Windows XP installation stability problems with SATA RAID H.D.

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after all i read, i ain´t got a big problem

well my question:

how do i get win xp to install onto my s-ata harddrive?
i´ve seen something with F6 (here and during installation)

i got only 1 HD (do i have to tell the raid controller something special ?)

please answer for dummies


(i have win xp running, but only after i installed on a p-ata HD, then ghosted to the s-ata. i dont want to ghost every installation, you know)

thanks
 
When you run XP setup, you DO have to press F6 to load special drivers.

This driver is for your SATA chipset, whatever it may be. And XP can only load it from a FLOPPY.
So you need to get your SATA driver onto the root of a floppy.

Then, during the begining of setup, XP will ask you to load addition drivers (press S), or continue (press ENTER).
At this point you need to press "S" and have it look on your driver floppy. If it finds a driver, it will ask you which to use. Then you can continue setup.
 
One other thing . . .

. . . you'll be asked a second time during the installation of XP for the SATA driver. The process happens so fast, just keep the SATA floppy in the drive and the installation of the driver will happen automatically. (But don't forget to take the disc out of the drive before the first reboot).
Also, I assume that you've gone into your BIOS and set the the boot sequence to Floppy, SCSI (SATA), and HDD so that upon first reboot and final installation your computer boots to your SATA drive.
 
Polders said:
I hope somebody can help me, I just bought 2 identical hard drives Western Digital Raptor 36 Giga Sata drives that I wanted to RAID-0 using the motherboard controller I have on the ASUS A7N8X deluxe which is called Silicon Image Sil 3112A controller, so first of all I plugged the sata wires and I started my PC ( Barton 2500+) and setting up the RAID-0 pressing F4 , this operation was succesfull and the bios recognize the 2 hard drives with no problems at all and no conflict.

After that I started installing Windows XP PRO using the 6 floppies + the one containing the Sata Raid controller drivers necessary for WIN to be recognised, I downloaded these drivers from the ASUS website (after unzipping the file) after a while WIN asked me to insert the floppy containing the drivers since I pressed the F6 option that initially the installing program ask if a SATA RAID OR SCSI controller need to be installed. Windows XP PRO recognised the drivers with the only problem that were not digitally signed and this could be the cause of Windows Instability problems, I pressed to "continue anyway" button and the installation proceeded normally even though the same message advising me of istability problems appeared a couple of times more exactly right before WIN XP PRO ask you the time region you are located etc... At the end the program booted and Windows XP PRO was launched properly. This only happened 3 times because at the fourth time I turned on the PC one blue screen appeared and freezed the system, launching WIN XP PRO in the safe mode was not changing anything, always the blue screen and after that nothing and just rebooting rebooting and rebooting.

So, is there a way I can install WINDOWS XP PRO on my new SATA hd drives with RAID-0 without having this big problem? My modo bios is updated with the latest rev. 1008 so I think the problems are that the raid controller sil 3112a 's drivers are not digitally signeed and this cause the instability that now means no Windows at all because of the blue screen.

Can somebody help me or does somebody have any suggestion?
I would really appreciate your help. Thank you Erwin
Click to expand...

Hellow Erwin , your problem is that you are installing winXP on a raid 0 and thats not possiable, you cannot have a boot+system pertinion with raid 0

you have to have a HD not raid 0 and to install your winXP on him . then you will be able to use the RAID 0 option with the other 2 HD
 
Excuse me, but . . .

. . . there are probably tens of thousands of computer users out there utilizing RAID 0 (striping) configuration on their Win XP Home and Pro operating systems. So, that's not your problem.
Speaking of thousands, that's about how many potential faults you have to chose from that could be causing your problem with the blue screen.
Did you use the Si3112 driver on a floppy that came with your motherboard? That usually doesn't get you a unsigned driver warning when you make the installation.
If not, try downloading the 3112A driver from Silicon Image's web site.
As I have stated numerous times on this forum, nForce 2 Ultra chipset-type motherboards are quirky, which could be causing your blue screen. What has worked for me in the past is reformatting your hard drives (low level type format) and then re-installing your OS. Do this with the minimum of components installed and when you have things working properly, add each component (modem, DVD drives, LAN stuff, etc) one at a time.
Hope this works out for you.
 
SATA & Win XP Problems

Wow - sure is a lot of information to digest on this forum post.
At risk of extending it, perhaps someone can help me with a 'related' SATA/WinXP problem. I am troubleshooting a PC which was operating OK, but recently bombed out. Apparently the owner
installed & ran WinOptimix on it - since rebooting no HDD access & XP simply cycles. No Safe Mode either. All I can access is Bios and the Raid configuration (cant be changed).

The mobo is a Biostar M7VIZ 5.1, KM400 with Via 8237 chipset & is SATA compatible.
The HDD is a single Seagate ST380013AS, in RAID 0 format.

What has been tried? First up I searched forum posts - seems the Via chipset is a big suspect judging from comments on Viaarena.com - lots of bods with unrecognisable SATA drives.
I suspect a driver/chipset incompatibility, however PC was running OK, though it did have a previous problem similar to this apparently.
That time reloading the mobo SATA driver (from floppy) worked.

I downloaded Seagates HDD diagnostics (Seatools Desktop) - drive checked out fine, but SATA Controller was 'unsupported'.
Connected and ran a standard IDE HDD with XP O/S on it - no problem. Then downloaded latest Biostar bios and other drivers (Via 4in1, SATA etc) from website. Have flashed the Bios - made no difference. Checked & d-checked the bios settings - no go there.

Tried reloading XP and the supplied SATA driver on floppy (using F6) several times. XP spends ages checking the drive, then finally craps out saying it cant access it, so have to F3 out. I do wonder about the supplied floppy SATA drivers (dated 2003), but cant find alternatives to DL. Obviously cant load latest Via/SATA drivers until HDD is recognised & Win XP is operable.

Seems the only option is to ditch the SATA drive & run an IDE one unless someone has any bright ideas.
Thanx in anticipation
Bazzaw
 
You might try hooking the SATA disc up to the system when booted from PATA and partition & format. Then remove the PATA and try again.
 
Or try this . . .

Start with a completely clean SATA drive by low-level formatting the thing using Seagate's Seatools. This procedure removes everything including the metadata written to the disk, which may explain the problem you are having with recognition.
 
Ta Ironduke - was hoping to leave the info on the SATA HDD intact meantime as the owner hasnt any backups (typical). Found newer SATA drivers last night and tried installing them during WinInstall - this time Xp went as far as offering to format the drive which I declined until I can check with owner.
Weird thing about this Mobo Bios is that it doesnt seem to have an entry for SATA devices - have to figure that one out too.
Ah - such fun, so much time .....
Bazzaw
 
Bazzaw, this jumped out at me from your post:

"The HDD is a single Seagate ST380013AS, in RAID 0 format."

A single drive can't run in RAID 0. Or any RAID for that matter. You have to have at least 2 drives to stripe. What do you mean by that?

2ndly, I did a Google search for your WinOptimix and didn't find anything. What is that program? Did you mean Ashampoo WinOptimizer?

3dly, if a system configuration change (by the optimizer), screwed it up; then a Last Known Good startup should restore the old system info. Did you try LKG startup?

4th, if the customer needs data and have to reload, you could alway hook it up with an external USB SATA cable and get the data onto another PC first.

Lastly, if it still won't go into XP, but you CAN get through XP setup and it accepts the SATA driver, you can try just a Repair Install and see if that works. You'll need his keycode of course, and some of his programs may not work when done. But that could be an option.

cheers
 
Update on my SATA RAID problem

Got new Motherboard. Installed. Reinstalled Windows using F6 etc. Worked fine during warm reboots, with occasional BSOD now and again. Cold reboot next morning original problem still there. So old MB actually is OK, probably try and sell on Ebay or something. So thinking the problem is the HDDs themselves just today had delivered 2 brand new Seagate Barracuda's. Put them in, initially not found by BIOS. Couple of warm reboots later they were found, set up a RAID 0 array, formatted partitions etc and loaded Windows. Started getting a lot of BSODs saying KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR (0x0000007A) with a load of numbers, second string saying 0xC000009D. Looked it up on the lappy and the Windows knowledge base says quote: "0xC000009D, or STATUS_DEVICE_NOT_CONNECTED, indicates defective or loose data or power cables, a problem with SCSI termination, or improper controller or disk configuration."

I've got the right drivers etc, so I fiddled around with the SATA connectors, took out and reseated the power connectors to the drives and tried again. Now the BIOS doesnt even see the drives on this [cold] boot up. Whadya reckon - new SATA connectors or a new PSU? or is it my memory or processor? Spent a bit of money now trying to get this thing working would like to limit expenditure as much as possible. if it is a new PSU, do I get the same model as before (Antec True 480) or something else. There is a lot of cabling cos I have a lot of fans running and it also looks like a bit of a mammoth task to swop out the PSU.

If anyone can recommend a course of action from here or recommend a decent PSU I'd appreciate it.

Cheers
BW
 
Funny ironduke, yer getting soft I guess :)

Sorry about your prob bagwafu, sounds like a monster!

With a new mobo and new HDDs, I assume you used the SATA cables that came WITH the mobo?

If you are getting BSODs (apart from the BIOS not detecting things right), then I would venture to blame RAM or CPU before power supply. Generall a voltage problem wouldn't result in various BSODs, but I may be wrong there.

Download memtest86 and burn the ISO to CD, boot from that and let it run at least an hour. Or at least until it test ALL your RAM multiple times over.

Then, I'm drawing a blank on a good CPU tester, I use a Windows based one called CPU Stability Test. I think this is it: http://www.majorgeeks.com/download215.html
The other CPU test I use it Micro2000, but that is not free.

Then, of course, you want to use Seatools from Seagate to check the drives out.

If all else fails, it may be time to take it to a shop, though more money it may be. But I must say I'm surprised you're still having trouble after a new mobo and HDDs, shocking.

good luck
 
Ta Vigilante - very vigilant
Re: A single drive can't run in RAID 0. Or any RAID for that matter. You have to have at least 2 drives to stripe. What do you mean by that?
>>Must be the freezing weather downunder mate - froze my brain ... correct, its just a single drive on SATA Ch 1

2ndly, I did a Google search for your WinOptimix and didn't find anything. What is that program? Did you mean Ashampoo WinOptimizer?
>>I did same - that was the name client gave me - my guess is it was WinOptimizer he used

3dly, if a system configuration change (by the optimizer), screwed it up; then a Last Known Good startup should restore the old system info. Did you try LKG startup?
>>been there, done that ... first thing we tried, but no, didnt help

4th, if the customer needs data and have to reload, you could alway hook it up with an external USB SATA cable and get the data onto another PC first.
>> yes ... just wish I had SATA on my own PC...could wack the essentials down to that.

Lastly, if it still won't go into XP, but you CAN get through XP setup and it accepts the SATA driver, you can try just a Repair Install and see if that works. You'll need his keycode of course, and some of his programs may not work when done. But that could be an option.
>>> OK, didnt go that way - just tried a full reload of XP over the top which bombed as it supposedly couldnt read the HDD partition. Am waiting till this guy comes back from a trip - will suggest trying the format option as I dont think hes got that much info on PC.
 
Ta Vigilante my man ... hope the heats on in AZ as it snowed here yesterday.
Those adapters sound like handy gadgets, esp the SATA/USB one.
SOOoooo right about those backups - fiddling with PCs is a semi-serious hobby for me, cant help but help these silly suckers when they crash and yes, the data is their responsibility, but I say never give up too easily. Got a full ATA drive of data back from a seized drive by freezing it overnight once - went like a dream afterwards. Same scenario - silly sod hadnt done any backups. I dunno.
Cheers - will report back once Ive got it sorted
Bazzaw
 
I've used the freezer trick once or twice, a rare miracle! And yes, we are in in the 80s and 90 degrees up here (f). So it's pretty hot.

Don't get me wrong, out of all the PC shops in this area, our specialty is getting data, finding data, un-deleting data. Getting data when Windows has gone mad, or a program such as Go-back has trashed the partition tables. We've retrieved data in all cases.
But still, if something "can" happen, it probably will. And you likely don't want someone suing you for data-loss. Especially a company. Or even if a HDD crashes while in your care for a completely different issue. That's happened to us before. It's not pretty.

We started having people sign to bring in PCs, and sign to take them. Agree to the work. In today's sue-happy nation, it's necessary.

Just rambling, chow.
 
Generally speaking . . .

. . . the BIOS on motherboards supporting SATA don't list SATA as an option . . . that's done with a jumper on the board (even in Boot Device order in Advanced BIOS settings, SCSI must be invoked in order to make your OS recognize a SATA drive).
Have you done something as basic as set the jumper on your board to SATA recognition?
 
Yup, jumper is in correct position, plus BIOS is setup correctly.

I am presently waiting for a 500W ULTRA X-Connect Modular Power Supply to be delivered and after that is in I will know if that is/was the problem. I noticed the 5V line on the old PSU only pushing out 4.5V and I guess 0.5V is too much of a drop. If it is not the PSU I'll get some new memory then processor. Eventually it'll get sorted and I'll have enough bits to build another PC for my kids :haha:

BW
 
You will not see the individual hard disks in the motherboard bios. You will see VIA RAID 0 listed as a hard disk device under your boot menu.
 
Booting Problem

First, I am not running raid. When I flashed the bios to update it and restarted Win. XP wouldn't boot or recognize the SATA hard drive. I no longer have the SATA drivers and I also no longer have a floppy driver. I am not sure where Win. XP saves the drivers for SATA hard drives, but I think flashing the bios has deleted, moved, or did something to them. My only other thought was flashing the bios does something to the MBR :suspiciou (I am not sure if it does). If this is the case, could Lilo or any other MBR controller be used to fix the problem? Is there a way to add the SATA drivers to the MBR?
 
Perhaps you should post what all the BIOS udpates were that were in all updates from your original BIOS. In other words, so we can see what all new BIOS versions included.

I don't think that a BIOS upgrades affects any data on your hard drive, such as MBR and so forth. At least, it shouldn't have anything to do with it. But with a new BIOS, perhaps there are new settings in there somewhere that have to be changed.

You can get the SATA controller driver from your motherboard manufacturer web site, put that on a floppy to use in XP Setup. You shouldn't require any drivers to use floppy. If even that doesn't work, maybe the floppy is turned off in the BIOS?

Worst case you may have to do a Repair install of XP. Or even flash an older BIOS back on.
 
SATA Sorrows???

Sundewzer - as Vigilante says, flashing the bios wont alter HDD info or the MBR, but it will alter the way the Mobo recognises peripherals like IDE HDD's, memory, graphics and possibly SATA if there is an entry for that etc. You need to check the Bios settings and make sure that everything is correctly set - AND make sure you have the correct Bios flash version for your Mobo .... sounds like you might not have.

Most likely in flashing the bios you have upset recognition of the SATA drivers, so will have to reload via F6 during XP install.

Vigilante - got nowhere with that SATA HDD I was troubleshooting - dead end so we're donging an IDE drive into it, use the old SATA one as a frisbee ..... weeeeeeeee
Cheers
Bazzaw
 
The mobo recognizes the hdd just fine, and the bios that I download was ASUS's newest bios for the A8V deluxe. I tried to use asus updater to download the bios and install it which has worked in the past but I let it run over night and nothing happened so I downloaded the file off of ASUS's website (which isn't up right now), I am not sure that I downloaded the right one though, and I don't remeber which one I downloaded. I am pretty sure that I went from ver. 1001 to 1013 though.
 
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