But there is no jumper!

[techmaniac]

I've a build consisting of:

Gigabuyte GA-EP43 UD3L
xfx Gefore 8400 GS

E8400 CPU
Mushkin enhanced Blackline 4gb DDR2 1066 Dual Channel Kit
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 (500 gb)
Hitachi HD (500gb)
in RAID 1 on Promise Fastrak Card
Lite On 24X DVD (ihas-324-98 model)

I've installed all parts, (not my first build mind you) and get a POST and boot fine. Except for the fact that I can't install the OS! All drives are detected fine in the BIOS. I just don't get any read spin up on the CD/DVD drives when booting and thus can't install the OS.


Steps so far:

Purchased additional Pioneer DVD to test against Lite On.
Checked with multiple OS disks, both Windows 7.
Checked disks in other computer currently using.
Altered SATA plugs and worked various wiring checks (other wires, other configurations into SATA port)
Changed CMOS to refect various boot orders.

I'm at a loss for what steps next to take and my forum searches have yet to yield fruits.

 

[GhislainG]

Is the Promise controller bootable? Will it boot from the DVD drive if the Promise controller is not installed?

 

[techmaniac]

No, it isn't bootable when the Promise card is removed. That's actually how I've been testing it now with changes to the BIOS settings.
I've changed which Hard drive is plugged in, but never both, and the CD Drive.

The only thing I can think to do now is try by making the CD Drive as the Master and the HD the slave.

 

[GhislainG]

Are the DVDs originals or copies? If you can boot from them on other systems, is the DVD listed before the hard disk in the boot list? If you press F12 at POST and select the DVD, does it boot from it?

 

[techmaniac]

The DVD is an original version of Windows 7 Pro 64-bit. I have set the CD-ROM in the BIOS as the first boot device and it doesn't boot from that setup.

 

[fastx21]

Is it a new dvd drive? Are you sure it's working, can you try a different drive?

And can you double check to makesure that win copy is loading up properly? (in a different comp).

Setting dvd as master first shouldn't matter. If you did F12 and selected cd/dvd to boot from that should be fine.

I will say that once I had a linux distro dvd not run on me because I ended up using a cheap quality dvd that went bad on me.

 

[techmaniac]

I've purchased a Pioneer DVD to test the hardware aspect of the equation. That doesn't seem to matter.

 

[techmaniac]

I seem to have done something now...

I changed the SATA cable for the drive to the DVD being in master (the Lite-on) and used another power cable for the drive and the OS is installing. I'm thinking it's either the power supply needs the DVD drive on a seperate power cable from the two other drives, or ....

Anyway, someone help a brother out. So I'm now installing on one HD, I just need to build the RAID array after install and I'm done.

 

[techmaniac]

So I've reinserted the RAID card (Promise tx2300) which I had originally installed in the first place. I've installed Win 7 on one of the machines and loaded the drivers for the RAID card into the Win 7 installation. Plug the HDs into the RAID card and get the BSOD on the Windows startup. I see the logo and when it get's ready to drop into the desktop the computer blues out. It restarts immediately so I'm not catching the error code. (Don't know where that setting would be in Windows 7.)

So the computer runs in single drive mode but not with the RAID card. Options?

 

[GhislainG]

Unless the drivers are loaded at boot time, you probably get an error 0x0000007b. You need to install the OS while the hard disk is connected to the Promise RAID controller or make registry modifications to make sure the drivers are loaded at boot time.

 

[techmaniac]

So reinstall the OS, only this time with the promise connected as it should? Or would it be easier at this point to modify the boot.ini file through Windows?

 

[GhislainG]

If you know how to modify the boot.ini, then it will be faster. Otherwise you need to reinstall.