I have 1 EIDE HDD as a primary O/S disk and 2 SATA drives in SATA 2 & 3 on my mobo, which are BIOS configured for RAID. This setup has been working fine for several years.
However, the EIDE HDD with Windows XP installed is failing, so I have purchased a new Western Digital SATA drive and installed it in SATA 1 on my motherboard. Besides that the mobo has two remaining SATA ports, labeled SATA 4 & 5. The rear panel has an eSATA connector.
With the new drive installed it shows up as a "single-disk" device in the RAID device list (but not as part of an array). In the main BIOS HDD list, the new drive does not show up as a SATA drive (neither do my two RAID drives).
When I boot from the Win 7 install disk, intending to install Win 7 to the new SATA drive, it can't see the SATA drive, only the old EIDE drive and I can't proceed. However, the new drive shows up in WinXP Computer Management as a drive, and it allows me to format it. I tried disconnecting the power from the EIDE drive but Win 7 installer just shows no available disks. AFAIK, there are no RAID drivers required for my HW RAID – the disks just appear to Windows XP as an ordinary single drive.
What do I need to do to get Windows to install to my new drive?
EDIT 2010-10-15: Yes, my MSI motherboard does have RAID drivers, so the question becomes, how do I get the Win7 installer to install to a disk controlled by my BIOS RAID controller?
(Note that I am leery about breaking my existing RAID array, even just temporarily, since reconstituting the contents from my backups is a tedious task and there's always the chance I might lose something.)
System Summary:
Mobo : MSI 790GX-G65
CPU : AMD Phenom II 965 BE at 3.6 GHz
Memory : Corsair DDR3 1600, at 1333 MHz and 9-9-9-21
HDDs : 1 EIDE (WinXP), 1 SATA (to be Win7), 2 SATA in RAID-1 (Data)
DVD : 1 EIDE LITE-ON DVDRW SOHW-1673S
Card Reader: Aero cool multi-card reader and removable USB drive bay.
Best Answer
To install the RAID driver during the Windows install you need to have the driver on a CD or USB drive. When you reach the hard drive list option it will be empty, there is a button to load drivers. Choose this option and then insert the cd/usb drive and locate the driver. If all works properly, you will then be able to see the drive and install Windows 7 on it.