P4PE SATA Windows XP install help needed

[Brian Vallelunga]

I've been using my P4PE without problems for about 6 months now. I ordered a
new SATA drive that just came in today and I'm having a lot of problems
installing XP onto it. I have a few questions and observations for those
that are successfully using this combination.

I setup my system with just the SATA drive for the XP installation. Do I
need to create a RAID setup (using the auto option) if I just am using one
drive? When I didn't create any RAID, and merely left the drive attached,
during the XP setup (with the drivers for the controller) XP said it
couldn't configure that drive and wouldn't let me select it for installation
or partition creation. Is this normal?

When I did create a RAID array (but just one disk) via the Auto option in
the controller setup, XP setup saw the drive and began an install as normal.
However, upon finishing the first part of the install it rebooted the
computer which was fine. But then when it tried to go into the second part
of the install, nothing happened. I had a blank screen the entire time.
Manual resets resulted in the same problem.

So, do I have to setup a RAID with one SATA drive, and does anyone have any
suggestions for my XP setup woes?

Thanks,

Brian

 

[JP]

hi
you need to press f6 just after starting the set up of windows xp and
insert the floppy which contains the sata drivers
then it works like a charm
JP

Le Mon, 7 Jul 2003 16:40:10 -0400, "Brian Vallelunga"

 

[Brian Vallelunga]

Yeah, I've done that. It installs the drivers. Please re-read my message if
you will. It begins setup and copies the files to disk. Upon reboot, nothing
happens.

Brian

 

[John]

Yeah, I've done that. It installs the drivers. Please re-read my message if
you will. It begins setup and copies the files to disk. Upon reboot, nothing
happens.

Brian

What is the size of the hard drive? Is it over 137GB? This could be
your problem.

 

[Mike Bernstein]

The large hard drive problem only affects IDE/PATA.

 

[Mike Bernstein]

I do not know this particular board, I have an A7N8X with onboard SATA, but
you may need to set the boot order in the BIOS to start with SCSI.

 

[Brian Vallelunga]

Thanks for the suggestions. It seems as though when the first part of the XP
install is finished the machine reboots. I get the Windows Logo and then
where I should have gone into the continuation of the setup, my screen
simply goes blank. After a couple hours of frustration, assuming it couldn't
read the hard drive, I wondered if it simply wasn't showing the
installation. Sure enough, the problem was that nothing was being put out
from the video card!

I have no idea why this might be the case. I have installed XP with this
video card many times. Maybe something about it and the SATA controller made
it not work during the installation. I plugged in an old PCI Matrox
Millenium and was able to install XP fine. My Radeon VE worked great once XP
was up and running. I have no idea what would cause this sort of behavior.

So if anyone's XP install goes blank, try swapping video cards.

Brian

 

[Lionel Modra]

in reply to Brian Vallelunga -------------------------snip---------------------------

I did what you want, but with an ATA 133 drive connected to the
PRI-RAID1.
You probably need to go into the BIOS and set the boot sequence. Set
"Other Boot Device" to "SCSI Boot Device", and promote it ahead of
"IDE Hard Drive".
My boot seqence is set :
1. Removable Device [Legacy Floppy]
2. ATAPI CD-Rom
3. Other Boot Device [SCSI Boot Device]
4. IDE Hard Drive
I also have a Promise controler card installed in my system and in
the Advanced\PCI Configuration menu, "Onboard ATA Device First" must
be set to [yes].
Stephen Spark

I have a SATA drive connected to one SATA port, an ATA drive on the PRI-RAID
1 port, plus two HDD, a DVD and a CDRW on the IDE ports. All works well, but
I would like to separate the HDDs from the DVD & CD drives. I have a Promise
ATA66 card (not installed). I would be interested in details of your setup
to see if it is worth while trying my promise card.
In particular, did you have to set up anything else in the BIOS, other than
setting the Onboard ATA Device First.

Asus P4PE Rev 1.03 (no overclocking) 1006_1 BIOS
2.4 CPU (Standard Intel cooler)
2 x 512mb Apacer DDRAM
W2k SP4

TIA

Lionel Modra

 

[Stephen Spark]

in reply to Brian Vallelunga -------------------------snip---------------------------

I did what you want, but with an ATA 133 drive connected to the
PRI-RAID1.
You probably need to go into the BIOS and set the boot sequence. Set
"Other Boot Device" to "SCSI Boot Device", and promote it ahead of
"IDE Hard Drive".
My boot seqence is set :
1. Removable Device [Legacy Floppy]
2. ATAPI CD-Rom
3. Other Boot Device [SCSI Boot Device]
4. IDE Hard Drive
I also have a Promise controler card installed in my system and in
the Advanced\PCI Configuration menu, "Onboard ATA Device First" must
be set to [yes].
Stephen Spark

I have a SATA drive connected to one SATA port, an ATA drive on the PRI-RAID
1 port, plus two HDD, a DVD and a CDRW on the IDE ports. All works well, but
I would like to separate the HDDs from the DVD & CD drives. I have a Promise
ATA66 card (not installed). I would be interested in details of your setup
to see if it is worth while trying my promise card.
In particular, did you have to set up anything else in the BIOS, other than
setting the Onboard ATA Device First.

Asus P4PE Rev 1.03 (no overclocking) 1006_1 BIOS
2.4 CPU (Standard Intel cooler)
2 x 512mb Apacer DDRAM
W2k SP4

TIA

Lionel Modra

Sorry for the late reply Lionel, I'm on the road all week and have no
net access while at work.
I have a similar setup as yours without the SATA drive. Setting the
"Onboard ATA Device First" to [yes] was all I did other then changing
the the "Boot Sequence". My system would hang when the Promise
controller card was detecting it's drives.
My system is setup has 3 hard drives and 2 optical drives with:
P4PE motherboard:
PRI_RAID1 - C drive, the boot hard drive (setup as a
"single" drive raid array)
PRI_IDE - DVD drive
SEC_IDE - CDR/CDRW drive
Promise Ultra133 TX2:
IDE1- D hard drive, data drive with mp3s, movies ect...
IDE2- E hard drive, system backups and images
All drives are masters on their own channels. Every thing is working
great with no problems.
Some time this winter, when I have some spare time I plan on setting
up a dual boot system with WinXP and a Linux partition as well. I'll
probably go with Mandrake again, but with all these drives, I may try
a few other distro's as well 8^)
Asus P4PE
P4 2.4 @ 2.8g stock fan
512 mb PC 3200 @ 416 MHz
WinXP
She'll clock higher but it's hot and I don't have AC, so I'll leave
it on some conservative settings till winter comes.
Stephen Spark

 

[Lionel Modra]

Thank you, Stephen, sorry i've taken so long to respond, but other things
have pressed in, and I haven't had a chance to install the Promise card yet.
Thanks again,
Lionel Modra