[Integration of NVIDIA's nForce RAID and AHCI drivers]

As to "what happened?" in your previous post, the answer is that I was again caught in an endless re-boot loop. Each time I change something, I change only that one thing and then run the WinXP setup. I then get caught in the endless re-boots and I try something else.

So your installation ends always at the point of the first reboot (after Setup had loaded all files, but before the real installation and hardware detection begins). Is that right?

Yes.

The ATA/RAID settings are as so:

Enable = enable RAID on ATA

Disable = run as ATA only, without RAID

port0 disabled

port1 disabled

port2 disabled

port3 disabled

I've tried all four SATA ports on the motherboard. They all work the same. The drive is recognized, can be formatted, can be copied to. I have borrowed a different SATA drive to test out this process on a different drive tonight.

That was a good idea.

If you can get access to your broken XP installation (for example by booting with an MS-DOS or Windows Start floppy disk), you should look into 2 files of the WINDOWS directory: SETUPERR.LOG (has it any entry?) and SETUPLOG.TXT (interesting are only the last lines).

A breakthrough tonight. I removed the 320Gb Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 and put in a 80Gb Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 drive. The slipstreamed WinXP disk I created worked like a charm and Windows was set up in no time.

SO. Hm. In doing some research in the difference between 7200.10 and 7200.9, there is actually quite a bit of difference. The 7200.10 uses "perpendicular technology" which is a fancy way of saying that data is organized differently on the drive. I don't know, but I'm guessing that we've ran into a driver issue for the new 7200.10 drives.

Thank you for all of your help and suggestions. If you have more, please add them. I'll be reading. I plan on returning the drive... but am unsure what to replace it with. Go with the same drive to prove that I'm right? Or go with a different model/make and avoid the situation altogether?

[Integration of NVIDIA's nForce RAID and AHCI drivers]

I also went through another series of various tricks. I tried different SATA ports on the motherboard, I tried different combinations of nVidia drivers (including the Vista ones), I took out a memory chip and ran off of just one, I went back and tried the basic WinXP install without including drivers, and I tried the F6 floppy trick again.

Same result.

What exactly happened?

At this point I guess I have to decide whether I want to RMA the motherboard and try something different, or go with a slower IDE drive as my primary.

I don't agree with you.

I believe, that something else is responsable for your trouble.

Check your BIOS settings (S-ATA ports should run in IDE and not in RAID mode), your S-ATA cables and the MBR of your hard disk drive.

As to "what happened?" in your previous post, the answer is that I was again caught in an endless re-boot loop. Each time I change something, I change only that one thing and then run the WinXP setup. I then get caught in the endless re-boots and I try something else.

I'll take pictures for you tonight to show you the options, but this is basically how it goes on my BIOS. The ATA/RAID settings are as so:

Enable = enable RAID on ATA

Disable = run as ATA only, without RAID

port0 disabled

port1 disabled

port2 disabled

port3 disabled

I've tried all four SATA ports on the motherboard. They all work the same. The drive is recognized, can be formatted, can be copied to. I have borrowed a different SATA drive to test out this process on a different drive tonight.

[Integration of NVIDIA's nForce RAID and AHCI drivers]

1. You can check it by using the SeaTools from Seagate.

2. No, this is very implausible as you don't have any IDE hdd.

My suggestion: Check the BIOS settings and then try to install XP by booting off CD without hitting F6.

I used SeaTools from Seagate and the short and long tests both passed successfully. The drive is solid. I also went through another series of various tricks. I tried different SATA ports on the motherboard, I tried different combinations of nVidia drivers (including the Vista ones), I took out a memory chip and ran off of just one, I went back and tried the basic WinXP install without including drivers, and I tried the F6 floppy trick again.

Same result.

At this point I guess I have to decide whether I want to RMA the motherboard and try something different, or go with a slower IDE drive as my primary.

[Integration of NVIDIA's nForce RAID and AHCI drivers]

As you have no RAID, normally you don't need to load or integrate any textmode driver, when you want to install XP with integrated SP2.

Your issue probably has another reason, but it is not easy to detect from far away.

Questions:

Are you sure, that your RAM sticks are ok? Check them with MemTest and try to remove one of them during the XP installation.

Which driver did you load via F6 when you have successfully installed XP Pro?

Did you add any new hardware since that time?

The BIOS is able to see and count the full size of the RAM. Everything is brand new, including RAM.

I have never successfully installed XP pro on this computer/drive. I have successfully ran through the blue DOS screen setup part of the installation, which consists of formatting the drive and copying files to it. I loaded the SATA RAID drivers from Gigabyte's website found here: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Motherb...Name=GA-M61P-S3

I have not added any new hardware. I ordered and installed a case, mobo, processor, cd-rom, RAM, and hdd. I plugged in a floppy temporarily during the F6 attempt. The WinXP copy is new and legal, with SP2.

Some questions I have:

- Could the HDD be bad? BIOS can recognize it, WinXP can format and copy initial files to it. I'd think it's fine.

- Could there be a conflict between the CD-ROM being the only IDE device on board, ie. the primary IDE device? I've read that SATA drives are really considered IDE by some BIOS.

Thanks. Any other ideas you might have are welcomed. I realize this is abnormal.

[Integration of NVIDIA's nForce RAID and AHCI drivers]

Solution for you: Don't integrate the SATARAID, but only the SATA_IDE subfolder of your nForce chipset driver package.

This did not work. I tried one disk with just the sata_ide folder added in, and I tried another disk having the sata_ide plus the ethernet and smbus drivers. The result is the same. After WinXP formats and copies files over, it restarts and gets hung in a re-boot loop.

I was also able to verify that the drivers provided on the Gigabyte web site are identical in version to the ones provided via the nVidia web site.

Any other ideas? Thanks!

[Integration of NVIDIA's nForce RAID and AHCI drivers]

Which nForce chipset driver IDE subfolder did you load?

Why did you create a RAID with just one single hard disk drive?

Answer 1: \nForceWinXP\11.09\MCP61\IDE\WinXP\sata_ide

\nForceWinXP\11.09\MCP61\IDE\WinXP\sata_raid

Answer 2: I don't want to create a RAID. I want my SATA drive to run Windows XP. It appears that SATA and RAID are very closely related when it comes to nForce chipsets, but my goal is to get WinXP to recognize and use my SATA drive.

Thanks for the help.

[Integration of NVIDIA's nForce RAID and AHCI drivers]

First, thank you for keeping this up for so long. It is sincerely appreciated by all. You are reducing stress in the world!

I have followed your detailed instructions, with no luck. I had no problems creating the nLite CD, adding the proper drivers, and getting through the format and copy-file process of installing WindowsXP. However, upon restart when I'm expecting the HD to fire up and continue the Windows install process, I'm caught in the endless re-boot loop.

Prior to creating the nLite CD, I updated my BIOS, used a floppy (the f6 method) and installed WinXP that way, read about and changed various settings on my BIOS configuration relating to SATA/RAID, and verified that all cables, jumpers, etc are fine.

Here are my specs:

- Gigabyte mobo, GA-M61P-S3

- NVIDIA® GeForce 6100 / nForce 430

- 320GB SATA Seagate Barracuda 7200.10

- AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ Windsor 2.8GHz Socket AM2 Processor

- Windows XP Professional (32 bit)

I used drivers from: http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_nf4_wi...8.26_11.09.html The machine has only the cdrom, floppy, and one hard drive. No other peripheral cards or anything else is installed.

Any ideas you might have would be wonderful. Thanks!