SATA... windows install nightmare

[mshea787]

so i buy a new SATA Hitachi 120 giger for my asus p4s8x mobo. i install the drive no problem, i run windows install it doesn't see the drive so i load 3rd party driver off a floppy. install goes through a little further i have currupted files i try another cd, it gets to the graphical part of the install and i get a stop screen. i thow things across my room (cd's,books,etc.). i try the install again while in the graphical part of the install it asks me if it ok to install all these drivers, saying there not verifyed even thoough there all default windows drivers. i say ok to all 20 or 30 of them, then it asks me to search for a driver for like terminal sever keyboard and mouse support wtf is that. i just push cancel and the instal finishes. when i boot up winxp for the first time i get this win98 looking desktop and about 10 mins later i get a stop screen. is there something im doing wrong. has anyone else had these problems installing to a sata drive and if so what did you do to get it to install right... i just want my computer back.

 

[BomberBill]

Oh, man, I can sympathise with your plight. I dont have the know how but Folken or Crashman might be worth emailing as they are spot-on with this kind of go. Is your XP a burnt copy with any files missing? SATA set-up before XP install has to be clean I've been told. I'm no help but do try the other guys I mentioned.

I will have to go through the same process as you when I next buy new in 3 weeks.

 

[mshea787]

ya i have made some more progress but not much. i loaded xp on on old 10 gig ide hd and it worked fine so i added my sata drive and i instaled the drivers and it read the 2nd hard drive. now i just need to figure out how to get windows to load on the sata HD... yes the xp cd is a burned copy, i am trying to get my hands on an original but have had no luck so far.

 

[mshea787]

another question does anyone else have a sata drive on an intergrated promise controller if so you could probably help me more than anyone else

 

[Crashman]

I had a RAID settup on a Promise controller, I had no problems, I made the Driver Floppy, used F6, and Setup asked me which driver I wanted to use (the NT driver, 2000, or XP). Chose the XP driver and everything went fine.

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[jim552]

I have had BIOS problems cause RAID controllers to corrupt data.

I would suggest that you make sure the BIOS on your motherboard is current, make sure the BIOS on the RAID card is current, make sure you load the newest drivers for your raid card. (Even if the RAID is integrated into the motherboard often they have a separate procedure for updating their BIOS.)

Additionally, I have had situations were multiple RAID cards in a system, including even left-over drivers from other RAID cards, will cause problems as well. A clean install is best with ONLY the RAID card you intend to use enabled. (It seems you are doing that but I just wanted to point that out.)

Another thing to NOTE: ON PROMISE RAID CONTROLLERS they can be recognized by different drivers within the same family. EVEN if the driver you select installs if you chose a driver from the same Promise RAID controller family but it was NOT the correct driver for your card there will usually be problems.

Some motherboard manufacturers will include different Promise drivers on the installation CD. Only ONE of these drivers is the correct one depending on your configuration.

On Asus AMD motherboards the Promise controller can usually be configured in two modes in addition to the drivers. (RAID, and Standard. I don't have a PC to boot up right now so I just said "standard" and I ALWAYS select the RAID option so I don't pay attention to the other one.)

 

[mshea787]

well i disconnected my 10 gig and am trying to install windows to the sata HD, i just don't understand why it seems to work fin as a second HD on a system where windows is already set up but when you go to install windows to it the installer goes crazy... do you think it would help if i were to make a copy of winxp with sp2