I've been trying to do this for 5 days now....

My kids' computer has a stripe set via the HPT 3XX RAID controller on the motherboard. I wanted to make up a CD with Ghost and an image I could restore if I need it. This controller has no DOS driver. With no alternative I could think of, I set out to make a BartPE boot CD with the RAID driver slipstreamed and ghost32.exe on it. Using F6 with a floppy is not the desired route.

My steps:
1) XP/SP2 copied to hard drive.
2) copy that into different folder in case of mess ups
3) Use Nlite for some tweaks, adding the product key, etc.
4) Integrate/slipstream HPT3XX RAID driver
a) tried manual using steps found at http://www.maximumpc.com/how_to/reprint_2005-01-05.html as well as Greenmachine site.
tried Nlite
c) tried Driverpack mass storage after noticing that hpt driver is included
d) waiting for GreenMachine to send me XPCreate download link so I can try that.
5) Use PE Builder to make the ISO
6) Burn with Nero (PE Builder burning didn't work)


Things at step 4 always mess up. Either it says it can't find the driver and errors out or it boots fine and then can't see the RAID controller and therefore the hard drive I need it to see. I have read and followed docs for NLite, Driverpack Mass Storage, and manual method. Not sure if XPCreate can do this since I don't have it.

Any ideas?

Just to clarify,

Can you sucessfully complete the txtmode portion of setup?

Can you create and format a partition in txtmode?


If you answered yes to both, it sounds like an issue with the driver itself. Have you made sure you have the newest driver?

If using greenmachine's method... make sure you copied out the correct lines form the inf. I have used his method to include many RAID drivers and have not had an issue yet... but I have not tried with the HPT.

Also, make sure that if you are using an unattend file that the MassStorageDrivers section has nothing in it (if you use GreenMachine's method). That will wreck havoc on the GUI Setup Portion.

Post back with any more info.

The CD boots BartPE, not Windows, so there is no TXTMODE setup.

Since the error says "cannot find hpt3xx.sys" I had the feeling there might be path info in the OEM file but when I poked around I couldn't tell what to edit, if anything. I put the driver and the inf file in \$OEM$\$1\drivers\hpt AND in i386. I never had luck in over a dozen attempts.

I tried the newest driver as well as the original floppy that came with the motherboard.

After wrestling with this for a week I decided to just put the two drives on the regular IDE controller and forget about the stripe set. I'll have two drive letters which is not ideal but it does boot and will work fine for my children who have never used a computer before.

Now I just need a bootable DVD that goes into DOS so I can run Ghost..... Hopefully that isn't an excercise in frustration also.