XP Set Up Won't Set Up

[mxh]

I just pulled one of my machines out of service to convert the HDs to SATA
and to perform a clean install. I pulled all the IDE drives out of the
machine, stuck a Seagate 320 GB SATA drive in and created a 50GB Partition
to install Windows in.

After the XP CD loads it's files, I choose the partition to set up on and
let it go. The copy process seems to go fine and the system reboots, but
then brings me right back to the beginning of set up, making me agree to the
licensing and choose the partition all over again to allow it to copy the
files to the HD (again) and then reboot (again). It's an endless loop.

I haven't put any other drives in the machine yet. There is just the 320GB
SATA and an optical drive. Pertinent set up specs are:

Gigabyte GA-8KNXP motherboard
3ghz P4
1 GB Corsair RAM running at dual channel
ATI AIW x800xl

I have the SATA drive connected to SATA0_SB and, again, it is the only HD in
the system.

Any ideas appreciated.

Thanks,
mxh

 

[Malke]

I just pulled one of my machines out of service to convert the HDs to
SATA and to perform a clean install. I pulled all the IDE drives out
of the machine, stuck a Seagate 320 GB SATA drive in and created a
50GB Partition to install Windows in.

After the XP CD loads it's files, I choose the partition to set up on
and let it go. The copy process seems to go fine and the system
reboots, but then brings me right back to the beginning of set up,
making me agree to the licensing and choose the partition all over
again to allow it to copy the files to the HD (again) and then reboot
(again). It's an endless loop.

I haven't put any other drives in the machine yet. There is just the
320GB SATA and an optical drive. Pertinent set up specs are:

Gigabyte GA-8KNXP motherboard
3ghz P4
1 GB Corsair RAM running at dual channel
ATI AIW x800xl

I have the SATA drive connected to SATA0_SB and, again, it is the only
HD in the system.

Are you pressing F6 early in the install procedure so you can load the
SATA controller drivers? If not, that's your problem.

How Do I Install Windows XP On A SATA Hard Drive
http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org/how_do_i_install_windows_xp_on_a.htm

Malke

 

[mxh]

Are you pressing F6 early in the install procedure so you can load the
SATA controller drivers? If not, that's your problem.

No, and I'll give that a try (OEM drive, but I'll DL the drivers at
Seagate), but I've installed XP on SATA drives before and didn't have to run
through the F6 routine, So I assumed that the onboard controllers supplied
drivers.
Thanks for the response. I'll post back later and let you know the results.

Thanks again,
mxh

 

[mxh]

Forgot to mention, XP set up *does* copy all it's files to the SATA HD. In
fact, when it reboots back to the lic. agreement and file copy process and I
choose the partition (again), set up warns that a windows install is already
on the drive and asks if I want to overwrite it. I choose to overwrite it
and even reformatted the drive at one point. Sorry I forgot to include this
info earlier, but wouldn't that indicate that XP sees the drive and that the
F6 routine is not necessary?

Thanks,
mxh

 

[Andy]

In BIOS setup, make sure the SATA drive is in the boot order.

 

[Frank]

Are you pressing F6 early in the install procedure so you can load the
SATA controller drivers? If not, that's your problem.

How Do I Install Windows XP On A SATA Hard Drive
http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org/how_do_i_install_windows_xp_on_a.htm

Malke

The OP has an Intel 875 chipset. The 865 nor the 875 need SATA drivers.
SATA RAID yes. SATA no. One does need XP SP's.

 

[John Doe]

The OP has an Intel 875 chipset. The 865 nor the 875 need SATA drivers.
SATA RAID yes. SATA no. One does need XP SP's.

I believe you must be right, as no driver (loaded via floppy or slipstreamed
into XP SP2) will work. The only way I can get set up to complete is by
setting SATA_0 & SATA_1 to auto, which maps it to the primary IDE. I didn't
have these troubles when I converted my NEO4 Plat to SATA. Is the mapping to
the IDE channel less than optimal? If so, any suggestions?

Thanks,
mxh

 

[John Doe]

In BIOS setup, make sure the SATA drive is in the boot order.

The only choices other than removable drives is IDE 0-4 or SCSI. There is no
SATA option.

 

[Frank]

I believe you must be right, as no driver (loaded via floppy or
slipstreamed into XP SP2) will work. The only way I can get set up to
complete is by setting SATA_0 & SATA_1 to auto, which maps it to the
primary IDE. I didn't have these troubles when I converted my NEO4
Plat to SATA. Is the mapping to the IDE channel less than optimal? If
so, any suggestions?

I have mine set to manual. If I were you I would lean more to checking
for bad RAM.

 

[John Doe]

I have mine set to manual. If I were you I would lean more to checking
for bad RAM.

No, I don't believe it's RAM. It installs and boots fine, as long as it's
mapped to the primary IDE. If I connect anything to the primary IDE channel,
SATA is mapped to SATA0 & SATA1 and reboots just after the Windows XP
progress bar appears. This happens even after windows is installed, so I
doubt it's a driver issue either.

Thanks.

 

[John Doe]

Just an update:

The system is running OK with SATA0 & SATA1_SB auto mapped to primary IDE
( I discovered that the *only* way to make this work [at least here] is to
leave the Primary IDE channel empty, but turned on in the BIOS so that the
SATA channels can map to it). I also have only a DVDRW on the secondary,
However, I am able to attach an IDE drive to the secondary as well. In fact,
in order to copy data off the IDE drives, I set the DVDRW to slave and
whatever drive I was copying from as master. This worked well, and I was
able to copy the data from all 4 IDE drives.

My current set up is:

SATA0_SB - 320GB seagate
SATA1_SB - 400GB seagate
SATA0_SII - 250GB seagate

IDE 1 - empty but active with SATA0 &1_SB mapped
IDE 2 - DVDRW (master) (with the ability to set as slave to accomodate an
IDE HD)

The problem was figuring all of this out. Nothing in the manual and your
post is the first that discussed it intelligently (unfortunately, not in
time to save me the time...). I had posts in XP.General and a few hardware
groups, including .storage.

I'm not quite sure why SATA0 & 1_SB *must* be mapped to the IDE to work, but
that seems to be the case. I guess I'm stuck with this config, which isn't
necessarily a bad thing, as there don't seem to be any performace issues.

Thanks for all the responses. Hope this helps someone else who may run into
these issues.
Hark