with the board. I think 1.3 or something. my bios is 1.38 for that. can I update that as well?

i tried installing windows 98 on regular ide. it hangs as well. i tried on the raid it hangs at the windows screen. so i don't think that it is either os that is causing my problems. I tried different ram as well. unhooked everything but essentials. still the same thing.

system specs.

xp 1900+
2X256 ram. even tried one stick of 256 from a friend.
gf3 ti200 tried gf2 gts. old card I have
hard drives. 2 20gb ibm
tried one old 10 gig harddrive one ide 0 or 1 whatever it is. tried loading with ata enabled vs raid. same error. tried installing win98 which hangs and I know the install works cuz I had it on another pc at one time. I just put it in to see if i could at least boot up into windows so I could look for some help. right now on friends lap top.

sound disabled. usb 2.0 disabled. serial disabled. printer port disabled. sata disabled. lan disabled. just the bare minimum for the pc to run. same results.
have enabled ata on the raid controller. that didn't work. i also tried a harddrive on ide 1 or whatever it is. not the controller card and disabled the raid card.
flashing the bios didn't seem to help either. the bios version for the raid is 1.41 now. and I am trying to use the 1.41 drivers too. no luck there. I have tried different ide cables too. no change in that either

the 4pin has to be hooked up or else it will not boot up. the jumper settings on the board are only for the onboard sound which is disabled. there are dip switches and I have them set to auto. I set the jumper settings on the drives to cable select. hooked them up right as well.

ram is set to auto detect as all the settings are set to standard for install

anyone have any other ideas for a fix of this ? i am thinking rma now. don't know what else I can really do at this point.

[jmichna]

Don't know if this will help you, but on my EPoX boards with on-board HighPoint RAID controller, the RAID controller "BIOS" is updated when flashing the mobo "BIOS" to a newer revision level. (An earlier RAID BIOS will give problems if trying to run newer RAID drivers, and vice versa) The RAID drivers for WinXP have to match the rev level of the RAID BIOS rev level.

You may want to consider looking for the latest BIOS flash for your mobo, and the latest RAID drivers (which you can put on a floppy, for installation during XP's install... you'll be prompted to hit F6 if you need to provide RAID or "other" drivers).

If you haven't flashed your BIOS before, there is some risk involved, but it's minimal if you are careful. Don't try to flash if your PC is overclocked, return to default speed settings, then flash.

If this fails, especially in consideration of you having tried an standard IDE drive on a standard IDE controller, the mobo may be bad.

[spie]

i did try and flash it as well to the newest available. no luck with it. i rma'd it and got an abit board anyways. after messsing with it for 10 hours I didn't want another gigabyte board.

thanks for the help though.