Hi all. I've been struggling for some time with installing WinXP to a SATA drive.
Very quickly the XP setup will format the drive and copy over the files for the continuation of setup, then the PC reboots and I get the message "Cannot load operating system". I also tried an nLite config and included all the drivers I could lay my hands on with the same result.

I think I need the drivers for the F6 thing when Setup is running. I have NO IDEA what these are or anything, so can anyone help me with this please?

Motherboard is ASUS A8N-SLi Deluxe.

http://support.asus.com/download/d [...] uage=en-us

Thanks - I've been to that page before, but SATA doesn't appear in the list and I don't know what I'm looking for. Sorry!

What do I need?

If you hook up your hard disk to the non-RAID controller you will not need any drivers.

Thats not the case. The RAID sockets are clearly marked, and it isn't plugged into those. It is plugged into the 'standard' SATA no1. socket.

Also, have you checked boot order in BIOS?

Yep - been through ALL of this as you can imagine.

Let me try to sum it up;
SATA drive plugged into SATA socket (NON-RAID).
RAID controller is disabled in BIOS.
There doesn't seem to be an option to run SATA in IDE mode (this has been suggested before).
Thats about it really.
If I boot my system from an IDE drive into WinXP (SP2 of course), then the drive works fine as a secondary/slave whatever, so the drive itself is fine. Its just something not working when it tries to boot from it.

I think I just need the drivers for the F6 bootup but I have not been able to find what I need and nobody has been able to point me at them.

It should not be this difficult

Also check to make sure if you have AHCI enabled or not. If its set to enabled then you will need a driver, but if its disabled you shouldn't need one.

You would have most likely got a better answer if you would have posted which motherboard your working with. What I mean is someone with the same board might have been able to tell you just what settings needed to be made.

I'll check about AHCI but I don't recall seeing any mention in the BIOS.

The motherboard in question is at the bottom of my first post - ie. an ASUS A8N-SLi.

Lol i had the exact same problem. I finally went to MSI and found a similar motherboard and noticed the drivers were called something different. I downloaded them anyway and they ran like tiny miracles.

Do you know exactly what ASUS drivers I need? Or did you bin it in favour of MSI?

Silicon Image 3114 SATA RAID driver V1.1.9.9 for Windows XP(WHQL)/2K/2003
or the...
Silicon Image Serial ATA Raid V1.1.0.0 plus RAID5 GUI V1.0.0.1 for Windows XP(WHQL)/2K/2003

these are drivers under IDE and RAID downloads for your board.

Disconnect all drives except foer the one you want to install Windows on.
Try then.
Do you have the latest bios?

I had the A8V Deluxe and had similar problems. I'm working from memory but remember that you do need to use the SATA RAID driver set even though you're not using RAID, pretty sure the SATA driver is in there. If you haven't done so, you should also take a close look at the manual. The instructions are in there but they are difficult to drag out - you need to read the sections on applicability very close to determine the drivers you need for your application. I went through the same thing myself and you DO need the SATA driver.

I believe I was using the SB600 chipset in my ASUS.
http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php [...] od_no=1333

I think this is similar to what I used.

In your case (just looked up your board) you have an nvidia sli setup. Try these drivers located here:
http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php [...] rod_no=169

I find the MSI provides newer drivers more often then ASUS.

Try using a different SATA port.
Is there a jumper on the SATA drive?

I certainly agree here, the terminology used is rather confusing and it's not easy to determine what set of drivers to pick from the suggested list. I had the same problem with my A8N-E.

From my old A7N8x experience, if you needed drivers for Windows, you wouldn't even be able to see the drive when choosing the one to install XP to. Do you have any PATA HD connected when the system reboots? If the PATA drives have precedence over the SATA's, then, when you reboot, the system might try to load something from the PATA drives, find something invalid, block there and not even look at the SATA controller. If in that situation, just unplug the PATA drives when installing XP and try plugging them back when completely installed.

> Disconnect all drives except foer the one you want to install Windows on.
Try then.

Done that already (except the CD drive of course).

> Do you have the latest bios?

Yes.

> Try using a different SATA port.

Tried that too.

> Is there a jumper on the SATA drive?

No jumpers on the drive.

I'll take a look at those drivers posted above - I take it they are the ones to copy to FDD and use F6 when setup asks?

I believe they will contain the txtsetup file and dlls for that in there (probably in some crazy acronym named directory) but they should work. OF course if you are like me you are scratching your head as to why one can ONLY USE A FLOPPY TO INSTALL SATA DRIVERS WHEN A USB KEY WOULD BE GRABBING THE 20TH CENTURY BY THE THROAT AND SAYING "I AM READY FOR YOU BUDDY!"

Of course then microsoft would be considered cutting edge, and that goes against there liberterian agenda.