XP wont load on my serial ATA drive.

[UTKlein]

K...I just put together my new computer and started it up, set the BIOS, and started installing XP. When it asks for the drivers for the serial ATA HD I load them off a floppy, then it goes through it's loading and then says starting up windows, and it freezes. Any ideas? I tried my old IDE ATA HD and it starts but then I get a stop error for a blink of an eye and it reboots, endless loop. I have no time to read the error.
I have a Gigabyte K8NNXP MOBO, Maxtor 160GB serial ATA HD, AMD athlon 64 CPU, 1GB RAM and a Hercules video card. The video card is somewhat old 'cause I'm waiting for my new ATi card to get here.
I've tried several drivers from Gigabyte and updated my BIOS to the new F9 update. I have CMOS set to BASE on the SATA drive.

I've tried everything, please help!

Thanks, Jeff :wave:

 

[XtR-X]

I had a similar problem like this once, at least a phase of it. My Windows XP Pro installation just keep freezing or screwing up, I decided to reformat and change to FAT32, with a nice little utility called MaxBlast. Anyways, I changed it over to FAT32, did not install a full operating system, them poped in Win XP, and started the installation, formatted to NTFS, and I was perfectly fine.

Hope it helps.

Also, here's the Maxtor program I used.
http://www.geocities.com/x3bwarchive2/maxtor.zip

I uploaded it myself, so it works.

Also, it was really old, so I just told it that I wanted to install Win 98, so when it asked for system files, (on another floppy), I would pop that in then afterwords, the comp would restart, from there you install XP.

If you don't have a win 98 boot disk, here is one that I again copied from my own.
http://www.geocities.com/x3bwarchive2/win98.zip

Good luck.

Edit: Also, if you use one or both of those files, each one needs to be placed on a seperate floppy disk. Extract directly to a clean floppy disk with no created directories.

I'm sure there's an easier way but it works for me. It may seem long in a process of describing, but it's fairly easy, would only take me 3 minutes.

 

[Tarkus]

It's possible you're using the wrong SATA driver. There are two drivers for SATA. One is for RAID (SATA Windows RAID driver) and the other is for individual SATA drives in an IDE type configuration (SATA Windows IDE driver). You can also goto Silicon Image and Download the IDE drivers and extract them to a floppy. here....

http://12.24.47.40/display/2n/kb/article.asp?aid=10471

 

[UTKlein]

I was able to install 98SE but I'm having doubts on installing XP. I was able to install 98SE before and then I tried to upgrade to XP and it froze. But I'll try the other driver and see if that works.

Thanks guys.

Jeff

 

[grog]

Did you load an Array?

If you did you most go to Bois and enable Boot SCSI if your array disc is your boot disk.

When XP begains to load it will flash SCSI driver at bottom of screen when this flashes hit key F6. You must do this everytime you boot from the OS disk. When windows is done loading it will ask for you SATA drivers again so leave it in drive.

 

[Phantasm66]

if you enter no driver disk at all during the installation, does it still see your hard drive partitions properly??? Or do you see nothing during the partitioning section unless you use the driver disk?

if you can proceed in the installation without the driver disk, try it. Otherwise, you have a problem.

Basically, I think you may have found a bug in the drivers - you may have to wait for the next version of the drivers to be released in order to install XP.

OR... There may be later drivers available... did you check?

 

[grog]

You are not getting XP to finish loading? Or is it loaded and it crashes when it's loading.

Have you tried to do a repair using the XP disk?

If not boot from the XP disk hit F6 when SCSI shows on bottom of screen when XP is though loading all the drivers in it will ask for your SATA disc put it in. XP will install a temp driver for the SATA if you don't do this Your SATA will not show up. When XP gets to screen and asks if you want to install XP pick that. XP will than look at your drive and see the earler XP you already have installed. It will than ask if you want to repair or format and install again or something like that.

Pick Repair it will ask for password if you put one in use it if not hit return.

XP will now repair the XP you already have installed.

When XP is done it will again ask for the SATA drivers disks to install them on your drive. Than go to Bios and set up boot order you can leave CD first I do. The secound is SCSI boot if you put your boot sector on the SATA drive. A SATA drive is set up like a SCSI drive and thos the SCSI boot devise.

I have two SATA WD Raptors running raid o on a MSI board so some things my be in different order. Good Luck I know how bad this can seem sometimes it took 2.5 mouths to get my newest computer working.

OH yea forgot set jumpers to cable select or remove the jumpers.

 

[UTKlein]

I am using only one Maxtor drive and I have tried loading XP. When it restarts and asks for the drivers I load them and it starts up. But then it freezes on the XP screen that has the box with the three dots running accross it. I have all the cmos set correct it just wont do anything. Even if I turn it off and reboot,it asks if I want to continue with setup, I say yes and it freezes at the same screen.

Jeff

 

[grog]

There or lots of problems that can cause this kind of lock up.

One is believe it or not is power supply. If your power supply is not good enogh it can cause all kinds of lock ups. There are several web sites that let you enter what you have in computer hardware to figure out if you have enogh.

When you boot the most power supply do a self test if any loads fall to low the power supply will shut down the system causing a reboot or even a lock up with no post or bios post.

Memory problems will cause these type failed load also.
Alot of our newer computers with lots of ram can over tax a weak power supply. Look at 3.3v amps. Not enogh here and you could blow a voltage control Cap..

Have you done a scan on the HDD to check for bad sectors.

Heat problems caused by a cpu cooler not making good contact or thermal paste not good enogh or aplied right, cooler on back wards etc.

 

[Charles Hammond]

XP can be sensitive to Memory also. Try just one stick or some PC2100. Sometimes it takes a different BIOS Version for DDR400.

 

[grog]

Now I'm trying to picture where your at in the install.

You have aready done the Ctrl F setup your array than window starts to load. You have pushed the F6 and when your OS has finished loading all the drivers it needs to start it will stop at a page which will ask if you have a disk to load SATA driver push S Key. Than installed the SATA 3.5 disk and installed them. Have you got this far or has the OS already crashed?

When the drivers or done loading it will come back to page and ask for S or enter. When you push enter Key, xp will now ask if you want to go on to install xp or to repair.

pick install it will now scan your computer for drives and for any window programs.

If it finds a copy of windows already installed it will again offer to repair or install.

At this point you can format and install windows or if you picked repair windows will allow you to repair itself just follow on screen promps. If you don't know what to do type help.

You said the page with three dots if you mean the page that appears just before XP opens? If so than xp is already loaded.

than do a repair as listed above as something is missing like a dll file that windows need to open. Repairing xp will fix this most of the time.

The think to remember is that everytime you boot from CD you must do the above for the SATA drivers. Also once you have windows loaded you must change your bios to include a SCSI boot drive. Either first or second in boot list of drives. As a SATA array is the same as a SCSI array.

Do not have any other HDD or Zip drives hooked up when loading the SATA drives as this will cause lots of problems.

 

[lwchan]

windows on sata hdd

what happened?

also got this problem when i first tried using sata drive some time ago. so i used IDE drive as primary then sata as "mobile" drive.

now then my IDE drive old already getting corrupted windows every now and then so Im still deciding to buy new IDE or SATA.

pls help