Fernando 1

This issue has nothing to do with the integration of the Inteltextmode drivers.Do a Google search for "kdcom.dll could not be loaded" and you will find some informations about the possible reasons and how to solve it.

Check your optical drive. If possible, try to replace it by another one.

@ girishrane: Thanks for your report, which may help cygnifi to solve his problem. By the way: 1. The 32bit Intel textmode driver you linked to is v8.2.0.1001 and older than the v8.6.0.1007 driver I have directly linked within my guide (first post of this thread). 2. The Intel S-ATA driver is named IASTOR.SYS. CU Fernando

Exactly.If you do what I have written, you will succeed with the XP installation onto the laptop of your friend.

Thanks for your feedback, which may help other users with a similar issue.Fine, that you succeeded at least. Merry Christmas Fernando

After having done a short Google search, I found this:http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6142_102-0.htm...essageID=533149 Question: Did you integrate any MS hotfixes?

@ d-spice: Since you are not sure about the exact Southbridge Chip details of your mainboard, you should try the XP installation the easiest way: Enable the "LEGACY Mode" of your used S-ATA Controllers within the BIOS and boot off the original (=untouched) XP CD. That should work unless you have a hardware problem. @ cygnifi: You should try the XP install once more. If this doesn't solve your problem, you should do the following: 1. Use the BIOS standard memory settings while you try to install the OS. 2. Remove 1-2 RAM sticks during the OS installation procedure.

It seems, that you really have an ICH8 chipset Southbridge (without any letter behind the "8"). These chips are not supported by the official Intel textmode drivers, but you may try the ones I have modified.You will find the download link within the "Preparation" chapter of my guide (look into point 2 b ). Precondition for the use of these modified drivers is, that you have enabled the "AHCI Mode" (not the LEGACY Mode) within the BIOS.

Without a letter behind the "8" (like ICH8-R)? The driver I have uploaded is from Dell. I only have extracted the EXE file and created a ZIP file to make it easier for you to find the INF files.Here are the details: Title : Chip Set:Atmel Trusted Platform Module v 1.2 Driver Version : A00 OEM Name : Atmel OEM Ver : 3.0.0.15 Computers : OptiPlex - 745 Oses : Windows 2000 Pro, Windows XP Home, Windows XP MCE, Windows XP Pro and Windows XP x64 Languages : English Created : Wed Sep 17 16:00:03 CDT 2008

@ d_spice: 1. Are you sure, that your Dell Optiplex 745 has an Intel chipset southbridge? If yes, you should give us the details about the Intel chipset (ICH6/ICH7/ICH8-R?). 2. Regarding the missing USB drivers you should integrate Dell's special USB drivers. You can get them here. Unzip and integrate them as PnP drivers. Precondition is, that you have enabled theUSB ports within the BIOS.

Yes, you should try that.Once XP is up, you may be able to use your built-in optical drive.

Here is the original text: These are the differences:As the name already says do the "NF4-5 non-AHCI WHQL Performance Packs" contain completely WHQL certified drivers, whereas the nForce IDE and Ethernet drivers of my "Remix Packs" have been customized by me. The "NF4-5 non-AHCI WHQL Driverpacks" include the newest nForce Ethernet drivers v67.89, whereas my "Remix Packs" contain the older Ethernet drivers v65.65. You may try them both (but you should always remove the previous one before you install a new one) and decide yourself which is the better Ethernet driver for your special chipset. Some users prefer the older, others the newer one.

The "best" nForce chipset driverpack for your nForce4 SataRAID system probably is my "NF4-5 non-AHCI WHQL Driverpack". Contrary to the "NF4-5 Remix Pack" it contains completely WHQL certified nForce IDE drivers. Your chipset will be fully supported by them. You should not only read the name of the package, but additionally the description of it you find within the first post of this thread.My "NF4-7 Performance Pack" can be used with all nForce chipsets from NF4 up except nForce4 AMD RAID systems. Which name would you give that driverpack to make it clear for everyone? Please give me an advice! Regards Fernando

I am not sure, what you mean, but nevertheless I will try to explain it:The Intel "INF Drivers" (="INF Update Utility") contain the informations how to manage the various devices of the different Intel chipsets. So these "drivers" are the Intel Chipset "drivers". The files IASTOR.INF and IAAHCI.INF are the information files of the associated Intel textmode driver IASTOR.SYS and part of the Intel Matrix Storage Manager. Only the Intel textmode driver IASTOR.SYS with the assiciated INF and CAT files have to be integrated into the OS CD, the Intel Chipset "drivers" can easily be installed once the OS is up. 1.Prepare a bootable XP CD with integrated Intel ICH7M SATA AHCI Controller according to my guide.2. Set the Intel SATA Controllers to "AHCI Mode" within the BIOS. 3. Boot off the prepared CD and install Windows XP. Be aware, that your optical drive, where you are booting from, is not connected to any Intel S-ATA port. Some optical drives do not like to run in SATA AHCI mode, especially during the installation of any Windows OS.

He replaced the SATA connected optical drive by an IDE connected one (just for doing a successful XP installation).

@ derniwi: Hello Nils, thanks for the details about the manual integration of the Intel textmode and chipset drivers into a bootable XP CD, but it may irritate the users of my guide, because you posted it into the wrong MSFN Forum (this Forum would have been the suitable one). This is the nLite Forum and a thread about how to successfully integrate the Intel textmode drivers by using this tool and not about how to do it manually. Users, who are using my guide, don't have to copy files into the i386 directory and neither have to create any $OEM$ folders nor to edit any SIF files. By the way: 1. It is not necessary to copy all Intel files into the i386 directory. The only file which is needed there is the SYS file (in this case the IASTOR.SYS). 2. The first line of your [sourceDisksFiles.x86] entries has nothing to do with the Intel textmode drivers. The ITEATAPI.SYS is an ITE textmode driver. 3. You forgot to mention, that your guide is only valid for an Intel ICH7-10 RAID system. The "Intel® SATA AHCI Controller" entry is missing within the TXTSETUP.SIF file. Regards Fernando

I bet, that your CD/DVD-ROM drive is a S-ATA connected one. Some S-ATA optical drives don't like to run in AHCI or RAID mode, especially not during any OS installation.Suggestion: Borrow an IDE CD/DVD-ROM drive and connect it to an IDE port of your notebook. Once XP is successfully installed, you may try to reconnect your currently running S-ATA optical drive.

@ pamelachuda: Is your optical drive (CD/DVDROM) a SATA one? If yes, is it connected with any of the NVIDIA S-ATA Controllers? If yes, you got a problem, because optical drives usually do not work with S-ATA Controllers, which are set to "AHCI Mode". Solution: Either you should connect the CD/DVD device with an "IDE Mode" running non-NVIDIA SATA Controller (if available on your mainboard) or replace the SATA connection of your optical drive by an IDE one.

The ESET Antivirus really has an impact on the internet performance. I am using Avast, which doesn't take much resources.Which nForce Ethernet driver are you running? The v67.80 and v67.89 seem to be fine. Take HDTach or Everest. If you are interested in a comparison of different nForce IDE drivers, you may look here. Fine, that you succeeded at least. This makes me happy too.Cheers Fernando

@ loopb: The nForce IDE drivers v10.1.0.28 seem to be one of the fastest NVIDIA has ever released, but they have this annoying spin-down/spin-up issue at each reboot (as all other IDE drivers of the v10.1.0.xx series). If you don't like it at all, you should do an update of the nForce IDE drivers. You may take the nForce IDE drivers v10.3.0.42, which are part of NVIDIA's 15.23/15.24 driver sets, but this way you will get a worse performance. Alternatively you may look here for a better solution.

If you are satisfied with this OS now - especially after having it compared with XP - you should stick to Vista. The special SATA modes AHCI and RAID were not designed for being used with optical drives. Many users reported about minor or bigger problems with their optical drives as long as they were connected to any SATA port, which was set to "AHCI Mode" (or "RAID mode"), even with Vista. But maybe you are lucky and have a built-in SATA connected optical drive, which works fine even with an AHCI mode data connection. I have no other explanation for the BSOD's you got. Error messages you get while installing any OS are often misleading. So it is not sure, that the 80 GB partition really was not compatible with XP. On the other hand I was not sitting in front of your computer and not even behind you while you prepared the XP installation.Thanks for your feedback and good luck for you! Fernando

Did they or one of them detect your SATA hdd?If your optical drive is connected to an nForce SATA Controller, which is set to "AHCI mode", you will get problems even when you are running Vista again. Recommendation (as already written): You should either a ) connect your CD/DVD device to an IDE Controller or another SATA Controller, which is running in "IDE mode", or b ) disable AHCI within the BIOS.

I didn't suggest to disable SATA within the BIOS. It is your decision. It wouldn't be that diffucult to get XP installed, but you need to get further informations about the advantages and disadvantages of the new SATA standard named AHCI. You should never change the Operating System, if you have no knowledge about the consequences. There is an old rule: "Never touch a running system!"

@ loopb: If Windows Setup didn't detect any hdd, although you had integrated NVIDIA textmode drivers (which ones?) by using nLite, you obviously took the wrong textmode drivers. Believe me: nLite will do all the needed TXTSETUP.SIF and WINNT.SIF entries correctly and maybe better than you. Since you are using an MCP73 chipset mainboard, I recommend to create a new nLited XP CD by integrating a special MCP73 nForce SATA_IDE driver. Here is the link: http://www.gigabyte.de/Support/Motherboard...amp;FileID=3229 Just unzip the EXE file and integrate the included drivers as TEXTMODE by using nLite. @ hairbautt: Is it possible, that you are using a S-ATA connected optical drive? If yes, this will be the reason for all your troubles. You should not use any CD/DVD drive, which is connected to a S-ATA port with enabled AHCI or RAID. Solution: Either replace it by an IDE connected optical drive or - if available - connect it with another S-ATA Controller, which is not set to AHCI mode.

I do not recommend to take one of these drivers.1. The first linked driver leads to the nForce IDE drivers v9.99.04, which are not the best ones. 2. If you download and unzip the second driver, you will get the good v9.99.09 drivers, but this driverpack is only usable with RAID systems. Since your Dell computer has an nForce 650 SLI chipset, you should try to integrate these actual WHQL signed SATA_IDE drivers v10.3.0.42.