WIndows now soread on two drives, can't do a clean install

[evogel99]

Intel 975 MB, 2 Gig, Q6600 cpu

I wanted to move my boot drive to a Raptor for speed. I had done this before with ACronis True Image. This time I created a mess and have no clear idea how to dig out.

Where I am is:

0. Was XP HE, I got a full retail copy of XP Pro and finally managed to upgrade.

1. Windows boots from IDE drive (N: ) but registry shows program resources are spread across C: (the Raptor) and N: The reagistry in use appears to be on N:

2. Machine runs, but new intalls (sometimes) split the install across C: and N: (e.g. a Silverfast upgrade) and then won't run.

3. In some cases, older installs will in some cases run from either drive!

I want to either merge the thing back together (unlikely I'm sure) or do a clean install of XP Pro and rebuild the machine (really really ugly, but probably necessary).

But I can't do a clean install.

I got a SATA DVD/CD drive to boot from. The BIOS seems to think this is a DVDRAM, not an optical drive. I set it first to boot, which works fine. When I try to install to a wiped and formatted SATA drive, the machine blue screens with an x7B - which seems to mean any number of things, MS docs are pretty vague. I gather that the install disk may think that the SATA DVD drive is where I am asking it to install??? Don't know.

I cannot figure out how to get the MB to boot from USB Plextor optical drive. That might be the answer?

I'm not sure my old IDE optical works, so I may have to buy another one just to try booting the install disk.

All insight and suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[SuicideSilence]

hmm, that sounds wierd, sorry i dont got a clue.

 

[1haplo]

It looks like what you have right now is really really ugly.

Make sure you Windows XP CD is Service Pack 2... IF not Slipstream the disk. IF not Check out www.msfn.org

To get rid of this mess is to boot to the Windows XP CD

In set up it will ask to repair press Esc to NOT repair.

After that when you get to the point to choose what drive to install on delete both partitions.

The choose the Raptor for the install drive and use NTFS quick format.

Once you installed XP go to Admin tools and computer management and Disk Management.

Format the other drive and install every thing.........I know how that is....

IF you NEED to save some Information and do not have a way to back it up. put all the information on the second drive and when you install Windows Disconnect the drive untill installation is done. Then if you have enough room on the Raptor you can put all the information you needed to save and format the other drive and put that information back.

 

[RetiredChief]

1haplo is correct, need XP service pk 2 (someone told me Service Pk 1 would work, but not sure)

Wipe the new drive, ie remove any partitions. With the old drive disconnected, boot from CD, install XP on drive. When done, Power down, set boot from to new disk, should come up as C and old drive as D Plus any logical drive partitions. You should be able to do a restart, change boot to to old drive, Which should now come up as C whit your new drive as D

I've down this with two pairs of raid 0 drives. drive Zero is XP and Has C: & D: 2nd pair has Vista and is E & F. When I reboot whit Vista that drive comes up as C & F and the XP disk comes up as E & D. No softeware boot disk manager.

 

[miamirain]

Definitely need a rebuild as previous posts suggested, and definitely disconnect your current N drive while installing XP on Raptor. Try plug your SATA DVD/CD into a different SATA port on the MB see if that helps, and for the MB to recognize the USB Plextor you have to fiddle with the BIOS a bit such as enabling the legacy USB devices, etc. I've had problems with Acronis before in a similar case, wonder if it's related to making an image from an IDE HDD and trying to put it on a SATA HDD.

 

[evogel99]

Lots off great help here - thanks!

FWIW - when I disconnect everything except the SATA dvd drive and the wiped and formatted raptor, that's when I get the x7B! and that's what has driven me crazy for a couple of days now.

If I can just get the USB boot to work, I think I would be OK.

As for the True Image IDE -> SATA I guess its "NOW they tell me".

 

[evogel99]

Forgot to add:

yes, XP Pro SP2 retail ed.

 

[miamirain]

Hmm... Possible bad HDD? Try plug it to a different SATA port on the mobo. Did you flash mobo with the latest BIOS? I'm not saying Acronis can't go from IDE to SATA (I still don't know the answer to that question) but that's what I was trying to do and failed.

 

[evogel99]

the HD I am trying to install to just came out of my Raid 0 temp drive (2 35gig raptors). Shoudl be fine formats, etc. OK

I will try another port when I get home.

I am running the latest BIOS I know of (1/24/2008, from memory - I am at work)

 

[miamirain]

One other thing I can think of assuming the mobo and HDD are both good, I know older 1.5Gb/s SATA mobo's would have problem seeing 3.0Gb/s HDDs unless you set it in the BIOS to 1.5Gb/s, and here you are doing the opposite of having a 3.0Gb/s mobo with a 1.5Gb/s HDD (am I right?), wonder if that can cause a problem.

 

[evogel99]

Well - all the drives I have were running fine until I shot myself in the foot. Intel does say that you should not change the bios from RAID support to something else after you have installed. I may have done that...

 

[miamirain]

Intel does say that you should not change the bios from RAID support to something else after you have installed. I may have done that...

Ok with that said I'd go into BIOS and make sure all SATA ports have RAID disabled before doing anything else.

 

[1haplo]

Evogel99,

Is it in the same computer with the RAID0?

Does it error on format or copying files?

Is SATA set to IDE or AHCI or RAID?

Have you tried to boot to a DOS prompt from a floppy or USB drive and run FDISK /MBR and FDISK and delete the partitions?

Put the drive in the RAID0 and turn up the computer and enter the RAID setup and remove the drive from RAID. or activate RAID on the computer it is now(If it has RAID available) and remove it from RAID then turn off RAID and then delete the partition in windows setup.

1Haplo

 

[evogel99]

Well, I made progress last night. I got to the point where XP install asks what hard drive I want to install to. AND IT CAN'T SEE MY SATA DRIVES!

Weird. from what I ave read on the net, this was incorporated in SP2. Must be something baout this Intel MB? I guess I will have to figure out about adding SATA drivers, although I assumed they were in the BIOS.

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

I think for XP you do have t install the sata/raid drivers before you can install. One thing I do like about Vista, natively supports all that, so no need for extra, but you should be able to install those drivers from a cd or floppy then try the install again.

 

[truehighroller]

Make the drive the boot priority not the cdrom.

 

[miamirain]

I think the SATA drivers might be mobo dependent too, I recently installed XP on both the Abit IX38 QuadGT and the EVGA 780i boards with the same CPU/RAM/HDD using the same SP2 CD, I didn't use the driver on a floppy for the IX38 board and it recognized the SATA HDD w/out problem while the 780i board the driver was required.

Download the driver from your mobo manufacturer and press F6 right when it started to boot from CD where it says something like "Press F6 now to install third party raid device driver..." on the bottom of the screen.