Hi!

I've just joined asus forums, because I don't know what to do. I've read everything about following issue, but didn't solve anything. I consider myself as skilled IT person but I didnt come across RAID yet. I was just avoiding it, because I have my own principles of keeping data safe instead of paying extra money for half of disk storage.

Anyway. I just bought and assembled new rig with these components:
-Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Energy Efficient 95W edition Socket 775 (2.40GHz) G0 Stepping L2 8MB Cache OEM Processor
-ASUS P5K-E/WIFI-AP AiLifestyle Series P35 Socket 775 Socket eSATA 8 channel Audio ATX Motherboard
- 4GB G.Skill DDR2 PC2-8000 PQ Series (5-5-5-15) Dual Channel Kit
-Sapphire Radeon 1950Pro 512MB
-1xWD 320GB SATAII HDD (SATA1 plug)
-1xHitachi Deskstar 320GB SATAII HDD (not connected)
-1xHitachi Deskstar 160GB (not connected)
-1x DVDRW LG PrimaryIDE

+OCZ GameXStream 600watt PSU
+Antec Ninehundred (case)

Assembled rig, checked BIOS which is is 0806 (not newest) and prepared WD with two NTFS partitions ( 30/270) for system and to store data. Again, I wasnt interested in RAID. Respectively the closest match to normal (old school) single hard drive connection is RAID 0. I have 1 HDD connected and tried to install WindowsXP (lately i plan to perform dual boot with Vista). Everything goes good but when I'm supposed to choose partition to install, i just get BSOD 0x0000007B (0xF78DA524, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000).

As I said, I've been through whole internet and have found it's probably SATA/RAID drivers within Intel's ICH9 or/and JMicron drivers. So, I hardly managed to get two diskettes (hell, i thought we are in 2008. That's why I didnt order floppy with new rig) with ICH9 and Jmicron from original Asus CD provided with mobo(CD version M1224). And pressed F6 during early phase of install, chose various JM36x controlers as well as various ICH9 RAID or SATA disk controllers. And it still keep thworing BSOD on me. I have tried to switch to ahci or raid or ide mode in Controller as: Sata option. I dont even know if should use JMicron or ICH9 drivers.

I'm getting really crazy from this mobo as this is hardest rig install I've ever had in my 12 years of rig buildin. If you ask me If i did research before buying components I say YES, so don't ask such things. I plan to play and clock Q6600 higher over 3GHz but this mobo just giving me creeps. I've seen several possible reasons over web, from absence of proper sata drivers, through wrong memory modules (which is IMHO utter crap). I think If I'd install Vista, it should run fine, But i want avoid Vista for now and RAID as well (only RAID0 possible, I want to connect 2 or 3 HDDs).

For the time being it looks like I've bought piece of hardware that just don't work with WindowsXP and other hardware, which I'm beginning to regret. Such incompatibility problems can not be tolerated. At least they should provide their HW with appropriate working drivers. Thanks for all your answers in advance, I'll keep checking this thread every hour as these are probably my last hours before commiting suicide.

Possible clue?: http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=451887
Possible clue?: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/ [...] 613AAPj7jn

//Edit: Well, I've just read in the manual that installing Serial ATA drives is being done through RAID0,1,5 or 10. Lowest possible is obviously RAID0, but within this is stated that two identical drives are required for raid0 configuration. I HOPE THEY ARE **** KIDDING ME. They are trying to say, I need another two HDDs and put them into raid0 to get this **** running? Or get back to PATA HDD, get system onto it and configure sata drives into raid0 later. But this PATA HDD means another extra cost which is **** again.


- Hell, no way -

In case I want to install winxp i can do two following:

Make an RAID array and support F6 drivers.
1. Connect 2x identical sata drives. Create somehow RAID array (through intel matrix storage manager, which i cannot access in the moment, Ctrl+I or Ctrl+j just doesn't work, maybe it's because i dont have identical hdds).
2. Select RAID array as one to boot from as 1st device, dvd drive as 2nd.
3. Boot from WinXP cd, support F6 f6flpy32.exe drivers, install WinXP.
--------- doesn't work -------------
i dont have raid array setted up, f6 sequence says diskette doesn't have needed drivers


Make SATA as IDE
1. Select Connect SATA as: (IDE, RAID, AHCI), select IDE. You can choose performance, standard, compatibility in submenu (which really doesn't change anything).
2. Have one sata drive connected and boot from WinXP cd, install WinXP.
--------- doesn't work ---------
i get BSOD on choose partiton to install screen


I'm stuck in deep ...hole.

Clear cmos, go to bios, load defaults & increase ram voltage to 2.1v or more, depending on the ram specs.

Install xp on a standalone harddisk. If you want RAID & don't have floppy, google for slipstreaming xp with RAID drivers. There are instructions. You can make an xp setup disk with RAID drivers for your mobo. Most newer xp like sp2 /3 have the sata drivers. Once it is made, config the RAID setup & install the new xp cd.

i don't want raid, and install on standalone doesnt work, giving me BSOD

Turn off AHCI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advan [...] _Interface

2evongugg: yup, i've read this on wiki even before just to know with what i have pleasure to work with, so I disabled ahci before. for use in ahci there are drivers required and possibly raid array setted up. Although it's stated AHCI is for separated SATA drive to use, you can't use it because BSOD comes up. funny

Another thing you could try is only putting in 1 Stick of RAM when installing Windows. I've heard several horror stories about people trying to install Windows with 4GB of RAM installed.

Zollino, Is the SATA ports set to IDE mode in the BIOS?

Under SATA Configuration in the BIOS set Configure SATA as IDE. This will make the OS see the Drives as IDE.

No you will not be limited to IDE interface speeds it will be SATA speeds.

1Haplo

also :
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=547169
http://forums.techguy.org/windows- [...] blems.html

Some people reported that G.skill memory was SOMETIMES the problem.

I have a P5K-E/Wifi with a E6550 and 2x 1GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 and everything installed smoothly. Both my HDD and DVD drive are SATA2. The only difference I can see is that I installed the very lastest BIOS I could. Dunno if it make any difference at this point.

reset bios, run memtest, set sata to run as ide mode, should be fine. You can enable AHCI in windows early after clean install but its a pain and doesnt improve performance that much.

well thanks guys for your support, I just flashed bios to newest 1013 version setted SATA Configuration as IDE (Enhanced as well as Compatibility), setted memory on 2.0, 2.1, 2.2 voltage (as they r supposed to have by vendor) and nothing helped.

still same, dunno if it's worth of mentioning that on BSOD I'm not getting the message: (INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE), just BSOD like stated above

another possible reason can be attached DVDRW into PATA slot which is related to JMicron controller which colapses on 'Choose partition to install...' screen. i've found no IDE devices should be connected during install. So how I'm supposed to install windows? I dont have external dvd drive. almost no one does.

if i'll decide to give up and install vista, what version you recommend me according to my config spec.? 32 or 64bit? Bear in mind I plan to overclock q6600 a lot, mostly playing games, some office work.

do you have any 100% working guide for DUAL BOOT config, so i can choose which OS to boot right after the POST screen? I dont want to several OSs interfere with each other.

i've just tried pull out one stick of 2gb ram, absolute ide everything jmicron and sata connection enhanced, turned off onboard devices. trying to install of windows xp, BSOD again. THERE IS NOTHING LEFT TO DO.

i've found the reason why it's been doing this. I had the 'wrong version of Windows' ... i had to change windows installation disk for more proper one.

I had a similar problem but it was with PCI-E video card using a pre-SP2 CD (OEM). But I had absolutely no idea that it could also cause problem with SATA drives. At least I know it now

Just for your reference, you don't NEED to have two drives or any form of a RAID setup to use a SATA hard drive OR install windows onto it.

I'm using the same P5K-E as you and I've got it working just fine with XP.

> 8800GT TOP (700mhz)
> 2GB Crucial Ballistix PC2-8500
> 74GB WD Raptor

(apart from the above hardware, my rig is pretty much the same as yours)

For the moment, while you install windows, it's probably best to make sure everything in the BIOS is set to default - especially those regarding the SATA controller.

This board (and from what I have seen, many others with the ICH9 controller) throws errors when ACHI / RAID is enabled in BIOS. There are different causes and different solutions, but most people stick to using the IDE setting in the BIOS.

To me it seems that you think that using the IDE option in the BIOS will force you to use an IDE hard-disk, this isn't the case, you can still use a SATA drive just fine!

I hope this explains things a little. Good luck!

After looking on the asus forums it seems the poster resolved the problem by switching to another copy of windows, apparently he was using Windows Black Edition and that was the supposed problem!

Hey guys, i just tripped over this thread having the same problem when changing my motherboard to an AM2 from an intel 462. Just wanted to add a little information. IDE and your interface are two seperate things. IDE refers to Integrated Drive Electronics. SATA and PATA are just the interfaces to connect to an IDE drive. All harddrives, excluding SCSI I believe are IDE. Thanks for the information though guys!