WinXP and ICH5R Raid

[lio0909]

Hello,

I'm trying to install my WinXP on an Asus P4P800Dlx with ICH5R. I have two Hitachi 7k250 Sata drives. The raid0 array was created successfuly.

First I tried a normal installation with F6 button at beginning. There I had the problem that first the iastor.sys did load, but after having created the partitions and formatted them, during second copy of iastor.sys I had always an error message saying me Windows was unable to load this file!!! I first tried with a floppy, then with an USB floppy, with severals disks, nothing does...

So I decided to integrate drivers on my unattended installation. I tried severals method found here and there, but nothing did, driver could not load or I became errors in oemsetup.txt, getting blue screens during installation or after first reboot (just befor the grafical installation)

Yesterday I finally could test the great raid package! Very easy to have the CD modified!!! The whole installation process worked well!!! I've never been so far with all the other methods I tried!!!

Unfortunately, the second reboot, after installation has finished succesfully, my computer reboots after 10-15sec loading XP... I'm unable to access OS.

My BIOS is uptodate (1016) and I really don't know where it comes from. Do you have an idea what I can test/do?

I also would apologize for my poor english.

Thx!

Edit: I just wanted to note an issu I experienced during install: I've got a logitech Desktop MX keybord which worked well for all things I first tried, but during installation with unattended and Raid package, the keyboard did not work on USB. I had to use PS2 pins. Is this a known bug?

[EcKs]

Hi there ive been reading various post on the internet about this similar problem so many people are having. I downloaded some drivers called something like "Intel SATA RAID XP Drivers".

The first time i setup this hard drive i had no problems, the driver recognised the Maxtor 80g SATA hdd. I setup the software i like to use etc and the internet was working fine, i soon had some problems with the internet and online gaming. i decided to format and install XP again.

I had no place to put my downloaded applications and music files, my uncle suggested that i partitioned the hdd, which i did (usually i do this for IDE hdd) had no problems with splitting the disk. Booted from XP CD and F6 for SATA Drivers, selected quick format and it began to copy setup files.

After the setup files it should load up windows setup with details of installation, but instead i get different errors or the same if i dont re=format and try to install XP again. Sometimes i get a blue screen with various errors other occasions i get missing files or corrupted (different file names).

My brother used a different XP installation disk which almost completed setup, it stopped at "removing tempory files" said it had 1min to complete but didnt do anything for 1hr. I restarted the machine and it started up setup again and then went to black (dos mode) and gave a different file name that was damaged.

Looking on this forum i have found the right drivers on my M/B CD and copyied them to floppy (strange the files are not in a easy location). But I am still having to wait for the hdd to complete full format as i have been told to by a friend of the family who has had similar problems with his SATA. He also to me to set my SATA settings in bios (manually) which i didnt do before and he mentioned that it would re-map to IDE.

I havent yet tried the out the drivers from m/b or manually setting the SATA settings but i hope it works after all this reading am doing from different forums. If not ill return here and hope i get some good advice to help sort out this depressing problem.

Ps wow i have done a long essay

-There should be a enable or disable USB mouse / keyboard in bios

-I have experience the same problem as you have but i dont have 2 hdd for Raid

-Dont think i wanna alter files to get it working, there should be a way to do it with the proper drivers

[lio0909]

Ok but it doesn't help me

Now I booted on an non raid disk with a running OS, and I looked around in the IAA Raid application:

There I see that I have a lot of different versions, could this be my issue?

ROM Version is 3.0.5.3003

Driver version is 3.0.5.2568

IAA Version is 3.5.2.2847

I will try to upgrade my BIOS with an older Intel Bootrom, it may help...

I will let you know...

[zetto]

Check out this:

General Intel info for setting up Raid on their chipsets

http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets/iaa_raid/

Specific info for unattended setup of Raid (i.e., no need to press F6 during install)

http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets/.../unattended.htm

[lio0909]

I've already tried doing like that, but I always hat unexpected errors in txtsetup.oem or bluescreen (or both )

I finally won't get it work...

[lio0909]

I've tried with the whole raid pack and only with the iastor-stuff, I always have the same results: file preparation works fine, also does installation, but after finishing installation during boot (ca 15sec) the computer reboots, and reboots, and reboots.

This also occurs if my sata disks are single, exactly the same thing...

I definitly found no way to install XP with a hard disk / two hd in an array on ICH5R. I may will try another board, even if my sata controller would be defect... don't know...

[lio0909]

I've tried with the whole raid pack and only with the iastor-stuff, I always have the same results: file preparation works fine, also does installation, but after finishing installation during boot (ca 15sec) the computer reboots, and reboots, and reboots.

This also occurs if my sata disks are single, exactly the same thing...

I definitly didn't find a way to install XP with a hard disk / two hd in an array on ICH5R. I may will try another board, even if my sata controller would be defect... don't know...

[lio0909]

No, what I wrote is wrong! Using single drives works!!! I forgot to turn off "configure SATA as RAID" in the BIOS!

What could be the issue making me reboot before loading XP when SATA is configured as RAID? Has anyone an idea???

[EcKs]

So you got XP to install fresh on your SATA hdd.. wish i had your luck.

-i dont have the options in my bios to boot from SATA, page 97 (question 11) of my manual tells me how to set my boot from SATA/RAID/SCSI in "Advanced Bios Features" ( Lies Lies Lies)

[lio0909]

I don't know your mainboard, but normally you should have the choice between SATA as Raid and SATA as non raid.

When I define SATA as RAID, I have the choice to display or not the boot rom (so it is a real raid controller) and the HDDs are listet in the bootrom

When I disable SATA as RAID my SATA HDD are listed like the PATA ones during drive recognition, and in the boot option for the hdds I see a 3M-xxxxx and 4M-xxxx drive, I think it is for 3rd Master and 4th Master...

Unfortunately I found why it works well when disabling SATA as raid: XP does not need any additional driver to boot on SATA non Raid disk, don't ask me how it does...

[Bâshrat the Sneaky]

Edit: I just wanted to note an issu I experienced during install: I've got a logitech Desktop MX keybord which worked well for all things I first tried, but during installation with unattended and Raid package, the keyboard did not work on USB. I had to use PS2 pins. Is this a known bug?

Somewhere in the bios options there should be an option called 'allow USB keyboard'. If this is enabled it should work!

[Bâshrat the Sneaky]

The first time i setup this hard drive i had no problems, the driver recognised the Maxtor 80g SATA hdd.

Drivers are used for hdd controllers, not hdds itsself

[zetto]

Alright, when I followed intel chipset instructions, it worked. Anyways, I have the following 3 folders:

1) $OEM$\$$\INF which contains 4 files: 865.inf, ich5core.inf, ich5ide.inf, ich5usb.inf

2) $OEM$\$1\Drivers\IntelINF with 865.inf, ich5core.inf, ich5ide.inf, ich5usb.inf; and 865.cat, ich5core.cat, ich5ide.cat, ich5usb.cat

3) $OEM$\$1\Drivers\IntelRAID with iaStor.cat; iaStor.inf; iaStor.sys; TXTSETUP.OEM

The major hurdle was unpacking and choosing appropriate files from several folders contained in the driver package. Make sure you choose the ones appropriate for your chipset (that's probably why you had computer constantly rebooting - wrong drivers).

Lastly, I had to add the following 2 lines to winnt.sif [unattended] section

DriverSigningPolicy=Ignore

OemPnPDriversPath="DRIVERS\INTELINF"

I think that was enough for my silent installation to recognise and format raid0 without reverting to F6 floppy disk setup. But it was a long while ago, so I might have forgotten a couple details, so read up some more. Good luck!

[EcKs]

@Bâshrat the Sneaky

Thanks I kinda was just typing blah was in a rush

@zetto

Thanks i've seen the post on this forum and others, but i dont intend to play with files like that unless i really need to. Dont wanna cause any damage to the hdd which i think i mite have by partitioning it (not sure there)

I am current using a 4g hdd from donkeys years back, can only fit WinXp+sp1, Nod32 Virus Program, Msn 6.1, Spyware remover and a few download programs. This enables me to get me onto the internet so i can try and solve this SATA problem by browsing forums and just asking mates online. I have tried all methods mentioned by my mates who have had similar problems. Even updating the bios didnt bring the options it says i have in the manual to set boot SATA/Raid/Scsi or even HDD-0 - HDD-3.

When i boot from the 4g i can see the Maxtor SATA 80g, can even copy files to it (copying from the hdd has errors on file). Using partition magic 7 i can delete partition and format it check it for errors and there is none. But when i disconnect my 4g to try and install XP on SATA finds the drive lets me quick format and copys setup files (setup portion complete) reboots and just starts setup to copying setup files again.

I dont always get the same error 4/5 times i try, i use to get blue screen errors, now it just says c_437.nls is corrupt (i go into setup and press R for recovery and expand the file which needs replacing). Setup doesnt continue it just finds another error which cant be fixed. I have replaced all corrupted files it mentions and decided to run chkdsk in recover mode, it said it found unrecoverable errors which is strange because it doesnt find the errors when i have my 4g connected and scan the SATA drive.

Any suggestion or further help would be greatly appreciated

XP Pro + Sp1

GA-8IPE1000 Pro 2004 GT Edition

P42.8g 800FSB

1G Crutial RAM

Maxtor 80g SATA 7200rpm <--- giving the headache

Quantum Fireball EX4.3a (4g hdd)

GeForce FX 5200

Onbaord LAN and Realtek Network card

[lio0909]

Edit: I just wanted to note an issu I experienced during install: I've got a logitech Desktop MX keybord which worked well for all things I first tried, but during installation with unattended and Raid package, the keyboard did not work on USB. I had to use PS2 pins. Is this a known bug?

Somewhere in the bios options there should be an option called 'allow USB keyboard'. If this is enabled it should work!

I even noticed this as a bug because USB keyboard was enabled during a silent instalation and it worked, but as I tested the raid package + silent install I had no keyboard anymore without having anything changed in BIOS...