Help please: Can't Turn Off Intel Boot Agent

[m4p]

Hi Everyone,

I installed XP Pro slipstreamed with SP2 and the ACHI drivers for my Sata HDD. I have an Intel board, model is DG965OT, which uses the G965E chipset. Everything went fine with the install. However, when I first turn the computer on, it will stop booting with the message that it can't find a boot device, install a boot device, press any key to continue.

So I went into the Bios, made sure it's set to boot from the HDD first. I even disabled booting from the network and also from the DVD rom drive. Then, if I do a soft reboot, it will boot up fine into windows. But the next time I turn off my computer and do a hard reboot, I get the same message from the Intel Boot Agent.

I went into the Bios and see nowhere to disable the Intel Boot Agent PXE. Also, my network adapter is a LOM, meaning it's on the motherboard so the utility Intel has on their website to turn on and off the Intel Boot Agent will not work with NIC's on the motherboard. They tell you to go into the Bios. I also had read that pressing Control + S will get you into the Intel Boot Agent's setup menu, but that did not work.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Ponch]

The problem seems more that it doesn't boot from HDD (doesn't find it ?) than to be able to turn off PXE boot. Normally, you can stop the serach for PXE server by pressing 'Esc', but that won't solve your problem. Does the HDD appear correctly in Boot Order after cold boot or do you have to redetect it ??? Maybe a battery problem ?

[m4p]

The problem seems more that it doesn't boot from HDD (doesn't find it ?) than to be able to turn off PXE boot. Normally, you can stop the serach for PXE server by pressing 'Esc', but that won't solve your problem. Does the HDD appear correctly in Boot Order after cold boot or do you have to redetect it ??? Maybe a battery problem ?

Thanks so much for the reply. Yeah, it does appear correctly in the boot order and then sometimes it doesn't saying no hard drive installed. It seems like it's not finding the HDD and from what I have found, using AHCI with the Sata drive in Windows XP can cause the drive to disappear. I did try changing it from ACHI to Raid in the Bios, but then when Windows boots up, I get the BSOD saying to check the hard drive. So....since it's a new install, I've decided to start from scratch and this time before installing XP, I will choose Raid for the Sata controllers and hope that fixes things. Do you think I'm on the right track?

As far as the PXE, thanks for the tip about Esc. I read on Intel's website that you can go into its setup by pressing control plus S, but that did not work, and I tried it several times.

Thanks again, I really appreciate it.