Bootable CD's (WinPE) can't see my HDD's

  • Thread starter Thread starter HeadScratcher7
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HeadScratcher7

A couple of months ago I had 2 different WinXP computers develop serious lag
problems at the same time. Hitting the Win-E key combo to get a Windows
Explorer window started taking 10 to 40 secs to complete. The taskbar would
stay locked up the entire time. The 2 computers share HP printer software,
McAfee, and Windows updates. A WinXP repair install of my desktop computer
with a WinXP Sp3 slipstream disk, followed by a manual uninstall of IE7, and
IE8, and then finally a full Windows update patch-fest seems to have fixed it
up (Update wouldn't work until I removed IE7 and IE8 as SP3 only has IE6)

But with my laptop I figured I'd upgrade my primary HDD as well. Then the
problems started.

I've a HP dv8000t, dual core T2500, 2 Gb mem, 100 Gb C: Hitachi SATA 150 HDD

The computer boots up fine. Partitions are NTFS. I recently purchased a
Western Digital 320Gb HDD and was planning to clone my partitions over to it
and make it my primary drive.

I first added the WD320 into the 2nd HDD slot and booted off C:. I started
with Norton Save and Restore (NSR) and used the option to clone my C:
partition. After serveral failed attempts where it claimed my destination
drive was "in use" it "unmounted" the drive and did the clone. I then popped
out the HDD's and add back just the WD320 in the first slot.

The WD320 seemed to be booting up but then stalled while it was building the
login screen. Thinking it was a bad clone job I thought I'd be better off
using NSR from the Boot CD and performing the clone operation again.

When I booted off the NSR CD (WinPE) it said there were no HDD's present. I
shutdown and returned my HDD's to the old config. Everything booted up
normally.

I then attempted to Boot from both my original WinXP MCE 2005 CD and my
slipstreamed SP3 version and attempted to do a repair install. Both CD's
booted and said I had no HDD's in my system.

I burned a BARTPE disk with the DriveImage plugin figuring it would do
better (Norton products tend to cost me more time trying to get them to work
than they are worth.) and it too said I have no HDD's in the system.

If I boot Ubuntu 9.10 Live CD it shows my HDD's and partitions and lets me
access them without a problem. So the problemis a WinXP one.

This is so weird. Does anyone have any idea why WinPE bootable CD's and such
can't see my HDD's? My system boots fine, so no problem with the MBR or the
Partition table -right? The HDD's use standard MS drivers and there's no RAID
or specialty drivers to consider.

Perhaps some oddity with the way WinXP identifies HDD's or NTFS partitions?
Or something weird with IRQ's or PlugNPlay?

The Primary IDE Channel has IRQ 14 all to itself.
The HDD's are both SATA drives
The SATA AHCI Controller shares an IRQ but that's never been a problem
before.
-----
IRQ 14 Primary IDE Channel OK
IRQ 19 Intel(R) 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB Universal Host Controller - 27C9 OK
IRQ 19 Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller OK
IRQ 19 Intel(R) 82801GBM SATA AHCI Controller OK
-----

I'm at a loss. I'd really like to know I can make clones/backups and then
restore them in an emergency. Any ideas? So far the lag hasn't grown any
worst and the system is still usable. But if I can't do a clone or a repair,
the only other option seems to be a clean reinstall of WinXP. And that would
take so long I'd instead opt to rebuild all my apps on a clean install of
Win7 -assuming it will see my HDD's.
 
HeadScratcher7 said:
A couple of months ago I had 2 different WinXP computers develop
serious lag problems at the same time. Hitting the Win-E key combo
to get a Windows Explorer window started taking 10 to 40 secs to
complete. The taskbar would stay locked up the entire time. The 2
computers share HP printer software, McAfee, and Windows updates. A
WinXP repair install of my desktop computer with a WinXP Sp3
slipstream disk, followed by a manual uninstall of IE7, and IE8,
and then finally a full Windows update patch-fest seems to have
fixed it up (Update wouldn't work until I removed IE7 and IE8 as
SP3 only has IE6)

But with my laptop I figured I'd upgrade my primary HDD as well.
Then the problems started.

I've a HP dv8000t, dual core T2500, 2 Gb mem, 100 Gb C: Hitachi
SATA 150 HDD

The computer boots up fine. Partitions are NTFS. I recently
purchased a Western Digital 320Gb HDD and was planning to clone my
partitions over to it and make it my primary drive.

I first added the WD320 into the 2nd HDD slot and booted off C:. I
started with Norton Save and Restore (NSR) and used the option to
clone my C: partition. After serveral failed attempts where it
claimed my destination drive was "in use" it "unmounted" the drive
and did the clone. I then popped out the HDD's and add back just
the WD320 in the first slot.

The WD320 seemed to be booting up but then stalled while it was
building the login screen. Thinking it was a bad clone job I
thought I'd be better off using NSR from the Boot CD and performing
the clone operation again.

When I booted off the NSR CD (WinPE) it said there were no HDD's
present. I shutdown and returned my HDD's to the old config.
Everything booted up normally.

I then attempted to Boot from both my original WinXP MCE 2005 CD
and my slipstreamed SP3 version and attempted to do a repair
install. Both CD's booted and said I had no HDD's in my system.

I burned a BARTPE disk with the DriveImage plugin figuring it would
do better (Norton products tend to cost me more time trying to get
them to work than they are worth.) and it too said I have no HDD's
in the system.

If I boot Ubuntu 9.10 Live CD it shows my HDD's and partitions and
lets me access them without a problem. So the problemis a WinXP one.

This is so weird. Does anyone have any idea why WinPE bootable CD's
and such can't see my HDD's? My system boots fine, so no problem
with the MBR or the Partition table -right? The HDD's use standard
MS drivers and there's no RAID or specialty drivers to consider.

Perhaps some oddity with the way WinXP identifies HDD's or NTFS
partitions? Or something weird with IRQ's or PlugNPlay?

The Primary IDE Channel has IRQ 14 all to itself.
The HDD's are both SATA drives
The SATA AHCI Controller shares an IRQ but that's never been a
problem before.
-----
IRQ 14 Primary IDE Channel OK
IRQ 19 Intel(R) 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB Universal Host Controller
- 27C9 OK IRQ 19 Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host
Controller OK
IRQ 19 Intel(R) 82801GBM SATA AHCI Controller OK
-----

I'm at a loss. I'd really like to know I can make clones/backups
and then restore them in an emergency. Any ideas? So far the lag
hasn't grown any worst and the system is still usable. But if I
can't do a clone or a repair, the only other option seems to be a
clean reinstall of WinXP. And that would take so long I'd instead
opt to rebuild all my apps on a clean install of Win7 -assuming it
will see my HDD's.

Integrate the SATA (and possibly motherboard chipset) drivers into your
WinPE/BartPE CD/DVD. Without it - it may not (obviously will not) see the
drives.

Windows XP is on the way out - has been since Windows Vista's release, more
so since Windows XP's release. Most hardware vendors know this and likely
will not be bothered by making drivers for the latest hardware for Windows
XP - however - in this case it is just that you do not have the drivers
integrated into your media, probably.
 
Shenan Stanley said:
Integrate the SATA (and possibly motherboard chipset) drivers into your
WinPE/BartPE CD/DVD. Without it - it may not (obviously will not) see the
drives.

Windows XP is on the way out - has been since Windows Vista's release, more
so since Windows XP's release. Most hardware vendors know this and likely
will not be bothered by making drivers for the latest hardware for Windows
XP - however - in this case it is just that you do not have the drivers
integrated into your media, probably.


Thanks Shenan.

I was just up on the HP site and downloaded all my drivers and BIOS patches
for my laptop. Any thoughts on where I should put the various drivers and/or
..INF files when I recreate my boot CD's so the files will be found on launch?

Or do you know of a link to a resource that would help me with this issue?
It still surprises me I'm having to do this. Most of the chips are Intel and
I wouldn't have imagined that the drivers wouldn't already be included on any
WinXP disk.
 
Nevermind. I think I've found some good links.

Overview of WinNT, Hardware and drivers:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc750538.aspx

How to slipstream hotfixes that replace pre-existing driver files
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/814847

BDD 2007 - Integrating Mass Storage Drivers into your XP imag
http://blogs.technet.com/benhunter/...-mass-storage-drivers-into-your-xp-image.aspx

Still researching these, so I still have to throw them against the wall and
see what sticks. lol

Thx.
 
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