Sp3 and Raid/AHCI support.

[RetiredChief]

Bought a Toshiba laptop. Low end w/Vista 32 premium. Upgraded memory to 2G and bought (received new HDD). Planning on installing XP on new HDD.

Best Buy rep said no problem can install XP SP2 with out loading F6 drivers since it is not using Raid. Thought he was wrong, but tried it any way (Slipsteamed SP2 on XP) WRONG.

My question is does SP 3 include support or SATA AHCI, or will I still need to find the F6 Driver. Could not locate on Toshiba Website. (Note - Their Tech support is like asking Homer Simpson and getting a reply like - DUH)

Anyway the laptop is a Toshiba A205-S5804 (My cost at BB was only $368). Chipset is Intell M965) and Mainboard is a Intel Santa Rosa CRB.

Thanks, I know someone going to give me a very helful response.

 

[4Ryan6]

Hi Chief

First of all a lot of XPSP3 post installation problems are arising, I uninstalled SP3 from my machine and will wait until MSFT releases the official Installation CD of SP3, thats when MSFT will be fully confident they've addressed all the issues arising from different hardware configurations not tested in the BETA testing, even though SP3 is available to download from MSFT, it is not fully joy yet!

I strongly reccommend staying away from it until its officially released on CD.

Upgraded memory to 2G and bought (received new HDD)

bought (received ??? So did you actually buy a brand new HDD?

Are your intentions to just replace the Vista HDD and keep it for later down the road and install WinXP on the new HDD?

With a laptop requiring a restore CD to restore the OP/SYS to purchase state the ability to install any other OP/SYS from the factory OP/SYS may take a little finangling.

The CMOS boot sequence has to be set to boot from the CDROM first HDD second, a restore disk has the built in capability to overide this but an OEM Windows Full Installation CD does not.

Also the HDD has to be wiped clean of any previous OP/SYS, including boot records or it will not install a new OP/SYS, thus the question I posed to you about the HDD, if it was bought brand new it is ready to do a fresh install.

Before I say anything else concerning you particular laptop configuration and Toshiba setup, I'm going to research what you have, the information I'm passing right now is from my own experience of changing the OP/SYS on my past laptop.

 

[4Ryan6]

Don't have any direct answers for you yet Chief, just that you're not the only one trying to do the same thing with this particular model laptop, and another obstacle is finding the M/B drivers for WinXP, I guess the Best Buy guy kinda left that out.

 

[4Ryan6]

Man are you ever right about Toshibas support, you'd think I was trying to get into Fort Knox, well heres some help WinXP SP2 Drivers for the M/B, [There are No SP3 Drivers], and some hardware that comes with the Laptop.

http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/...ivateItems=undefined&all_docs=false&x=33&y=10


PDF detailed specs

http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/...BV_EngineID=ccciadeeejdkmdlcgfkceghdgngdgmm.0

 

[4Ryan6]

If this isn't helping, I Apologise but if you don't have everything you need from the beginning, especially M/B chipset drivers, you're dead in the water anyway.

GTG to a Memorial Day cookout, will check back later, feel free to PM if you want, I'll help all I can! Ryan

 

[RetiredChief]

4ryan6
Ryan, Thank you for your assistance.
Liked Your first link, It was better than the page I found which mostly covered the drivers required for Vista.

I also found a page on Intel web site with the F6 raid /AHCI driver. But not sure. Confussion factor - Toshiba Product spec. state that the chipset is a GL960 Express Chipset (I think this is the reason that the laptop only supports 2 Gis of Ram and Does not support a core 2 Daul Proc.

Vista system Info = unclear ( Under System, System devices "PM965/GM965/GL960 Express Processor to Dram Controller -2A00"
and Under Display Adapters = "Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family.

Using PCWizard: Chipset = Intel M965

Ref HDD
With the new HDD installed can select Boot from CD without changing boot order in BIOS. Not sure which HHD to use for Vista, The orginal one, or the New one which is larger (250 G vs 160G) and slightly faster. Already install Vista on New HDD, and Yes I know I need to Wipe it to Install XP

Reason For XP is 2 fold, (1) Peformance, Xp much better on low end Laptop, My OLD athlon 1.1 Gig with only 384 Meg Ram is just as fast as the New one w/vista. (2) Just got a offer to go back to work (Causal time @ $29 / Hr) working on integation and testing of Satellite Instrument.

Again Thanks for Your Time and efforts - Gene

 

[4Ryan6]

??? Don't know what happened with the second link, it was supposed to be to the PDF file of the complete detailed specs for your laptop, my bad on that one!

Congrats on the job, and I meant to wish you a great Memorial Day before I left earlier and got pressed for time, so heres the belated wish.

Just curious as to why you'd need the RAID Driver, most all the new M/Bs recognize the HDD connected to the SATA header as the primary HDD, unless the RAID feature is activated in the CMOS settings, but that would require more than 1 HDD, and you cannot run but 1 HDD in your laptop? Right?

 

[RetiredChief]

Your 2nd link works fine. I had Printed the specs sheet when I bought the laptop.

My Reference to Raid/AHCI is misleading, as I do not need Raid but need the AHCI functionallity.
Under sytem properties, IDE ATA/ATAPI it list "Intel(r) ICH8M SATA AHCI Controller - 2829". When I did a search for that it came up under Raid/AHCI.

Will probably play around with it later this week (Have a USB enclosure coming wednesday. Have to take My wife to the airport shortly as she is leaving for a 2 wk vacation to England, Then she is returning with her brother for a few days then she and her brother are off to LA for a couple of weeks at are Son's. I will meet up with the three of them in Vagas. My Wife, Son and I are in a Poker Tournament

Again Thanks - Will let you know how it goes

 

[4Ryan6]

WOW Awesome trips coming up, Hope you win big in Vegas!

 

[RetiredChief]

Update
Have XP installed.
Slipstreamed the F6 AHCI driver to the XP w/slipstreamed SP3 and was able to recognize the HDD and install XP.
Added: The AHCI F6 driver I Downloaded from Intel. Also Had to Download the Display Adapter from Intel

Still need to load audio, ethernet adapter, and the RTL8187B_WLAN_Adapter.
Added: Prabably need to find Ethernet and RTL8187G Adapet as I didn't see them on Tosiba Site

Many Thanks 4ryan6

 

[4Ryan6]

Thats great! You're very welcome! Ryan

 

[Werdna]

Forgive my ignorance, but I am very curious to know what "slipstream" means in the context that it has been used in this thread.

I too am having problems. I have an Intel p5q motherboard and am having a real hard time installing windows and linux. In a nutshell: Ubuntu Linux doesn't see my hard drives unless I am in AHCI mode, and XP MCE doesn't see my drives unless the bios is configured to IDE mode. If I could get XP MCE to work with AHCI, it would solve a lot of my problems.

I tried 2 methods that I read about on the net - the first was moving the iostore.sys (I think that this was the name of it) file and put it into the windows drivers directory and double clicking on a reg file to load it's contents and make XP recognize AHCI - this did not work. The second was to hit f6 on XP install and install ahci drivers that way... it didn't even spot them on the floppy that they were on, but it did spot the raid drivers that were on the same floppy.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Werdna

 

[Zoron]

You can use a program called nLite to "slipstream" hotfixes, service packs and drivers into your Windows installation. This integrates the files into your Windows installation so that you don't have to press F6 during setup.