Second Attempt

zorrofox

zorrofox

zorrofox

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Joined
11 Dec 2005
Posts
123
Location
Dundee, Scotland
Hello everyone.

I have been having loads of problems with an XP Pro installation. I've kinda got it all working but nothing's really working correctly. I need to start again. Since the problems have developed I've been reading a lot of info on-line and this forum in particular. Several of you folks were helping me over in the Motherboards section and I thank you all. I think it's fair to say though that the ball was burst with my initial installation and while all the advice helped it ultimately couldn't undo whatever I had cocked up in the first place. I'm getting all sorts of problems including Windows Update completely failing to install ANY updates and CHKDSK not being able to open the OS disk. You name it, it's went wrong. I live & learn.

I want to start again from scratch. Here are the individual components.

1 x Hiper TypeR 580W PSU
1 x Abit IP35 motherboard
1 x Intel Q6600 CPU
2 x 1GB Corsair DDR800 RAM
1 x Maxtor 160GB HDD SATA
1 x WD 250GB HDD SATA
1 x WD 500GB HDD SATA
1 x nVidia 7800GTX GFX Card

1 x M-Audio 2496 Sound Card
1 x Nebula Digi-TV Card

1 x Windows XP Pro CD

I understand that Windows XP doesn't recognize SATA drives ans as I don't have a floppy drive (nor access to one) I think I need to 'slipstream' the appropriate SATA drivers into the installation. To this end I intend to use nLite. I'm assuming I can't just use my USB thumb drive?

Can someone show me what drivers I need in addition to my XP disc to achieve this?

What should I set the BIOS to before doing this? Does it have a factory default setting I can use?

Should I have everything connected before install? i.e. All three drives connected or just one?

My motherboard has an 8-pin power connector whilst my PSU only has a 4-pin connector? The motherboard manual states that either 4 or 8-pin connectors can be used but that 8-pin is preferable. Is this going to be a problem? I was assuming this was to accomodate over-clocking or more than one graphics card, neither of which apply to my case. Is my assumption correct?

Can anyone think of anything else I should consider before proceeding?

I'm sorry this post is so long and that I come across as ever so slightly incompetent. I did have confidence to do this prior to my first attempt and we can see where that got me. This time it has to work.

Thanks in advance for any advice you people can lend, I appreciate all input.

Gordon.
 
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xp does detect sata

XP does detect and install successfully onto a SATA drive, without slipstreaming.

I have done this many times. It will not however work if you need to have special drivers, such as when connected to a RAID controller built into the motherboard. Most mobo have two types of SATA, usually discerned from each other by different colours.

On my i965 based board (Gigabyte DS3) I have purple connectors (silicon image controller for RAID, two of them, purple color). I also have 4 ICH7 based 'regular' SATA ports, yellow in color. If I connect to these, xp install has no issues with the installation.

I would propose that you do the install with only the DVD drive and the OS installation HDD connected. That way you are not asking for issues when selecting the drive to install etc. Now also make sure that this HDD is connected to your lowest number sata port. Again using my own board as an example, the two SI ports are SATA 1 and 2. I would then for example, connect my OS install HDD to SATA-3 (first yellow ISCH7 based port).
 
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Thanks for the advice. My motherboard has six SATA ports and as far as I can tell they're all the same. You kinda lost me at the very last bit of your post there though. I have no idea what the "ISCH7" reference means, sorry. Would I be right to do the install with only my DVD drive connected to port 1 and my HDD connected to port 2? If so, should I reset the BIOS to some default level or leave it as it is?

Gordon.
 
ICH7 is just the Intel Controller Hub (native sata controller on an intel motherboard). Connect your DVD drive and the HDD you wish to install XP on to either port, then drive to boot up off the xp cd and set your partitions and install.

When you add your other hard drives, double check in the bios that the one with the OS is the first boot device (or second, with CD first).
 
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the power plug thing shouldnt be a probelm at all.

one thing i tend to do is onec windows finsihed installing and starts before doing anything else get the mobo and chipset drivers installed first. then sort out sound and gfx drivers after. once that bit has gone ok and evferything seems to be fine. then sort out your net connection and let it update. ater that you can start put any extras in.

this may have an effect or not but often dodgy installs i have had seem to be down to me doing thkngs in wrong order. another one i had a prob with was my anti virus. i installed that realy early once and t balked me whole install. so now i do that last.

dont forget to adjust ram volatges aswell. as chances are the mobo will default to lower then what the ram recomends, andthis can cause instalation probs
 
oops typo

Oops sorry it was supposed to be ICH7 as mentioned above. All the advice above is good, and defnitely leave anti-virus until last (just dont visit any sites other than microsoft update until its sorted.)
 
Thanks guys. In my BIOS there are options in a sub-menu concerning "On-chip SATA device" like "On-chip SATA mode" which I really don't understand and the manual doesn't really clarify. Anyone have a clue what I should be setting it to? Should I just find a "reset to default" type option instead? Also would I be better to not even have any cards in the machine whilst installing the OS? Thanks.

Gordon.
 
well you may need the gfx card in there :) lol as for others i put sound card in but anything else i leave till pc up and running. cause i get fed up with the constant messages about new hardware found on each reboot lol
 
I just leave everything in, unless I have problems then I would take things out. What options for "on chip SATA device" do you have in your bios?
 
I should've realised that about the graphics, lol. The options in the BIOS I'm referring to are -

Bus Master - Enabled/Disabled
OnChip SATA Controller - Enabled/Disabled
- OnChip SATA mode - IDE/RAID/AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface)

I have no clue what these options should be set to in my set-up.

Gordon.
 
Thanks for that. Can I assume my RAM voltages will be printed on the side of the RAM sticks?

I'll be starting this in about 15 mins, just as soon as I've copied off the important files from my PC. That's why I'm asking as many questions as I can right now.

Thanks again.

Gordon.
 
Yup they should be. If you have the packaging the ram came in it should be on there too :) I wouldn't bother installing tonight, have a good night sleep and start afresh in the morning/after work :)

When installing drivers, I always do them in this order:

Intel chipset drivers
graphics driver
sound driver
network driver
anything else

I have always done a reboot after each of the first 2 drivers, but you dont have to.
 
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Ok guys. I'm under the desk - headtorch on - and I can't seem to get it to boot from the DVD drive. I've set the DVD as the "First Boot Device" but the system just hangs at the "verifyin DMI pool" screen. Any ideas?

Gordon.
 
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I thought I might get somewhere by loading the Fail-safe defaults. I did, now I have no keyboard. And even less hair.

Gordon.
 
Clearing the CMOS fixed that. Also, I went back into the First Boot Device menu and selected SATA CDROM. That did the trick! I've absolutely no idea why as I don't actually have a SATA CDROM but it's worked.

Gordon.
 
That's it folks. Thanks for all the help and advice, it really is appreciated. No idea why selecting a device to boot from that I don't even have worked but it did - and it's half-past-two in the morning.

Goodnight all, and thanks again. I may be back.

Gordon.
 
I spoke too soon. Installed chipset drivers and rebooted. Istalled LAN and rebooted. Installed Graphics drivers and attempted to reboot...now I'm stuck again at the PCI device listing screen.

Gordon.
 
Your DVD drive is a SATA CDROM drive (Compact Disc read-only memory), its just also a DVD drive ;)

You might wanna try taking things out, such as your TV card, if that doesn't fix it then take out the sound card too. If your PC works when they are removed you might wanna try a different PCI slot (check the IRQ settings in the manual and chose one thats not sharing its IRQ with too much - there should be a nice little table laid out in the manual for this). I am not to work now, I hope you get it sorted today :)
 
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