New MOBO, XP boot problems

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jhug87

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Nov 29, 2012
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I am having a problem installing a new copy of Windows XP after a fresh Mobo installation. A friend wanted better computing power but the motherboard they had (an A13G + V3.0) had just about the highest CPU it could handle in it (Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core).

So I installed a new motherboard (an ASROCK 960GC-GS FX) and a new Quad Core Phenom CPU. When this was done, I went to boot, and I got the XP splash screen for 2 seconds before it just restarted on its own. After doing some research, I found that this is common with new mobo installs and a fresh install of Windows would likely be the remedy. So I threw the install disc in, it loaded up all the necessary files and drivers, and as soon as it was going to the install screen an error popped up saying windows could not recognize any hard drives. Now mind you in my boot screen as well as BIOS both hard drives are recognized. Both are SATA, and they are plugged into SATA 1 and SATA 2. The BIOS settings are correct (recognized as running in SATA, AHCI mode).

So I grabbed an old hard drive with Windows 7 on it, plugged it in, and it booted just fine. I've tried different configurations, plugging one in at a time, different Sata slots, to no avail. BTW, the hard drives are: 1 WD 320GB Caviar Blue (The main/boot drive), and 1 Hitachi Deskstar 80GB.

Any help or advice is appreciated
 
Solution
J
You can set the SATA mode in the BIOS to native, ide, or ide compatible mode,(different BIOS's call it different things) and then XP will load without needing the additional drivers. You just will be running the drive in IDE mode, which really does not matter from a performance standpoint running XP. However, you will not have some of the advanced features AHCI mode supports, like hot swapping and native command queing. But, like I said, these features don't mean a lot to most people anyway, especially if you are still using XP you won't notice any difference at all.
If you can find the correct drivers, and can put them on a USB key, or floppy drive, you can install them during the installation process using the F6 function when prompted.
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ekagori

ekagori

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Feb 9, 2013
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Windows xp is a very old os and it doesn't have ahci drivers on the installation disk hence why it cannot see the hard drives. You need to get the sata drivers that came with the motherboard and install them before installing xp, xp should give you an option to load drivers using the F6 key, that should fix your problem.

Honestly though, you should get your friend to move to at least windows 7. MS is stopping support for xp in the next few days, which means no more security patches/fixes for it and it will make PCs running xp vulnerable to future security holes. It's wise to move on from xp, that's my honest opinion.

Edit: Windows 7/8/8.1 come with AHCI drivers so you wouldn't have the installation problem.
 
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apbruno

apbruno

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Oct 10, 2013
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This. I wouldn't even bother with XP. If your friend really wants XP, I'd suggest getting Win 7 Professional or Ultimate and running Windows XP mode.
 
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jitpublisher

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May 16, 2006
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You can set the SATA mode in the BIOS to native, ide, or ide compatible mode,(different BIOS's call it different things) and then XP will load without needing the additional drivers. You just will be running the drive in IDE mode, which really does not matter from a performance standpoint running XP. However, you will not have some of the advanced features AHCI mode supports, like hot swapping and native command queing. But, like I said, these features don't mean a lot to most people anyway, especially if you are still using XP you won't notice any difference at all.
If you can find the correct drivers, and can put them on a USB key, or floppy drive, you can install them during the installation process using the F6 function when prompted.
 
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Solution
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jhug87

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Nov 29, 2012
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If it were up to me, I would absolutely upgrade to Windows 7. Unfortunately it's not up to me, and XP is quite a bit cheaper than Windows 7. As in free vs $90.

I had actually first done put the drivers from the CD onto a USB key and fired up the Windows install from there, but then decided I could probably just avoid having to reinstall altogether by switching to IDE and installing the drivers from there. Worked perfectly. Thanks for the help guys.
 
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