Windows does not move onto the GUI or next part of the installation

[raymaniam]

After my computer boots from the disc and I do my quick format NTSC and the computer restarts ready to set up windows nothing happens. I'm just brought to the same place again and again. It's not an issue of taking out the disc temporarily because if I do that it just restarts again.

I sense that there is an issue with my 1tb sata - the only hard drive I have. I have a gigabyte ga-p35 and I've been reading that I may have to upload drivers onto a floppy for the sata to work properly. Is this really neccessary? First, where do I find a floppy, and second, how am I supposed to get data on it if my comp is formatted?

 

[mailpup]

What version of Windows are you installing? XP?

 

[raymaniam]

windows xp pro**

Youre sharp mailpup. I'm running xp. I've just tried to install windows 7 in hopes to step this and I get another error which seems to have something to do with the partition. My sata is split into 130gb and the remaining 870gb and strangely enough xp says that I only have one partition - c: with 130gb

 

[mailpup]

If you don't have XP SP2 or SP3, you will be limited to approximately 137GB per partition. If so, since the second partition is so large XP won't recognize it. I should have asked before but what service pack is your version? If you install SP3 (which you should if you haven't already), you should be able to utilize the remaining portion of the hard drive although it will be less than 870GB.

With that Gigabyte motherboard you will have to go through the F6 floppy drive SATA driver installation procedure at the beginning of Window XP Setup if you set the SATA controller to AHCI mode (RAID mode as well). If that motherboard has a floppy controller you can install a floppy drive if you want. They are still available. The BIOS does support a USB floppy drive so you might be able to use one of those instead. However, you can avoid all of that if you set the controller mode to IDE in the BIOS. Then XP should install without needing the SATA drivers. One thing to keep in mind is you cannot switch between IDE mode and AHCI mode with reinstalling Windows each time.

Depending on which Gigabyte P35 board you have, you could have two different brands of SATA controllers so you will need to pay attention to which one you are using unless you set them both the same way.

All that said, it sounds like you already have XP installed on the 130GB partition. If so and you want to keep the partitions as is, all you need to do is install SP3 and Windows XP should recognize the rest of the hard drive.

 

[superty12]

Full format

After my computer boots from the disc and I do my quick format NTSC and the computer restarts ready to set up windows nothing happens.

You really should do a full format. Backup all your data.

 

[SNGX1275]

I know you said removing the disk (presumably to keep it from trying to boot off of it) doesn't work (which would have been my first suggestion). But have you checked your BIOS to make sure that your hard drive is actually an option as something to boot from? Alternatively (although temporary) you can just hit F-Something (the one your mobo says on POST) to get to the boot menu, then force it to try and boot off the hard drive. As long as the setup is copying files to the drive after its format (and before the restart) the hard drive should have the necessary info to boot the system.

As for the 130 gig thing.. If you are installing the original XP or maybe even XP SP1, it won't see anything bigger than 137GB. So that is why you can't see your larger one. If you are sure you don't have bad sectors there isn't much reason for a full format, although at only 130 gig a full format wouldn't take an insane amount of time. Full formatting a 1.5 or 2TB drive/partition though... thats another story.

And for the 3rd party drivers needed for XP and SATA drives, thats only true if you aren't doing an IDE emulation in the BIOS, it sounds like you are.

On a side note your NTSC comment threw me off initially. Its NTFS. NTSC is for TVs..