Drives Vanish On Install

[veldthui]

I am trying to install Server 2008 R2 to try out. I have a Q9550 CPU with 4GB memory, A Gigabyte GA-EP45T mother board. It has two Segate 700GB drives set up as RAID0 array. It already has Vista Ultimate x64 installed on the first Primary partition and am trying to install the server onto the second primary partition. I did have it installed once but the file I was given had a key on it so I formated the partiton and downloaded a new file.

Now the install either fails saying a file is corrupted or stops expanding the files. I even tried the original file I had again and same result. The weird part is that after I cancel the install and reboot while the BIOS is scanning for the attached drives it cannot find the two hard drives but finds the DVD okay. I have to completely power down the machine to get it to see the drives again.

 

I am thinking a hardware fault but dont know where to start looking.

 

Any help appreciated

John Veldthuis

[F2 Staff]

It could just be a corrupt dvd. Try burning it again and then try the install.

[veldthui]

It could just be a corrupt dvd. Try burning it again and then try the install.

 

I tried burning another DVD but that did the same. The original install I did worked fine.

I remembered I had a spare 250GB SATA2 drive at home from a failed pair in a RAID0 array. I disconnected the two drives in the RAID0 array and hooked up the single drive, changed the BIOS to SATA/IDE and rebooted. After formating the 250GB drive the install went fine with no issues at all.

 

It appears to be something to do with the RAID function. It is working fine with Vista on the first partition but when the server goes on the second it is having a problem. I have updated the BIOS to latest and that did not fix it either.

 

I know how to get around it now but am still worried I might have a hardware issue that is waiting to bite me.