DOS boot disk question
 

Man, it's been a LONG time since I had to make a DOS boot disk.

I am setting up a RAID 0 in my system, and I need to get to the command prompt to use fdisk to format the array. When I make a regular boot disk in XP, it doesn't recognize any of my drives except A: and B: (and i don't have a B: drive) I visited bootdisk.com and made one of his DOS disks, and that had all the utilities on it including FDISK, but still didn't recognize my drives.
I have installed both disks in the RAID array, set up the array using the Mobo's software, and gotten to the A: prompt, where I can't do anything. I also tried using the WinXP CD, but I kept getting errors during the install, I was assumming this is because I didn't format the existing drive using FDISK first.
Do I have to edit config.sys or autoexec.bat with my drive letters or something?
I have a ASUS A7V333 with an Athlon XP 2000+, WinXP SP1, and a WD 80 gig, partitioned into C: (9GB-OS) and E: (70GB-Progs and storage).
Just to clarify, I am setting up RAID with the existing WD 80GB, which is currently still full of data, and a brand new WD 80GB (same model)...

Ahh boot disks......takes me back to the days of trying to get Wing Commander 3 to run on a 486SX.................

Thanks.

Not sure, but.. ..does your RAID card require a driver to be used in DOS? Go to the mfg of your RAID card and see if there are any dos drivers that are needed to enable the drives.

-SF

Thanks for the help, i checked ASUs and there is a driver for the RAID utility.
The thing is, after my first attempt failed, i put my original HD back in as the master IDE and everthing was as it was before. I am trying to make a boot disk that recognizes my HD as it is, before I try again in the RAID config. This is probably a really stupid question.

Does it have something to do with NTFS???

DOS can't read NTFS... and FDISK will only create FAT16 and 32 partitions.

My personal favorite boot utility is the Ultimate Boot CD, since I no longer have a floppy. Find it here: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com

Perhaps you'll find it useful.