SATA Drivers Not Loading During GUI Setup Stage

[MindMaster]

Hi All,

I have successfully been able to slipstream the SATA drivers into my Windows 2003 CD such that during text mode they are detected and upon first login I can see the SATA drive. The problem is that during GUI Setup mode the disk appears to be unavailable. I suspect this this because I have configured the SATA disk to be where InetPub is located but I get the following error:

Error writing encrypted data to the Web Server's configuration database (Metabase).

0x80070003=The system cannot find the path specified.

Press 'Retry' or 'Write UnEncrypted' to write the data unencrypted.  You can change this data back to encrypted after the setup has completed.

Retry, Write UnEncrypted, Write UnEncrypted All

This is the same error I got when I was not loading the SATA drivers correctly and the disk was not available which is why I suspect the disk is still not available but only in GUI Setup mode.

Any ideas on how to get around this would be most appreciated. I already checked that the OemPnPDriversPath drivers path is set correctly in WINNT.SIF.

Thanks in advance!

Me

P.S. Don't Try This At Home:

I thought I was not a moron (obviously I was wrong) and I changed my drivers directory and updated the corresponding DRIVERDIR entry in XPCREATE.INI. When I eventually got round to checking the obvious OEMPnPDriversPath I discovered mine was:

OemPnPDriversPath ="~0,-2;~0,-2;~0,-2;~0,-2;~0,-2;~0,-2;~0,-2;~0,-2;~0,-2;~0,-2;~0,-2;~0,-2;~0,-2;~0,-2;~0,-2;~0,-2;~0,-2;~0,-2;~0,-2;~0,-2;~0,-2;~0,-2;~0,-2;~0,-2;~0,-2;~0,-2;~0,-2"

[GreenMachine]

Geez, don't you have any easy problems?

Unfortunatly, I don't have much time for this these days, and it is very tough to debug without the hardware. If you could try a few workarounds, and let me know if you find something that would help. Questions would include: Do you have only SATA drives, or IDE as well (I think you must have IDE, if the SATA drives are not found, the data has to be somewhere ... ). Can you change the location of INETPUB, and have it work that way? Are your drivers signed? Are your drives partitioned? Who won the 1918 World Series?

As I said, I'm afraid I cannot do much right now. Please keep me posted with any more information you can provide, and, as I also said, any workarounds that you may have found.

P.S. Please check your Message Box

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?act=Msg&CODE=01

[MindMaster]

Do you have only SATA drives, or IDE as well

Yes, I have IDE as well for my Windows and Program Files directories. All data (InetPub and "Documents and Settings") is destined for the SATA RAID drive.

Can you change the location of INETPUB, and have it work that way

Certainly and it works. Problem is I end up with data (stuff other than programs) that needs redundancy on my non-RAID disk. All the Documents and Settings directories still get spread to strange places.

Are your drivers signed?

They are the Si3114r drivers. I have tried a recent version downloaded from SiliconImages web site as well as the version on floppies that came with the hardware. In addition my WINNT.SIF file is set to IGNORE for whether the drivers are signed or not. (I guess the answer is that frankly I don't know how to tell but I think I have taken the necessary steps that it doesn't matter.)

Are your drives partitioned?

Nope, just one big primary partition.

Who won the 1918 World Series?

Are you referring to the underwater hockey or polo championships?

Thanks!

Me

[GreenMachine]

Well ... I really only have enough time (3 days) for the current release before I go on the road for another week or two. We can go over it together when I get back (again) to my lab.

To tell if your drivers are signed, just look for a .CAT file (in your case Si3114r.CAT). Since you have "mainstream" drivers, I assume that they are. I think "IGNORE" does not always ensure success.

One interesting test would be to try WITHOUT any IDE drives. This would only work if the SATA drives were operable during setup.

I know that it can be a pain with the "Documents And Settings", but I manage to get them to go where I want them: some stuff I leave on the system drive (stuff which I do not care about saving, like History and Cookies), the rest I put on a seperate drive that does get backed up. In short, I think that though sometimes cumbersone, the desired result can be achieved.

I know the XPCREATAE learnig curve can sometimes be slow, but once you get it licked, it can sure ease the update process, and simplify the task of keeping a harmonious park.

Good luck! (And Good Night!)

[MindMaster]

Okay, I think I have made some progress and the issue appears to be with DOSATA.

DOSATA=NO

If I don't use DOSATA and instead click F6 at the appropriate time I am presented with 2 drives for installing Windows onto. The C drive is my IDE drive and the D drive is my SATA RAID (comprised of two drives.) After selecting C everything proceeds as expected and the installation succeeds.

DOSATA=YES

If I select DOSATA I am presented with 3 drives for installing windows onto. The first drive, (C:) is my IDE drive and the second two are the individual drives in my SATA RAID. (Not good!) If I proceed with the install I get the errors creating D&S and Inetpub. When I eventually log on the profile is not found. What is interesting, however, is that I end up with only 2 drives visible. The first is C, my IDE drive, and the second is my SATA RAID drive but it is tagged as E (not D as it should be).

Conclusion

I believe there is something in your modifications of TXTSETUP.OEM (or some other part of your DOSATA magic) that causes the SATA drives not be be seen as a RAID set.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

Me

P.S. Yes, I use the same drivers for both DOSATA=YES and DOSATA=NO.

[GreenMachine]

Sorry, no suggestions at this point. I also will not be able to look into this for a week at least. Do keep me posted if you discover something before I do!

[MindMaster]

Minor update

It appears that the drive letter assignment is not consistent. Sometimes the RAID set is letter E and sometimes (once in total) it is C. When the SATA Raid set is E I end up with drive letters C, E, F (the DVD/RW). I have no idea what changes between installations that would cause Windows to assign drive letters differently.

I need some way to make sure that the SATA Raid set is assigned D so that ProfileDir and wwwroot/ftproot settings withing WINNT.SIF can refer to the D drive. Hmmmm....

[GreenMachine]

Perhaps a script using MOUNTVOL or DISKPART could solve your problems ... You would probably need to run this as a detached program, defined in WINNT.SIF, which does have certain limitations.