Mr. Fiddles

Right, I have a Philips Freevents X67 1200 Series.

It came with Vista as standard. We're reinstalling it with XP, so in goes the XP CD to the drive, it loads, and then it tells me it cannot detect the drive.

So I check the BIOS, it detects it fine, but lists it as RAID: 8 Fujitsu MHV2100BH.

So basically it's a raid drive. XP can't detect it during installation, thus I need RAID drivers for the drive.

According to Fujitsu the drive is no longer supported and they have no drivers.

Interestingly enough, Vista has no problem picking up the drive, it shows up just as with anything else, but XP can't see it.

I can't find RAID drivers for Fujitsu MHV2100BH anywhere, I was thinking though - if Vista can pick it up, somewhere on the CD there must be a universal driver.... would it be possible to somehow obtain this, put it onto a floppy, then hit 'F6' during install to load RAID or SCSI drivers?

This is a real pain in the ass, any help at all would be greatly appreciated as always!

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eascarface

What about unraiding the drives? There should be an option in either the bios or while it's booting to manage the disks and you should be able to delete the raid settings so that XP will be able to see the drives.

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Mr. Fiddles

Quote: Originally Posted by eascarface What about unraiding the drives? There should be an option in either the bios or while it's booting to manage the disks and you should be able to delete the raid settings so that XP will be able to see the drives.

BIOS is extremely simple. Not many options at all.

During boot, eh? Any idea what sort of options they are, or where they are? F key?

If you could be a little more specific... many thanks!

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eascarface

It's ussually system specific. Best bet is to bang on the keys till something happens.

Sorry I can't be more helpful mate.

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GlitterKill

YOu probably can;t get it to work because CP doesn't have the default RAID drivers for it. ie. the chipset came out AFTER XP did. Soooo... there are a couple things you can do.

1. You can load RAID drivers for the chipset in your system va floppy disk by hitting F6 when the XP installer asks...

or

2. You can use nLite to create a custom install image for XP that has the RAID drivers slipstreamed in like I did.

Your BIOS sees the drives and RAID on basically a hardware level but XP doesn't know how to look for it unless you give it directions. You need to find the drivers for your chipset for Windows XP. nLite is a pretty easy to use program and by customizing your own install you can set it up to even include some helpful tweaks on install and even install completely unattended. It's a HUGE timesaver if you are trying out various install setups and need to reinstall the OS more than once.

I had similar issues with the Soundblaster X-Fi on Windows XP 64 bit which I now run. After a bit of searching I found some drivers that now work great. I am willing to bet that there are drivers for that chipset for XP... you just need to really look around.

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Mr. Fiddles

I have spent literally hours upon hours looking, so has my boss. I can't find them anywhere.

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GlitterKill

There MIGHT be the rare chance that they actually made drivers for Vista only... But I have NEVER seen that happen before. The other day I formatted a new laptop that my wife's coworker got which had Vista on it. After a few hours I found a DIFFERENT model laptop that used the exact same chipset/feature set and was able to use those drivers to install XP. His laptop was a Compaq and I found the drivers for a comparable HP Laptop. I know that both brands are owned by the same entity to it wasn't THAT far of a stretch. But still, the premise remains the same. Try many different search terms and different search engines as well.

I wish I had more info for you because I know how frustrating that searching can be. Can you tell me the chipset info for that laptop?

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Mr. Fiddles

I can try to find out at work tomorrow.

It's a Phillips Freevents X67 notebook, if that helps you any... the lil 12" screen one.

Spec:

Intel Core Duo Processor U2400
Genuine Windows Vista (R) Home Premium
1024MB RAM
100GB Hard Drive
DVD ReWriter MultiDrive
11.1" Widescreen Display
224MB Intel GMA 950 Graphics
Wireless Enabled

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drougnor

So, with some research, I've found out that it's a rebranded Averatec 1579 laptop with an Intel 945 GM chipset. The 'press f6 to install drivers' drivers for XP 32 bit are here.

Hope this helps.

d

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Mr. Fiddles

Quote: Originally Posted by drougnor So, with some research, I've found out that it's a rebranded Averatec 1579 laptop with an Intel 945 GM chipset. The 'press f6 to install drivers' drivers for XP 32 bit are here. Hope this helps. d

If they are indeed the working drivers, then I thank you sir, and you've rep on the way!

Now for all the actual system drivers for Windows etc!

EDIT:

Ok, it didn't work, but rep to you both for trying anyway.

I loaded the RAID drivers off the disk created, tried all 4 of them, neither work

Customer is not gonna be pleased, but I guess there's nothing I can do.

Cheers anyway guys.

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hzer

There is no economic incentive for manufacturers to build drivers to be backwardly compatible with older software that is no longer being sold.

drougnor

Quote: Originally Posted by Mr. Fiddles If they are indeed the working drivers, then I thank you sir, and you've rep on the way! Now for all the actual system drivers for Windows etc! EDIT: Ok, it didn't work, but rep to you both for trying anyway. I loaded the RAID drivers off the disk created, tried all 4 of them, neither work Customer is not gonna be pleased, but I guess there's nothing I can do. Cheers anyway guys.

Well, my suggestion would be to go to DriverPacks.net and check them out to get the massive storage drivers slipstreamed into windows xp. This should help as they try to get EVERY chipset supported. It's always worth looking into, esp if you end up wanting to have a 100% compatible copy of windows kicking around the office.

d

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Fen

I thought I'd register to say thanks. I've been running XP Pro for 2 or 3 weeks on my x67 after slipstreaming the DriverPacks mass storage drivers into an XP CD.

Well worth doing as the laptop was nearly useless with Vista but is quite nice with XP.

Thanks drougnor.