I have an older Dell 3.4 GHZ Pent 4 PC that I use as a test platform. I cant install the new WIN 7 RC on it because it asks for RAID drivers. The Raid control is so old I guess ( the PC is 5 years old ) that I cant get direct drivers that wil load into teh system through WIn 7 set up. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I have an older Dell 3.4 GHZ Pent 4 PC that I use as a test platform. I cant install the new WIN 7 RC on it because it asks for RAID drivers. The Raid control is so old I guess ( the PC is 5 years old ) that I cant get direct drivers that wil load into teh system through WIn 7 set up. Does anyone have any suggestions? HiUnfortunately when testing a new OS on older hardware you will sometimes get to the point where some componets are so far outdated and no longer supported by themanufacturerthat the only resolution is to replace the hardware.One of my test systems isan older Dell Dimension8250, Pentium 4, designed for XP,and so far (knock on wood) everything is working well with Windows 7. Many of the hardware drivers had to be installed using compatibility mode for either XP or Vista.Hope this helps.Thank You for testing Windows 7 Ronnie Vernon MVP

Maybe I might sound dumb but how were you able to install drivers using compatibility mode? I saw no such choice in teh installation. Thanx!

What model Dell do you have? Since you have an Intel processor, I'm assuming you have Intel RAID which means you can download the Vista Intel RAID drivers from Intel's site along with the Intel Matrix Storage Manager application or download the Vista SATA drivers for your model Dell from Dell's Drivers & Download page or if you're not using RAID on your Dell, set your BIOS Drives/SATA Operation to RAID Autodetect/ATA or whatever your BIOS setting isfor ATA.The last solution turns RAID off in the BIOS and will allow you to install your Windows OS without the need to load RAID drivers. My XPS 410 BIOS setting is RAID Autodetect/ATA.If you use RAID and download the RAID drivers get the F6 floppy configuration utility (.exe file)for Vista 32bit or 64bit whichever Win7 OS you're installing from the link above and double click the .exe to extract the RAID driver files to a USB thumb drive or CD. Then during your Win7 install, when you select the partition to install, click Load Drivers and point to your RAID driver files. Then, after those are loaded it will let you go forward with the rest of your OS install.