Never never try installing XP Pro with Service Pack2 on a SCSI HDD

[ram_swarnam]

Hi,

Last Monday, I was given an Adaptec Ultra320 SCSI card and a Seagate
Cheetah 140 GB SCSI hard drive to install on an ECS 645xxx pentium 4
m/board with 2.5 GB of DDR RAM

Seems quite easy but the harrowing time I went through is enough to
keep away from any such jobs in the future.

First XP went through the copying of files and prompt for installing
XP. It would then tell me sorry it could not because no hard drive was
found.

I was using the CD ROM drive connected on the IDE channels to do that
After checking and re-checking as well as using a new CD ROM drive I
managed to change that.

This time it would go furrther. After you have pressed enter the EULA
would come up , after which the hard drive's partitions would come up,
then it would start copying all the files.

It would prompt for the drivers which had to be installed for the SCSI
card In fact everything went on smothly until all the dll, exe file
get copied.At some point there would be warning telling me that a
certain file cannot be copied or found. I was to press enter to retry
or esc to ignore. After pressing enter it continues right up till the
end - 100% done and restarts the machine

The Windows logo appears and the screen turns light blue with only the
mouse pointer on the screen

Then on the screen you will see two columns . On one side the various
tasks to be done and on the other side the various aspects of O/S

While this goes on suddenly a box pops up with a Fatal Error

It will say it cannot continue with the installation because some files
from asms of I386 cannot be found

The details are in a log file view with a close button right below it.
Once you click on this the computer restarts and goes back to the same
screen again.

Sometimes after restarting it will not show the fatal errot instead ask
yu to insert the XP Service pack 2

It will not copy anything from the CD because the file "asms" is not a
file but a folder.

I tried different CDs including Volume license types and they all give
the same results.

Today after 4 days of relentless trying I decided to throw in the towel
..

So today I decided to install a normal SATA HDD on the system. But a
strange thing happened.

I got the same problems while trying tforo install the O/S . This was
around 530 pm our time so I decided to call it a day and go home for
the weekend. Everytime I try to forget the strange incidents it is
getting more intriguing.

Anybody ever went through such an episode

I am not looking forward to Monday morning

 

[Brian A.]

You obviously have something that XP doesn't like, the problem is it happens
during install so it could be anything inside the box.
Open the box and remove any add-on cards you don't need to install the OS, such
as any NIC, Audio, etc.
Disonnect any drives not needed to install.
Check the RAM modules to make sure they are securely seated.
If you still have problems with the install and the minimal of devices
connected/installed, remove all the modules except one and try again. If you
don't have trouble you know one of the removed modules is either corrupt or just
isn't friendly with the setup. If you still have trouble, swap the module out
for another one.
If no joy after swapping module, check them for integrity with one of the linked
apps. Run the test for at the least 2hrs.
http://www.memtest86.com/
http://www.memtest.org/
http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

If the modules get a good result, it's time to backpedal checking the mobo, mobo
caps, cables/wires/connectors, drives, processor, etc.


--

Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

 

[klytu]

Hi,

Last Monday, I was given an Adaptec Ultra320 SCSI card and a Seagate
Cheetah 140 GB SCSI hard drive to install on an ECS 645xxx pentium 4
m/board with 2.5 GB of DDR RAM

Seems quite easy but the harrowing time I went through is enough to
keep away from any such jobs in the future.

First XP went through the copying of files and prompt for installing
XP. It would then tell me sorry it could not because no hard drive was
found.

I was using the CD ROM drive connected on the IDE channels to do that
After checking and re-checking as well as using a new CD ROM drive I
managed to change that.

This time it would go furrther. After you have pressed enter the EULA
would come up , after which the hard drive's partitions would come up,
then it would start copying all the files.

It would prompt for the drivers which had to be installed for the SCSI
card In fact everything went on smothly until all the dll, exe file
get copied.At some point there would be warning telling me that a
certain file cannot be copied or found. I was to press enter to retry
or esc to ignore. After pressing enter it continues right up till the
end - 100% done and restarts the machine

The Windows logo appears and the screen turns light blue with only the
mouse pointer on the screen

Then on the screen you will see two columns . On one side the various
tasks to be done and on the other side the various aspects of O/S

While this goes on suddenly a box pops up with a Fatal Error

It will say it cannot continue with the installation because some files
from asms of I386 cannot be found

The details are in a log file view with a close button right below it.
Once you click on this the computer restarts and goes back to the same
screen again.

Sometimes after restarting it will not show the fatal errot instead ask
yu to insert the XP Service pack 2

It will not copy anything from the CD because the file "asms" is not a
file but a folder.

I tried different CDs including Volume license types and they all give
the same results.

Today after 4 days of relentless trying I decided to throw in the towel
.

So today I decided to install a normal SATA HDD on the system. But a
strange thing happened.

I got the same problems while trying tforo install the O/S . This was
around 530 pm our time so I decided to call it a day and go home for
the weekend. Everytime I try to forget the strange incidents it is
getting more intriguing.

Anybody ever went through such an episode

I am not looking forward to Monday morning

From what you posted it appears XP isn't loading the driver for the

SCSI card properly, therefore you will have difficulty installing XP on
any harddrive you connect to this card. If you have another working
machine and a CD burner, you might try using the current driver found
here:

http://www.adaptec.com/en-US/speed/scsi/windows/PH30S10RC1_exe.htm

You could try burning the driver files to a CD and installing the
updated drivers from the CD you burned when XP's installation prompts
you for the controller card drivers. Maybe the driver you tried to
install before doesn't work with XP?

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Hi,

Last Monday, I was given an Adaptec Ultra320 SCSI card and a Seagate
Cheetah 140 GB SCSI hard drive to install on an ECS 645xxx pentium 4
m/board with 2.5 GB of DDR RAM

Seems quite easy but the harrowing time I went through is enough to
keep away from any such jobs in the future.

First XP went through the copying of files and prompt for installing
XP. It would then tell me sorry it could not because no hard drive was
found.

I was using the CD ROM drive connected on the IDE channels to do that
After checking and re-checking as well as using a new CD ROM drive I
managed to change that.

This time it would go furrther. After you have pressed enter the EULA
would come up , after which the hard drive's partitions would come up,
then it would start copying all the files.

It would prompt for the drivers which had to be installed for the SCSI
card In fact everything went on smothly until all the dll, exe file
get copied.At some point there would be warning telling me that a
certain file cannot be copied or found. I was to press enter to retry
or esc to ignore. After pressing enter it continues right up till the
end - 100% done and restarts the machine

Not a good sign, and not indicative of a basically healthy system.

The Windows logo appears and the screen turns light blue with only the
mouse pointer on the screen

Then on the screen you will see two columns . On one side the various
tasks to be done and on the other side the various aspects of O/S

While this goes on suddenly a box pops up with a Fatal Error

It will say it cannot continue with the installation because some files
from asms of I386 cannot be found

The details are in a log file view with a close button right below it.
Once you click on this the computer restarts and goes back to the same
screen again.

Sometimes after restarting it will not show the fatal errot instead ask
yu to insert the XP Service pack 2

It will not copy anything from the CD because the file "asms" is not a
file but a folder.

I tried different CDs including Volume license types and they all give
the same results.

Today after 4 days of relentless trying I decided to throw in the towel
.

So today I decided to install a normal SATA HDD on the system. But a
strange thing happened.

I got the same problems while trying tforo install the O/S . This was
around 530 pm our time so I decided to call it a day and go home for
the weekend. Everytime I try to forget the strange incidents it is
getting more intriguing.

Anybody ever went through such an episode

I am not looking forward to Monday morning

The last times I've run into those kinds of problems, they have been due to
bad RAM, damaged install media or failing CD drives. Any of those can
lead to corrupted installs.

Since you've swapped in a different drive type and used different install
media and experienced the same kinds of errors, the problem may actually be
the RAM, not the hard disk type.

Try removing all but the minimum amount of RAM, set the BIOS to defaults,
and rerun the install. If you experience problems, swap in a different
stick of RAM.

HTH
-pk

 

[Admiral Q]

Hi,

Last Monday, I was given an Adaptec Ultra320 SCSI card and a Seagate
Cheetah 140 GB SCSI hard drive to install on an ECS 645xxx pentium 4
m/board with 2.5 GB of DDR RAM

Seems quite easy but the harrowing time I went through is enough to
keep away from any such jobs in the future.

First XP went through the copying of files and prompt for installing
XP. It would then tell me sorry it could not because no hard drive was
found.

I was using the CD ROM drive connected on the IDE channels to do that
After checking and re-checking as well as using a new CD ROM drive I
managed to change that.

This time it would go furrther. After you have pressed enter the EULA
would come up , after which the hard drive's partitions would come up,
then it would start copying all the files.

It would prompt for the drivers which had to be installed for the SCSI
card In fact everything went on smothly until all the dll, exe file
get copied.At some point there would be warning telling me that a
certain file cannot be copied or found. I was to press enter to retry
or esc to ignore. After pressing enter it continues right up till the
end - 100% done and restarts the machine

The Windows logo appears and the screen turns light blue with only the
mouse pointer on the screen

Then on the screen you will see two columns . On one side the various
tasks to be done and on the other side the various aspects of O/S

While this goes on suddenly a box pops up with a Fatal Error

It will say it cannot continue with the installation because some files
from asms of I386 cannot be found

The details are in a log file view with a close button right below it.
Once you click on this the computer restarts and goes back to the same
screen again.

Sometimes after restarting it will not show the fatal errot instead ask
yu to insert the XP Service pack 2

It will not copy anything from the CD because the file "asms" is not a
file but a folder.

I tried different CDs including Volume license types and they all give
the same results.

Today after 4 days of relentless trying I decided to throw in the towel
.

So today I decided to install a normal SATA HDD on the system. But a
strange thing happened.

I got the same problems while trying tforo install the O/S . This was
around 530 pm our time so I decided to call it a day and go home for
the weekend. Everytime I try to forget the strange incidents it is
getting more intriguing.

Anybody ever went through such an episode

I am not looking forward to Monday morning

Hmm! I've got one of those exact same SCSI cards, with 4 Seagate 146 GB 15k
RPM drives, and I never have an issue installing XP or Win2k3 (x86 or x64)
version, as long as I hit <F6> during the initial portion of setup, where
there is white text on a blue background, then when asked, supply the proper
device driver (x86 or x64) and continue on with the windows installation,
about 15 minutes it is complete.