Hi all, bit of a long one here so I'll try to break it down as accurately as possible.

Hardware as follows:

750W Dual rail PSU
ASUS M4A87TD EVO
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T
4GB (2x2GB) Patriot Gamer Series DDR3 1600Mhz CL8
Gainward GeForce GTX 560 810MHz 2GB PCI-Express HDMI
LG GH22 22x DVDRW
Samsung 1TB Spinpoint F3 7200rpm SATA 3Gb/s 32MB

I assembled the PC, put in the XP pro (SP2) disk and loaded windows. Installed LAN driver and proceeded with the critical listed updates only (rebooted and repeated). Installed ZoneAlarm firewall, AVG Free and MBAM. Ran a full scan with both AVG and MBAM and removed 1 trojan from the HDD. Then downloaded the latest GPU driver from nVidia.

I then ran the ASUS BIOS update through windows and rebooted. I then installed "Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising". Upon running the game, the game would open a window that would close almost immediately. I checked the update history online, and found a few failed updates (sorry, I forgot to note them down - probably not an issue after what I did next). I tried Doom3 to see if there was a common issue with games, and yes indeed there was.

I decided to start from scratch, so I ran a disk wipe program that I have (7 sweeps - took 16hrs to complete). Ran XP installation again (not the quick format either), restarted the PC and the dreaded BSoD appeared at the "installing windows" part.

It was the IRQ less than or not equal to error, so I tried to re-run the installation with only one of the RAM sticks in... still failed, so I swapped to the other stick... still failing. I checked the BSoD codes and found that they could be indicative of a damaged HDD.

I removed the HDD and placed it into my other PC and installed windows onto the HDD with no issues at all.

I replaced the HDD back into the new PC and it BSoD's on the XP splash screen just before windows opens... to make sure that there weren't any PC specific installation files saved on the HDD, I ran the install on the new PC and again, the BSoD occurs at the "installing windows" part.

As the BIOS was the only other thing changed, I installed the latest BIOS from ASUS using the EZ flash utility and a clean formatted USB stick. lo and behold, it still crashes at the same point during windows installation.

The copy of XP I have is good (currently running another PC with it).

I used an ESD mat and wrist strap during assembly and any point when I removed anything or put my hand into the case.

I've used a fluke to check the PSU rails, and they're all stable under load

I've re-seated every connector on the motherboard, GPU, HDD and DVD.

The unit hasn't been switched on without an inline surge protector.

I've checked and rechecked the layout of all of the jumpers on the motherboard.


Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated

Please confirm you have two seperate licences.

Are you installing SATA drivers during the installation or running the hard drive in IDE mode?

Yes they are separate licences... I'm running the HDD in IDE mode

What code and error message is being displayed when you get the BSOD?

I'm not quite clear on one part. Is the crash happening when trying to install Windows or when you try to boot after installing?

The BSoD when re-installing is the IRQ less than or equal to etc... 0x0000...0a

The BSoD when I had it preinstalled was on the screen for too short a time for me to be able to read it... the PC restarted and offered the "recovered from a serious error " and it wouldn't start in safe mode

This behaviour is what I would expect when trying to install XP on a SATA drive, are you sure you have it set to run the hard drive in IDE mode?

It may be worth a little time to make a copy of XP with the SATA drivers included and see if that works.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Install-Windows-XP-On-SATA-Without-a-Floppy-F6-47807.shtml


Guide on XP and SATA settings in Bios
http://www.mydigitallife.info/windo...d-find-any-sata-hard-disk-drive-on-ahci-mode/


How to extract the SATA drivers from a floppy disc download.
http://maxeasyguide.blogspot.com/2008/04/extracting-sata-driver-from-their-exe.html

Many thanks Mark

I'll give that a try and update on here later.

Your help is greatly appreciated.

Ok, hope it works.

Considering all the other things you have tried that was all I could think of.

The only other thought I have at present, is to check you have the correct voltage set for the RAM. You need to look up the RAM specs on the manufacturer's site and then make sure it is set correctly in the Bios.

Ok...

There are no SATA drivers available on either the samsung support pages or on any of the first 20 pages of a google search for the HDD.

I quote from the user guide that I found on the samsung spt page: "Because the product has been optimized with it's own configurations. IDE (PATA and SATA) drive does not need any drivers"

I've had a fiddle around with the BIOS settings... HDD is set to IDE mode, RAM (as per manufacturers spec) 1.7V and 1600MHz.

However, it's still bringing up the BSOD during the windows load phase.

I'm at a loss at what to do next

If you look in the guides I gave to integrate the SATA drivers with XP you will see you need to get them from the motherboard's manufacturer's site The drivers are specific to your motherboard not the hard drive.

XP should insall on a SATA drive without additional drivers but only if the Bios is set to IDE mode. I don't understand why it is not working as you have made this setting in the BIOS. With the correct SATA drivers integrated into the XP disc hopefully this will overcome the problem.

If that still produces an error then we will have to look for other causes. Any chance you can borrow a Windows 7 disc from someone just to see if the installation will start without a crash. Windows 7 contains a multitude of SATA drivers so will install on any drive without additional drivers being added.

I can only find AHCI and RAID drivers... I'm not running a raid array, so can I assume that the AHCI is what I require?

That's correct, it can be confusing when different terms are used. Just so you are clear on what AHCI is:

The Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) is a technical standard defined by the Intel Corporation that specifies the operation of Serial ATA (SATA) host bus adapters.

Aha!

Just a quick one then... do I have to put these onto the XP disk, or can I load them independently during the XP setup?

I remember a prompt or two saying press F6 (or similar) to load 3rd party ....... drivers... not sure if that's for AHCI though.

You can only load these drivers when prompted to use the F6 key to load third party drivers if you have a floppy disc drive and a floppy to put the driver onto.

All this information is in the links I gave you earlier.

Ok... stupid question... I take it that a FAT32 formatted USB with the driver on won't work then?

Unfortunately, AFAIK that will not work. The drivers have to go on a floppy or be integrated into the XP disc.

Ok... thanks for the confirmation...

Guess I've got to dig out a RW CD then...

Ok...

I've got nLite open and have just finished copying the windows disk... I've unzipped the driver that I downloaded, but I'm unsure as to what to "import"...

Should I copy all of the files, or just one of the subfolders?

The top level is called "RAID" and the obvious choice from your previous comments is the following:

raid > driver > disk > AHCI > XP..... but then there are 2 choices: x64 and x86

The files in the choices are ahcix64.cat / .inf / .sys or ahci86 etc...


If I copy all of the folders, I have the following under the RAID folder as well:

JMB361 and JMB36x - both of these have subfolders called "install", each with similar files.


Thoughts?

I need to download the driver myself and have a good look at it before advising.

Please give me your motherboard make and model number.

Asus m4a87td evo

here's the manufacturers download page:

http://support.asus.com/download/ModelList.aspx?SLanguage=en&keyword=M4A87TD EVO &type=1

The AHCI stuff is under the utilities and I picked the latest driver