XP Pro does not install on SATA system 1

[pmonett]

I upgraded to XP Pro a while ago from my Win98SE system. All worked fine for months on end, I thought I was finished with crashes and reinstalling.
Along the way, I upgraded my mainboard to a SATA-compatible system, and I put SATA interface cards on my two IDE drives.
It worked fine, XP rebooted and I updated the drivers and all was well for more months.
Until my XP install borked. It took barely a week, during which I experienced strange slow-downs and wierd errors, then XP suddenly did not boot any more.
Compounding the error, I did not use the Recovery system in XP (woes me !!) and I tried using a Ghost image I thought I had made. Unfortunately, the image was not good, and I lost my XP install.
That is when things got really annoying. I thought "Okay, XP is gone, let's reinstall". And I did. Around a dozen times.
Each time, the install procedure would run fine during the Copy File session. As soon as the PC rebooted to complete the install, wham ! it just stayed on the start screen and did not move any more. Not an inch.
I tried installing Win98 and doing an upgrade instead of a clean XP install. No dice.
I tried installing XP and including the SATA drivers on boot. No dice.
I tried installing XP and NOT including SATA drivers. No dice.

I have come to the conclusion that the only way for me to reinstall XP is to remove the SATA controller from at least one disk, and revert to IDE at least until I get XP running.
Does anyone have another solution ? I really wish to evade the hardware stuff if I can. It is always a pain.

Pascal.

 

[Revvy]

I have just set up a PC with SATA drives (directly from the motherboard. To set that up you firstly need to copy the SATA disk drivers to a floppy disk, when you install from the 6 xp disks, I think it is on disk one it says press f2 to add additional drivers - press F2, nothing obvious happens till half way through disk 4, then it asks for the drivers (press S to add) on the disk you then add, then continue as normal - I don't belive the xp set up has the SATA drivers included. Mine worked fine after this.

 

[six3077]

I've had numerous problems with xp and SATA drives.
Same thing for me, one day XP just decided to piss off without any indications as to why.
Like the first response, you need your SATA drivers. when xp starts up it asks for any 3rd party drivers that it might need, this is when you hit that key (either f2 or f6). After a few moments, it will ask you to insert the disk with those drivers.
That should be it.....for now.
Make sure you do a good back up, because this isn't going to solve why xp just up and died on you.

Also, when I thought I had to reinstall xp, along with every add on app I had installed with it, I had a stroke of luck.
Once the 3rd party SATA drivers had been installed, it detected the drives, but it also noticed that there was already an xp folder in there (xp wasn't booting do to the hal.dll file either missing or being corrupted)
It gave me the option of installing to a new renamed directory so I didn't lose every from the 1st copy of xp. Chose this, and then the machine rebooted, and unbelievabley loaded xp!!
No idea why, but it worked. Hopefully you'll get this luck too.
Let us know!

 

[pmonett]

Thanks for your answers.

Unfortunately, I did the same thing and it did not work for me. The install process takes the drivers, continues up to reboot, and dies.

Every time I tried it that way (four or five in all), it happened exactly like that. Press F2, insert floppy, load drivers, wait for XP to finish copying files, watch reboot, get blue installation screen, and nothing else.

I'll just have to take the PC apart again.

Thanks anyway,

Pascal.

 

[jurgen36]

Which drives are you using? Had a similar trouble using Seagate Sata drives in a raid 0 setup. Worked at first then stopped operations. Replaced the Seagate drives with Maxtor Sata ATA 150 drives, no more problems. Seems that some drives do not like beeing a Sata drive. I do believe that some companies make their Sata Hd's by simply changing the interface which does not seem to work too well. Please do not quote me that is just a feeling I have. Good luck

Jurgen

 

[six3077]

I was going to point out the fact you've stated having a successful install months before with the same drives. Obviously it has been done before.
It is always a possiblity something on the MB has borked, or even the drives might have? I suspect it is more a config issue than anything else.
Do you have an old IDE drive from the previous system that you could try installing xp on? If this works it is not the CD. If you can add the SATA drives as extra drives within that install and they show up as healthy than you know it isn't the MB or the drives themselves.

Wondering about your configuration of the SATA drives? Are you using raid, and how have you set them up? I had problem trying to mirror my SATA drives, but when I used stripe raid, I got past install problems. I went through about 6 install attempts before changing the raid config, and reattempting the o/s install.

I'm interested in this problem because I think over time we are going to see more instances of this scenario as more people upgrade their systems.

what drives are you using, and what motherboard? Maybe this info will help narrow the problem down?
Let us know

 

[bcastner]

Did you have the chance to read member SYAR2003's notes in this FAQ? faq779-4641

 

[pmonett]

The config I am having issues with is as follows :

Motherboard : ASUS A7N8X dlx
Processor : AMD XP 3000+ (2,3Ghz)
RAM count : 2x512Mb of PC400 DDR400 SDRAM
Video card : ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (128)
Network card : On-board 3Com 10/100
Sound card : Sound Blaster Audigy
Hard disk 0 : Maxtor 80Gb Main disk (IDE with SATA connector)
Hard disk 1 : IBM 120Gb Data disk (IDE with SATA connector)

I would like to signal that I am writing this response on that system, which is currently running Win98SE. And the disks are still SATA. It would seem that Win98 is too dumb to bother about the difference between regular IDE and SATA.

I chose SATA to relive the IDE bus, not to do RAID. I prefer having the disks on their own bus, since that should mean less data collision for everybody.

Pascal.

 

[bcastner]

Quote: "I would like to signal that I am writing this response on that system, which is currently running Win98SE. And the disks are still SATA. It would seem that Win98 is too dumb to bother about the difference between regular IDE and SATA."

Curious and odd. Win98 is being nice. I honestly feel there is a cable, BIOS or driver issue with moving this to XP.

 

[pmonett]

I admit that is a possibility. This Win98 is not the one I succesfully upgraded the first time. I installed this one from scratch.
Frankly, given the discrepancy between the abilities of 98 and the technology of the mainboard, I am rather astonished that 98 is running at all.

Anyway, I'll take this thing apart before the weekend. By Monday, I hope to have XP running on it again.

I'll post what I did to get it running, for the record.

Thanks all,

Pascal.

 

[bcastner]

pmonnett,

That would be great, as the issue comes up frequently. In particular, the ASUS A78Nxx motherboard. Member SYAR30003 likely has some thoughts, but having the correct SIL drivers at install are critical.

 

[six3077]

It is either confliction with the board or confliction with the hard drives.
Most importantly, how do you have the drives set up? Are you using a RAID config?
If not what about just putting in the Maxtor SATA drive stand alone for now. Get the most recent drivers for it, and ty installing xp that way. If it is successful, try adding the IDM SATA drive, and see what happens.

*I do have the same motherboard, but I am using two 120Gb Maxtor SATA drives. I also had problems getting xp to install, but after changing the raid configuration, via the built-in MB tool, I was fine.

Good luck on the weekend, and again, let us know what happens!

 

[pmonett]

sic3077,
I have not defined a RAID set. I just checked the RAID configuration on the mainboard again, there is no set defined. As I said, I am not interested in RAID, just in removing the HDDs from the ATA IDE channels.

I have just spent another 90 minutes trying to get XP Pro to install. Wasted time. As usual, the install process goes fine until the "Starting Windows" screen (which, coincidentally, is blue ;-) then freezes there.

I will check out that other thread. Just my luck that the A7N8X has SATA issues. Funny though, everything worked fine the very first time.

Ahh, the marvels of PC reliability,

Pascal.

 

[pmonett]

Okay, for all who are interested, here is the result of the week-end : zilch.

I have stripped the PC down to the mainboard, the video card, the DVD player and the Maxtor HDD (all on IDE cable). XP still does not want to install.
Now that I have devoted two days to get this working, I finally remember that I had XP installed already on another ASUS board with a VIA chipset before upgrading to the A7N8X.
So, technically, I have never installed XP from scratch on this board.
However, I have a friend that has the same mainboard, and XP was installed by default, so I guess it is not the mainboard that is the issue.
Tonight I will rip out the ATI R9800 and put in a basic PCI video card to see if that does the trick.

I'll keep you posted when I get something worth posting.

Pascal.

 

[six3077]

It's too bad that nothing has been solved yet. I don't know about the others here, but I am still interested to see what the solution is, and more importantly what is causing this.
Might be obvious, but have you tried a different xp disc? The other thing I am thinking it could be is the vid card?
Is the boards BIOS set at default settings?
I'm sure you've been through all of that already.
If I was a betting man, I would bet on the vid card and xp not getting along.
Good luck!

 

[pmonett]

Well, the next round of byte wasting has taken place and I have hit bedrock and I am currently in the process of digging %-).
Tonight I am writing directly from my internet PC. I have tried these in order :

1) reviewed BIOS settings to make sure CPU, FSB and memory timings were default (secure function), restarted, started XP install and it hanged.
2) pulled out the Radeon, got my trusty old GeForce 2 and slotted it in, startup (still on Default BIOS settings), started XP install and it hanged %-) %-).
3) Googled "XP Pro Setup hangs" and turned up an article (among thousands of others plus at least one Viagra pitch) which said that installing XP on a Maxtor drive was an issue.
4) swapped the Maxtor for a Seagate 30gb, booted, fdisked and formatted, started XP install and it hanged >:-<.

So, between a Maxtor and a Seagate, I see no improvement. A GeForce fares no better than the Radeon >:-<>:-<.

As far as I can see, I have two options left : swap the mainboard for something else, or install an XP image from my other work PC (yes, I have 3 PCs running at home) and ghost it in, praying that something will come of it.

I have ghosted my work PC and will try that tonight still (it is writing the partition as I type).
If that does not work and I do not kill myself for using such a *@(!) brain-dead %$#&!! pseudo-opcode of an %-( OS, then I just might try getting another mainboard.

Yes, I am that wasted. Somebody put me out of my misery.

Pascal.

 

[six3077]

alright, was doing a bit of surfing and stumbled across this. Hopefully you haven't read it:

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/10409/

Same boards, same types of issues. It seems that all their problems stem from the motherboards bios. They suggest that a 3rd party bios be flashed onto the MB.

'I fixed my problems (see above) with Uber bios 1005 sata enhanced (I was previously using 1007 from asus) and the sata drivers from the same page.'

Certainly worth a read.
One thing I noticed. Anyone that posted with the problem, and then was told about the UBER bios, never came back on to report anymore problems.

Hope the page helps.

 

[pmonett]

six3077
Thanks for the link ! I just hope this does work. I already tried flashing my BIOS with 1.007, but the flash tool gave me the answer that the BIOS file I downloaded from ASUS' web site was not compatible with my board model (?!?).
I have downloaded the files and will try again tonight.

Hope springs eternal, and so do fools.

Pascal.

 

[pmonett]

Well, well. After another three hours last night, I have succeeded in updating the mainboard's BIOS to the latest alternative SATA-enabled version 1.007, and I have a floppy with the latest SATA drivers.
However, installing XP still locks everything up. And I discovered that a 30GB Seagate Barracuda II does NOT like booting with a SATA connector.
I still have to get a PCI video card to try, but I'm really tiring of this.

Pascal.

 

[six3077]

maybe this is an appropriate solution at this time:
Install Linux?

You could just emulate xp programs within linux?

I think it's one of those, getting really sick of MS days, with all their patches, and hot fixes..blah blah blah.

Sorry this doesn't help, but I feel frustrated for you.
Any chance we can cover what you 'can' install with that setup? And exactly at what point is xp freezing? (maybe this will spring new ideas to mind)