New motherboad, RAID card, RAM etc can't load WinXP

[kxr]

hi everyone, I hope someone can help me out here and I'm posting to the right forum. I'm completely stuck!

My setup:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6320 1.86GHz
Gigabyte GA-945GM-S2 (V3.9)
Generic 2 x 1GB DDR2 667MHz RAM
Gigabyte NX73G256D-RH video card
Skymaster Ultra ATA 133 PCI IDE RAID controller card
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB Ultra ATA HDD
Western Digital WD Caviar 80GB HDD (slave)
Sony DVD-RW

All but the hard drives and DVD-RW are new - I want to use my existing WinXP Pro install which is on the 320GB HDD.
For every configuration I've tried, I cannot get it to boot succesfully to the point where I can run a Windows 'repair install', or load Windows at all.

I'm not using the slave HDD until I can get it to boot successfully.

So far I've tried:
1. Connecting the HDD to the motherboard IDE and the DVD-RW connected to the RAID controller.
Result: BIOS shows HDD as primary IDE master
I can boot off the Windows CD and it says 'windows is checking your hardware configuration'.
It then loads all the drivers in the blue Windows setup screen
It says 'setup is starting windows' before giving me the blue screen of death with the following stop codes:
0x0000007B (0xF78D2524, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)
This is before I have the option to select install or repair

2. Connecting the HDD to the RAID card (blue connection) as well as the DVD-RW (white).
Result: Neither drive appears in BIOS, but show in the RAID config screen (which loads after BIOS)
I can boot off the Windows CD and it says 'windows is checking your hardware configuration'.
It then loads all the drivers in the blue Windows setup screen
It says 'setup is starting windows' before giving me the blue screen of death with the following stop codes:
0x0000007B (0xF78D2524, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)
This is before I have the option to select install or repair

3. Connecting the DVD-RW to the motherboard IDE and HDD connected to RAID (blue).
Result: BIOS shows DVD Rom as Primary IDE Master
HDD shows in RAID config screen
Loads to PCI devices listing then goes no further
- removed WinXP CD with above config - same result, hangs
- loaded fail safe defaults in bios, re-enabled USB keyboard support: reboot, same result

4. Connecting HDD to motherboard IDE, no DVD-RW connected.
Result: Get windows black screen stating windows did not shut down properly last time, choose safe mode, etc
- chose safe mode, gives code then reboots
- chose last known good config - BSOD flashed then reboot
- chose start windows normally - same again

5. Connecting HDD to RAID blue, no DVD-RW.
Result: same as 3 above - hangs after PCI devices listing

6. Connecting HDD and DVD-RW to motherboard IDE.
Result: BIOS shows HDD as primary IDE master
after PCI Devices listing, gives error: disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter
changed BIOS boot sequence to only boot from CDROM - again reaches PCI devices then hangs

Does anyone have any ideas?!
thanks
Rodney

 

[Tedster]

You DO know that when you change your motherboard you MUST reformat and reinstall windows. You cannot use the copy currently on the HD because it self-configures for your old system and motherboard serial #. You will need to reformat and reinstall and re-register your XP.

 

[kxr]

hi tedster,

The problem is no matter what I do, I can't even get to the point of reinstalling XP. I am comfortable with doing a fresh install if need be, but it does not get to the screen to enable me to select to install.

 

[CCT]

I don't have any experience with add-on Raid cards but I would ask if, in scenario 1, you did press F6 and install some drivers for the Raid card.

It may be that bios can see the cd drive BUT Windows doesn't when control is handed over because no driver is installed for the card.


?

 

[Tedster]

You will need to do a fresh install.

 

[kxr]

Thanks for your replies guys. Sometimes it's the simplest and most obvious things that get overlooked - I'm guilty of that here! I've fixed the first part of the problem, but now I have another!

The first issue came down to this: I had two IDE connectors on my old motherboard, one for my HDDs and the other for my DVD-RW. On the new motherboard there is just the one IDE connector on the motherboard. When I connected the HDD and DVD-RW to the motherboard IDE, I forgot to change the DVD-RW to be a slave! Who'd have thought a tiny piece of plastic would cause me a week of tearing my hair out?!

I wasn't able to do a repair install on XP, so just did a clean one. After loading XP I was able to load the drivers for the raid/IDE controller.

Now I've swapped in my second HDD as the slave, running off the motherboard IDE with the master HDD. All fine - windows will load and I have access to the slave drive.

However, if I add the DVD-RW to the raid card I can't boot up at all. It gets past the BIOS to the raid card info (where it shows my dvd as drive number 2) then just reboots and cycles through the same thing again. I've tried changing the DVD to master or slave and have tried plugging it into both the blue and white IDE connections on the raid card.

I don't want to set up a RAID config, I ordered this card so that I could have my three drives (2 x HDD, 1 x optical) running. I'm sure I must be doing something wrong somewhere. How can I connect my DVD to the raid card and get windows to successfully boot?

 

[Tedster]

No- you should not be able to get your DVD to run off a RAID card. I could be wrong, but I don't think it will work.

 

[CCT]

Been reading here and there - after you installed the new OS and then added the new card did you boot with the dvd disconnected and install any needed card drivers ?

Would seem 'something' would have to be added to have the card and attached devices recognized properly.


Just a thought.

 

[kxr]

hi guys, I'm finally up and running.
I have my master HDD and DVD running off the motherboard and the slave HDD off the raid IDE card.
Quite a bit of messing around but I got there in the end.
thanks for replying to me!

 

[CCT]

Would be nice after all the problems to explain how - everyone wants to learn here (well, mostly everyone)!

Thx a lot -