New Rig Windows Install problem

[sryinex]

Not quite sure if this was the right place to post this but here is the problem..
Well, about 3 weeks ago I purchased the parts for my new college rig and are listed as so,

ASuS M2N-SLI Socket AM2 Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 4200+ AM2
2GB OCZ Dual Channel Gold EL DDR2-800 PC6400
500GB (2x250) Seagate SATA-II HDD's
(2) eVGA 7900GT's in SLI
ASuS Dual Layer DVD Burner
Antec 550Watt TrueControl PSU
Coolermaster Cavalier Black Case


Ok, when I try and install Windows XP Professional, it goes to the first blue screen where it says on the bottom "Setup is loading xxxx" and once it hits the last setup is loading file it just freezes and won't go to the next screen which would be the screen showing the Hard Drives and which to format and install it on. I know it's not the CD, because I borrowed a neighbors and it did exactly the same thing. I've also been told that my motherboard needs RAID drivers or something, well the problem is I don't have a Floppy drive in this computer and they told me to use XPCreate to slipstream them in, well that didn't seem to work, did the same thing as before.

One other problem is the CPU Temps, when I go into the BIOS it reads the CPU idling at around 47C with both the stock CPU fan/heatsink in the CPU box and a gigabyte fan/heatsink. I'm not sure if this is a problem with the BIOS reading AM2 or something.

I don't want the computer to crash if I tried to open a CPU intensive application after Windows booted up.

Thank you all for any help!

 

[Nelviticus]

I don't think that 47 degrees C is anything to worry about. As for the RAID drivers, just take the floppy drive out of another PC, hook it up to your new machine temporarily and load the drivers that way. You'll only need it for half an hour then it can go back - much quicker than slipstreaming.

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[sryinex]

Unfortunately the only other computer here is this old sony laptop :\

Even so, are you certain that would fix it?

 

[Nelviticus]

Someone who knows more than I do can tell you for sure but it sounds very much to me like Windows is not finding your hard drive. You said that your motherboard needs drivers for SATA and that you haven't supplied these via floppy so my guess is that your slipstreaming hasn't worked. If you could borrow or buy a floppy drive (not a USB version as that might not be visible to the Windows setup app) I'm sure that it would work and get your OS installed.

You could always just try slipstreaming again but if it didn't work the 1st time it probably won't work the 2nd.

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[sryinex]

Thanks for the help.

I'll try and go buy one or something.

 

[BadBigBen]

1.) when Slipstreaming, then burn the CD at the LOWEST SPEED possible (4x) this will ensure that the CD is correctly read...

2.) when installing you need to set the BIOS SETUP as follows:

HIT F5 to load DEFAULT VALUES (no overclocking of CPU or MEM)

Plug-n-Play to NO
AntiViral Check to DISABLED
SMART MONITORING to NO

3.) in the BIOS you may have to set LEGACY USB to ON, in order for the XP Setup to see or use a USB Floppy drive...

4.) you could also make a BOOTABLE CD with the RAID Drivers on it and when it asks for the RAID DRIVERS at the Beginning (F6), you just replace the XP CD with the Burned CD, and later back...

5.) as mentioned earlier by Nelveticus, the TEMP is LOW and of no concern...

6.) if the above does not work for you, then you may try to replace the RAM or use just one stick... also going bare minimum (GFX Card, HDD, CPU, MEM and NO other Hardware installed at this time) sometimes allows for you to install XP without a prob. later you can add one item at a time...

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[kmcferrin]

One other possible way around it is to take an old IDE hard disk, install to it, then install your SATA/RAID drivers, configure the RAID array, and then use Ghost/Trueimage/whatever to clone the old IDE disk to the new array.

It's a bit more convoluted, but if you have a hard disk lying around it will save you from having to buy a floppy.

 

[sryinex]

Thank you both for the help, unfortunately I do not have an IDE HDD laying around, I broke my ankle 3 weeks ago and can't get upstairs for 3 months which is where my other computer is that I used to make the slipstreamed version of XP.

1) Is there any chance that I could just use the ASuS Support CD instead of just the bootable driver CD? Just because I can't make it upstairs
2) Other options include the floppy with the drivers on it, and somebody said something about you could set the SATA drives to IDE in the BIOS, but I cannot find that setting. And last create a bootable CD with the drivers on it. And/or Buy a floppy drive/IDE HDD

Also I did the bare minimum and that didn't work. I'm pretty sure yall are right about the floppy being the best option. Will just need to find a way to travel around and get all this done.

Thank you all for the options and help

 

[sryinex]

Ok, well I got the floppy and tried to do it, pressed f6, and loaded the jmicron raid drivers from the floppy, but it still does the same thing. windows isnt recognizing my hdd's but i dont know how to make them be recognizable. if anybody could help it would be greatly appreciated.

 

[shudrod740]

sryinex, did you try contacting the manufacture of the HDD drives on some tech support for this problem. Have you tried installing Win 2000 Professional,Win 2000 or Win 2003 server which should automatically detect Raid drivers due to advance capablities of these softwares.

 

[Nelviticus]

We could be barking up the wrong tree here. As I understand it, Windows setup is hanging at some point - this might not actually be related to RAID drivers. Might be, but might not - bad RAM could cause a similar problem.

Do you have access to the internet and a CD burner? Search for 'Memtest' and download the bootable CD image. Burn this to a CD (i.e. burn from the image, rather than just putting the image file on a CD) and boot from that: it should then give you the option to do an extensive test of the memory. If there are errors then your Windows install is failing due to bad RAM.

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[wahnula]

Have you assembled your RAID array in BIOS first before loading Windows? Many times there is an F5 or F3 option to create the array during boot. This must be done before anything else. Even if using a single SATA disk or JBOD you must create & identify the RAID array first.

Then, during Setup, press F6 and load your drivers from that borrowed floppy. Glad to see it's not all beer and sex in the college world these days...

Tony