Since you guys helped me with the courage to mess with “The Formula”, I’m going to give a little back here...

Slipstreaming a Windows XP install disc to include RAID drivers for Maximus Formula: Dual boot Vista/XP


For people like me who have a new rig without.... a floppy drive. Why did I not?

THIS IS WHAT WORKED, after a few failed attempts with wrong info...

First we need the Intel Matrix Storage Manager SATA RAID Controller drivers. Open your Formula Maximus Motherboard DVD > Drivers > Chipset > DOS. Copy this DOS file. There are 32 and 64bit folders relative to the XP OS you will install. One of the files in them is iastor.sys but we need them all.

So you threw the disc... go here and grab the one from the top, change extension to .rar and extract with winrar, the Winall folder has the DOS drivers.
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/filt...bmit=Go%21#DRV

Copy all the files from your XP disc, to a folder named Newxpdisc.

Add your RAID/SATA Drivers
Open the folder to which you copied your Windows XP CD (Newxpdisc) and create a subfolder called $OEM$ (same level as i386). Then, create a subfolder of $OEM$ called $1 and a subfolder of $1 called drivers, then a subfolder called RAID The resulting path should be Newxpdisc\$OEM$\$1\drivers\raid
Now, copy all the single driver files inside the 64bit or 32bit folder you found above, directly inside the raid folder we just made.

Locate the .SYS file for your RAID/SATA controller from among the files you just copied it should be named after your specific controller, in this case iastor.sys and copy this file to the i386 folder of your Windows CD (Newxpdisc\i386).

Open your RAID iastor.inf file in Notepad and copy the PCI identifier strings, which is a series of characters beginning with PCI\VEN in this case there are 5, up to and not including the period. Eg PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_27C3&CC_0104

Next, open TXTSETUP.SIF (situated in Newxpdisc\i386) and paste your PCI identifier strings under the [HardwareIdsDatabase] section of that file (Edit tab > Find). At the end of the string, add an equal-sign followed by the driver name IN QUOTES “”. In this case it should read like this..

PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_27C3&CC_0104 = "iastor"
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2682&CC_0104 = "iastor"
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_27C6&CC_0104 = "iastor"
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2822&CC_0104 = "iastor"
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_282A&CC_0104 = "iastor"

Now scroll down to the [SourceDisksFiles] section of TXTSETUP.SIF and add the following text:
iastor.sys = 1,,,,,,_x,4,1
eg.

[SourceDisksFiles]
iastor.sys = 1,,,,,,_x,4,1


also add iastor.sys= 1 under :

[SourceDisksFiles.x86]

[SourceDisksFiles]
iastor.sys= 1

This last entry may not be necessary, but mine worked for XP 32bit.

Then, under the [SCSI.Load] section, enter:
iastor = iastor.sys,4

Finally, in the [SCSI] section of the file, add the following:
driver_filename = "RAID/SATA Device Name” in this case:

[SCSI]
iastor = "Intel(R) 82801GR/GH SATA RAID Controller"
iastor = "Intel(R) 631xESB/632xESB SATA RAID Controller"
iastor = "Intel(R) 82801GHM SATA RAID Controller"
iastor = "Intel(R) ICH8R/ICH9R SATA RAID Controller"
iastor = "Intel(R) 82801HEM SATA RAID Controller"

Oops, almost there. In this step, open Notepad and make a file called WINNT.SIF in the i386 folder of our Windows setup files (Newxpdisc\i386). This file can be used to create an unattended installation routine. But for here we need to customize the OemPnPDriversPath line by entering the path to the .INF file for your RAID/SATA driver . That is the path after the $1 folder... eg "drivers\raid" include the quotes! so in this case we copy this to our WINNT.SIF file...

[Data]
AutoPartition=0
MsDosInitiated="0"
UnattendedInstall="Yes"

[Unattended]
UnattendMode=ProvideDefault
OemPreinstall=Yes
OemSkipEula=Yes
NoWaitAfterTextMode=1
NoWaitAfterGUIMode=1

WaitForReboot="No"
TargetPath=E:WINDOWS
DriverSigningPolicy=Ignore
OemPnPDriversPath="drivers\raid"

[GuiUnattended]
OEMSkipWelcome = 1

[UserData]
ProductKey=
FullName=""
OrgName=""

Prepare your bootable CD and burn it. For this I used Power ISO.
Straightforward and it has a simple Help.

Extract the small boot image from our original Windows XP disc so we can use it to make our slipstreamed CD bootable as well. With power ISO it’s called a .bif file. Action" --> "Boot" --> "Save Boot information
Next make the boot CD. Action" --> "Boot" --> "Add Boot information.. find the .bif boot image you just saved. Now drag in all files from inside the Newxpdisc folder to the main window in Power ISO... jam the Burn button and you got it!

IMPORTANT. When installing XP on this type of system. Unfortunately, XP doesn't always recognize a computer BIOS is ACPI capable and doesn't install the support for ACPI.
Once you drop the CD in the tray and fire up the computer to install XP, the first thing you'll see at the bottom of the screen is the option to press F6 if you need to install a SCSI or RAID controller. Don't press F6. Press F5 instead. This will take you to a separate menu of Hardware Abstraction Layer's where you can choose an appropriate HAL that supports ACPI. Scroll Upwards to choose ACPI Multiprocessor PC from the list below.

ACPI Multiprocessor PC
ACPI Uniprocessor PC
Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC
Compaq SystemPro Multiprocessor or 100% Compatible PC
MPS Uniprocessor PC
MPS Multiprocessor PC
Standard PC
Standard PC with C-Step i486
Other

Dual Boot issue: If you already have Vista installed, you wont have a Dual Boot choice as XP boots as a default, go here to solve this issue...
http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp