difficulties installing on disk. lots of “windows cannot blah system blah.

re-created raid array in bios. loaded windows 7. went to “repair” to get a command prompt. then ran “setup” from the ram disk. got it as far as loading drivers, loaded 2008 x64 hp 5i drivers (from HP web), then….

alt-tabbed back to command prompt. diskpat. created a new partition (primary) made it active. exit.

refreshed and continued setup.

also see here: http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/01/09/how-to-avoid-200mb-hidden-system-partition-from-been-created-during-windows-7-installation/