OK, I misunderstood and I apologize. Does the third driver, the RAID driver, require a floppy for installation or can you download and install it as you did the first two? If not, try it using a flash drive.
I am not a hardware guy, so another of the team will have to guide you in disabling the RAID array. I will seek some help on this.
It requires a floppy, there were no setup or .exe files, and trying to install it off a flash drive didn't work.
Switching the SATA setting to AHCI or IDE results in a blank screen with "No operating System Detected" at the top after exiting BIOS, so I imagine I can use either one when going to reinstall windows?
I suspect that means that you have a striped array. Backup your data to an external drive, and then do a reinstall.
I was able to reinstall windows but not with the SATA setting at anything other than RAID. However, another blue screen happened while the computer was sitting idle (that has never happened before) and now it will not fully boot. After the detecting storage devices screen nothing happens.
Is there a way to completely remove the RAID setup that would clear the hard drives and allow for a fresh windows install (without RAID)? The array is striped, and I can bring up the array list before the computer becomes non-responsive.
What happened when you tried to reinstall with a different SATA setting?
Be sure to clean the disk completely: Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command
You may also try removing one disk while you do.
When I tried reinstalling with the different SATA setting it did the same thing as before: blank screen with "No operating system detected" at the top of the screen, and it wouldn't allow me to do anything until I switched the setting back (even after initiating windows reinstall).
I'll have to try booting into safe mode to clean the disk completely (I imagine it works from there?).
Be sure you are booting from the DVD. Set the SATA setting to AHCI or non-RAID, and then restart once or twice when it gets to that error. Then manually boot from the DVD drive, by use of the popup boot menu during the BIOS POST. It is usually accessed via the F11 or F12 keys.
Alright, I got the installation running with the AHCI setting, but I don't recall this one particular step installing windows the first time around; I just want to be sure of what I'm doing before I proceed with this:
I have disk partition 1 showing up and have it set to primary. It will not let me continue with "next" and it's telling me "setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing partition," so do I just need to format that partition and I'm good to go? I only ask because when clicking on format it gives a warning about losing recovery files/system files/important software from the computer manufacturer, and I'm nervous about screwing things up even more than they already are. (I apologize once again for my lack of knowledge on this)
See this thread: Common Installation Problems and Their Solutions
Make sure that the partition is primary, active, and formatted with NTFS.
Instructions for marking a partition as active using Diskpart:
Open an elevated command prompt:
Method 1: From Windows
Click on Start and type “command prompt”
Right-click on the application and select “Run as administrator”
Choose “Yes” when asked to confirm
Method 2: From a Windows install/repair disc
Boot into the install/repair disc and wait for it to load
Choose “Repair my computer”
Select “Command Prompt”
Type diskpart and press enter.
Enter list disk and note the number of the disk you want to install on.
Enter select disk n n is the number of the disk.
Enter list partition and note the number of the partition you want to install on.
Enter select partition n n is the number of the partition.
Enter active
You can now close the command prompt and re-attempt installation.
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