Cannot install on SATA drive, F6 wont work

[thedonk3]

Hi All,

Have a very frustrating problem and I hope someone can help - just bought a shiny new tower and all the parts for an upgrade and I thought I'd get a Maxtor 200gb SATA drive to go with it. However I cannot install the SATA drivers when I press 'F6' during the initial stages of a Win XP Pro install. Nothing whatsoever happens when I press the key... it just goes to the next options. Therefore Windows will not load!
The Bios is picking up the drive and I have formatted and partitioned it through MAXBLAST. I created a 10gb 'Windows' drive and have tried formatting in NTFS and FAT32.... but all to no avail.
Oh and I've tried 2 keyboards and still get the same result.... No F6!
Anybody any ideas.... would be most appreciated.

the Donk.

 

[iss]

you said your tried two different keyboards but was one of them a PS/2 connection? I have never had any luck with installs using either a microsoft keyboard or a USB connected keyboard. I keep a cheap 10.00 PS/2 Board around for installs.

another thing I assume you are using a floppy disk with the drivers on it are you sure your Floppy Drive is working?

 

[newners]

I'm not sure if this helps but you need to press F6 when prompted at the bottom of the screen ( EARLY IN THE SETUP PROCESS ).
Windows then continues to load files for a few minutes. Soon you will be asked 'do you want to specify SCSI or RAID device driver' or something like that; press 's' to specify additional device.
You will then be asked to put in the relevant floppy disk - yes you do need a floopy drive LOL!! Put in the disk press enter and you will get a few driver options for differnet OS's if using XP select xp.
Setup continues but leave the floppy in the drive until prompted to remove it (much later on the process).

Hope that helps

 

[bobg425]

Same problem with ASUS mobo K8V-X SE

Also have ABIT NF8, both with SATA power plugs.

I have RAID floppy which works for F6, loads drivers for RAID/SATA.
THAT IS ON THE ABIT BOARD.
The BIOS has a "periphreal" tab, click on that, Enable IDE and RAID,
save and then when you go to F6 it will copy the RAID drivers, just be right there when F6 pops up, have the floppy disk inserted and a few seconds later it will load those drivers.

NOW WITH THE ASUS MOBO THERE IS NO SUCH TAB FOR PERIPHREAL AND THERE IS NO FLOPPY DISK WITH THE BOARD.

DONKEYS AT ASUS INSIST THAT IF I AM NOT GOING TO USE RAID THEN I DON'T NEED THE DRIVERS..........NOT SO.........THEY SAY THE DRIVERS ON ON THE ASUS CD, IT COMES UP WITH AN ERROR ON MY CD SO I AM DEAD IN THE WATER.
THEY ALSO INSIST THAT YOU CAN LOAD THE DRIVERS FROM THE CD BUT MY QUESTION IS: HOW DO YOU LOAD THEM WITH THAT CD WHEN IT IS RUN UNDER WINDOWS AND I CAN'T EVEN GET TO INSTALL WINDOWS IN THE FIRST PLACE.

I HAVE TALKED TO THEM 4 TIMES WITH BASICALLY THE SAME ANSWERS.
THEY SAID THEY WOULD SEND ME A NEW CD?????????????/

 

[CCT]

posted by 'puzzleman' on the Asus boards:

"Download VIA SATA RAID driver:

http://www.viaarena.com/Driver/via_raid_v530c.zip
Extract it you will get a Drvdisk folder,
please enter this folder, copy all the files and sub-folders (under Drvdisk folder) to a floppy disk.

Then begin to install Windows XP from windows setup CD;
When there is a message "Press F6 to install third part SCSI/RAID..." on the bottom of blue screen,
please press F6 key (2 or 3 times),
the setup program will continue loading files,after a while it will ask you to specify the driver by pressing "S" key,
Press S key and insert the RAID driver floppy disk into the drive,
it will detect the "VIA VT8237 Raid driver for Windows XP", select this item and following the instructions to finish setup."

 

[bobg425]

Thanks for your post. Have been there, done that....BIOS and Device Manager show the SATA drive but Windows does not.
Spent the night d/loading the zip drive, make disk, it read both of them fine,
then "no disk".

As far as I am concerned the ASUS board and SATA both suck, big time.

I've been at this for over 20 years and right now I don't feel like I know a D...n thing about computers.

My other one just refused to bring up Outlook express, said that MSOE.dll could not initialize, let Microsoft know.......NOT.

Replaced last week's image and get the very same thing.
I must have one screwed up registry and that is with the good mobo (ABIT)

 

[CCT]

Is this a second drive - I maybe missed that in your original post?

BTW: when you add on to an existing post you just muddy the waters - next time start your own, please.

 

[steve_r18]

I am having a similar problem. I am trying to setup RAID, but not matter what I do when I press F6 to load the RAID drivers (which I have on disk) nothing happens. It's a wireless keyboard but the F6 key works when you have to 'Press Any Key to Continue' . Clearly registering the use of the F6 key is fine. Can this be a Windows install disk issue. I'm really getting frustrated. I thought maybe it was the BIOS version but I can't see that being a problem. I will accept anything at this point. I hope someone has had this problem and a likely solution cuz it's driving me nuts!!
Please help!!!

 

[mailpup]

Does the keyboard respond to get you into the BIOS and inside the BIOS? If not, you will have to use a wired USB or PS/2 keyboard temporarily. I believe a wireless will need a driver and you can't install it early enough in the process to use it to install Windows.

 

[steve_r18]

It does.

Does the keyboard respond to get you into the BIOS and inside the BIOS? If not, you will have to use a wired USB or PS/2 keyboard temporarily. I believe a wireless will need a driver and you can't install it early enough in the process to use it to install Windows.

That's what I was getting at when I was referring to working pre-OS. It works for accessing the BIOS. If I press F2 to run Recovery during OS install that works perfectly fine. Even if I didn't have the disk in the drive it would still take me to the directory. It doesn't make any sense.

 

[mailpup]

Well, can you try to use a wired keyboard anyway? If it works, you're done.

 

[steve_r18]

I suppose I should. It seems almost trivial, but it won't hurt to try. I really hope it works. I'll keep you posted.

 

[steve_r18]

Well, can you try to use a wired keyboard anyway? If it works, you're done.

So I tried a hardwired keyboard and still nothing. I"m hoping its the cd in this case. I'm kind of running out of options. Problem is that i don't have another cd to use. If you have any other ideas let me know. Like I mentioned before....this is driving me nuts.

 

[mailpup]

I am trying to setup RAID, but not matter what I do when I press F6 to load the RAID drivers (which I have on disk) nothing happens.

To clarify what you mean, what exactly happens when you press F6? Does it hang and do nothing at all? What disk are you using to load the RAID drivers? A floppy disk, correct?

 

[steve_r18]

To clarify what you mean, what exactly happens when you press F6? Does it hang and do nothing at all? What disk are you using to load the RAID drivers? A floppy disk, correct?

As I said, nothing happens at all. It just skips that step and goes to the 'Press F2 to load recovery....". The timing is the same as if I never pressed the key at all.

 

[mailpup]

Are you using a recovery CD and not a regular Windows XP CD?

 

[steve_r18]

Are you using a recovery CD and not a regular Windows XP CD?

Unfortunately I've been doing this for a while and wish I was that much of beginner. It's a regular XP install CD.

 

[mailpup]

Just checking so don't take this the wrong way but did you set up RAID in the BIOS and all the SATA/RAID controllers are enabled?

 

[steve_r18]

Just checking so don't take this the wrong way but did you set up RAID in the BIOS and all the SATA/RAID controllers are enabled?

That's the thing. RAID shouldn't have to be enable for you to get to the config from the XP CD. But either way I tried enabling RAID on the SATA's then I enabled RAID on both drives. I was initially thinking the same thing. I mean it's possible the BIOS needs flashing but it still shouldn't be an issue. What do you think?

 

[mailpup]

What motherboard do you have? I've never set up a RAID array myself but I think you have it backwards. Besides enabling RAID in the BIOS you have to configure the RAID array in a BIOS setup utility. RAID setup isn't configured from the Windows CD. Once RAID is set up and you go through the F6 RAID driver procedure, the installation of Windows XP should continue normally.

 

[steve_r18]

What motherboard do you have? I've never set up a RAID array myself but I think you have it backwards. Besides enabling RAID in the BIOS you have to configure the RAID array in a BIOS setup utility. RAID setup isn't configured from the Windows CD. Once RAID is set up and you go through the F6 RAID driver procedure, the installation of Windows XP should continue normally.

I am using the ASUS M2N-E. That's how it works. I set the RAID array in the bios first using the mobo utility. I confirm the array and sizes then it continues on to the windows installation. The BIOS only says how it's gonna be done, but without the drivers setting up the array in the BIOS is useless. My only guess is that some of the files on the CD may be corrupted. I'm not sure whatelse to even look at anymore...haha...

 

[mailpup]

The problem might still be related to the keyboard. When you tried the wired keyboard, was it a USB or PS/2? If it was USB, you would have to make sure using the USB keyboard was enabled in the BIOS. It is disabled by default in the BIOS' I've seen recently (Gigabyte). I know you said it seemed to work sometimes but check this possibility out anyway.

 

[insoman]

If you have only one drive on the sata connectors you dont need RAID, try setting them as to use the IDE controllers in the BIOS.

 

[steve_r18]

The problem might still be related to the keyboard. When you tried the wired keyboard, was it a USB or PS/2? If it was USB, you would have to make sure using the USB keyboard was enabled in the BIOS. It is disabled by default in the BIOS' I've seen recently (Gigabyte). I know you said it seemed to work sometimes but check this possibility out anyway.

The wired keyboard I used was PS/2. : (

 

[mailpup]

As I said, nothing happens at all. It just skips that step and goes to the 'Press F2 to load recovery....".

This sounds like you are running the automated system recovery instead of a normal XP installation. During a normal XP installation you don't get this screen. Maybe I'm not familiar with XP Pro but something is not quite right.