Avedis

Fernando, The IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers are nvidia nForce 590/570/550 Serial ATA Controllers. There are three of these that show up together and only two are in use. There is one SATA drive for the Primary Channel and one SATA drive for the Secondary Channel for each controller. The third one isn't in use as I have three SATA drives and one SATA DVD/CD drive. The SCSI and RAID Controller is a Silicon Image SiI 3132 SATALink Controller. The Silicon Image is for the external SATA connectors on the rear panel and I do not use a RAID array. As for having a MBR on two separate OS drives, I guess I don't understand why that is a problem. It is my understanding that the BIOS firmware accesses the MBR information during bootup so having one MBR per drive shouldn't be a problem. I could see that it might be a problem on a partitioned drive with multiple OS's on the same drive but that isn't the case here. I have experienced no problems with my setup for quite some time. At any rate, my problem is solved and I appreciate all the feedback that you and johnhc provided me in my quest to complete this project. Thanks again! Avedis

Finally, I got it to work! What I did: 1. nLite disk - I merged the installation disc with SP2. 2. Makedisk for Nvidia MCP55 chipset based motherboards V9.53....I made a floppy with both drivers on it. 3. Disconnected 2 RAM sticks to drop to 2 GB RAM 4. DISCONNECTED THE OTHER TWO HD'S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 5. Booted up on nLite disk 6. Hit F6 to queue up the MCP55 drivers. 7. Low level format 8. Continued with installation with no problems! I believe the key here was to disconnect the other hard drives....especially the SSD with Windows7 on it. I think it was messing up the disc boot somehow. At any rate, I can switch OS's by restarting and selecting the OS I want in the Boot Manager, just like before and a I have a clean install of Windows XP completely updated through SP3 and with all the video, audio and other necessary drivers. I will now make a disc image and store it on another HD. My many thanks to johnhc and Fernando 1 for your intense efforts to help me through this!

I tried both SP2 and SP3 slipstreamed onto the startup disc files and neither one worked....big surprise. I even changed the compatibility for nLite to XP-SP2 before running it on Windows7. I checked the slipstreamed folder each time with nLite and when it examined the composite folder, it indicated SP2 and SP3 respectively so I assumed that the integration was successful and did not include a screenshot of the folders. When I looked at the folders, they had the additional files integrated into the startup files. All my SATA drives are internal and therefore running off the nforce controller. As far as the Target issue, I don't think it would change as the target for the SP integrations or the drivers is going to be the Windows XP Home Edition SP1 folder. I'm beginning to think that the Makedisc download might be my only way out of this. I can cannibalize a floppy drive out of another computer I have,install it on my computer, run Makedisc, build the floppies and F6 my way into getting the drivers on the hard drive before installing the XP OS. I'm out of ideas unless you guys have something else for me to try.

johnhc, What I meant by the I386 comment was that if I extract the SP2 folder, it downloads everything into a folder labelled I386. When I pointed nLite at the SP2, I did not point at the I386 folder. I pointed at the self-extracting icon. It appeared to extract the folder and install it as desired. I did get a successful integration message from nLite. I got through the text mode but did not get into the GUI mode. After the files downloaded into the HDD, it went into a restart. I was not asked for a key either. I ran a low level format as fernando recommended. I assumed that cleared the MBR. My motherboard has two SATA controllers. The nforce handles the six internal SATA connections and the SI is for any external SATA connections plugged into the back of the case. What was your impression of the Last Session.ini I attached? Please elaborate as to how I should get to the source folder after running nLite. I don't understand how to get a screenshot. I'm a little green when it comes to these things. Could the boot record be causing the problem? Is there a way to repair the boot record of the drive I'm downloading to? I wish I knew more about this than I do.

Well......crap. I downloaded SP2 since you can't install SP3 unless SP2 is already in place. I ran nLite and when it asked to point at the SP, I pointed at the executable file instead of extracting it first and pointing it at I386. It seem to extract and load it into the folder with the XP SP1 files. I burned the ISO and then did a low level format as suggested. It then installed the files off the disk and then asked for a retstart. When it restarted, I did a F8 to get the boot manager and directed it to the Raptor drive with the XP SP2 files on it. Same thing: "Disc Boot Failure Insert System Disc Hit Enter" I then restarted and ran the repair disc to clean up my Windows7 SSD which then ran. I restarted again and had it try to boot up on the Raptor again....same result. I have attached the Last Session.ini file. I don't know what I'm looking at when I looked through it but it didn't seem to me that it added anything. Could pointing nLite at the auto-extract for SP2 instead of extracting it first and pointing nLite at the I386 folder have caused a problem? Perhaps the Windows7 issue with nLite caused a problem....I don't know. Would running nLite after changing the compatibility mode in Windows7 for nLite to XP help or should I try something else instead? Last_Session.ini

As far as the ASUS website, here is the link that will get you to the download section. http://support.asus.com/download/download....SLanguage=en-us Once you get there, over on the right is where you enter the product information to drill down to the files that are specific for the motherboard. Product = Motherboard Select Series = Socket 775 Select Models = Striker Extreme Enter those and click Search. It will then ask for the OS. Click WinXP. There you will find BIOS updates, drivers, manuals, utilities...etc., that are specific to the ASUS Striker Extreme motherboard. I have attached the Last Session.ini file to this post. Please understand that the dual boot worked fine before I wiped the Raptor drive clean. All I had to do to switch OS's was to reboot and hit F8 to enter the boot priority. I selected the drive I wanted to start up on and the OS booted up fine. What do I do about nLite and Windows7 as far as the ISO? Last_Session__2010.01.14_18.30.02_.ini

johnhc, I'm not sure where to get the Last Session.ini file. I did start with a fresh copy of the disc each time and did it all in one session. What fernando said makes sense about the 680i and AHCI but there in lies my problem. Which specific SATA driver files do I include for the 680i chipset? I am NOT trying to add a SP but perhaps that would be easier than trying to find the appropriate SATA drivers for my 680i chipset. Should I build a install disc by adding SP2 to the original startup disc using nLite? If so, how do you recommend doing so? I'll try anything!

I was hoping you'd see this Fernando. I believe you misread my post. My XP installation disc does NOT have SP2 on it, so it won't recognize SATA drives. All three SATA drives are connected to my motherboard by SATA cables. In the BIOS, the boot priority is: 1. Intel 80 GB SSD 2. WD Caviar 500 GB HDD 3. WD Raptor 150 GB HDD Windows 7 is on the Intel SSD. The WD Caviar is a storage drive with no OS on it. The WD Raptor is the drive I want to reinstall a fresh XP 32-bit OS on. So my question still remains. What files/drivers do I need to include using nLite onto a XP installation disc for the 680i chipset. I understand about the MCR...sort of. I did have to run my Windows 7 Repair Disc after each episode previously described in order to repair the boot loader.

My system: ASUS Striker Extreme motherboard (nforce 680i chipset) 4 x 1 GB Corsair XMS2 PC6400 RAM Intel Q6600 cpu GTX 285 video card SATA Drives: Intel 80 GB SSD WD 150 GB Raptor WD 500 GB Caviar Lite-On DVD/CD burner Here is what I'm trying to do. I have installed Windows 7 64-bit on my new SSD and that is my main OS and startup drive. I had XP on the Raptor drive and reformatted it in hopes of doing a fresh install of XP and having a backup operating system on another drive..just in case. My XP 32-bit installation disc is old and doesn't have SP2 on it. As I found out, it also doesn't recognize SATA drives and I have no floppy drive to install the drivers as it wants. So I heard about nLite and it seemed to be the ideal thing to use to add the SATA drivers to the XP start up disc. The problem is I'm not sure what drivers to use with the 680i chipset. I tried to use the 32-bit nforce IDE drivers v10.3.0.46 as listed in the in Fernando1's thread. I followed the directions, burned the disc and booted up on it. I went throught the partitioning and quick format part and then downloaded the installation files to the drive. When it finished downloading the system files, it restarted the computer and I got: "Disc Boot Failure Insert System Disc Hit Enter" Not knowing what to do next I hit Enter and got: "Disc Read Error Occurred Press Control-Alt-Delete to Restart." There are XP system files installed on the Raptor drive when I looked at it. I tried redoing the procedure instead using drivers downloaded from ASUS' website for my motherboard. Downloading the Nvidia Chipset Driver Package WHQL V9.53 for Windows XP. I rebuilt a new disc from scratch as per the nLite procedure outlined by Fernando1. I even removed two memory sticks as suggested. The same thing happened as before. My DVD/CD burner is SATA. Could this cause a problem? I'm thinking that I am not adding the proper drivers to the installation disc. Anyone have any ideas? I'm stuck. Thanks!