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Integration of NVIDIA's nForce RAID and AHCI drivers


Fernando 1

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Solution for you: Don't integrate the SATARAID, but only the SATA_IDE subfolder of your nForce chipset driver package.
This did not work. I tried one disk with just the sata_ide folder added in, and I tried another disk having the sata_ide plus the ethernet and smbus drivers. The result is the same. After WinXP formats and copies files over, it restarts and gets hung in a re-boot loop.
As you have no RAID, normally you don't need to load or integrate any textmode driver, when you want to install XP with integrated SP2.

Your issue probably has another reason, but it is not easy to detect from far away.

Questions:

Are you sure, that your RAM sticks are ok? Check them with MemTest and try to remove one of them during the XP installation.

Which driver did you load via F6 when you have successfully installed XP Pro?

Did you add any new hardware since that time?

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As you have no RAID, normally you don't need to load or integrate any textmode driver, when you want to install XP with integrated SP2.

Your issue probably has another reason, but it is not easy to detect from far away.

Questions:

Are you sure, that your RAM sticks are ok? Check them with MemTest and try to remove one of them during the XP installation.

Which driver did you load via F6 when you have successfully installed XP Pro?

Did you add any new hardware since that time?

The BIOS is able to see and count the full size of the RAM. Everything is brand new, including RAM.

I have never successfully installed XP pro on this computer/drive. I have successfully ran through the blue DOS screen setup part of the installation, which consists of formatting the drive and copying files to it. I loaded the SATA RAID drivers from Gigabyte's website found here: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Motherb...Name=GA-M61P-S3

I have not added any new hardware. I ordered and installed a case, mobo, processor, cd-rom, RAM, and hdd. I plugged in a floppy temporarily during the F6 attempt. The WinXP copy is new and legal, with SP2.

Some questions I have:

- Could the HDD be bad? BIOS can recognize it, WinXP can format and copy initial files to it. I'd think it's fine.

- Could there be a conflict between the CD-ROM being the only IDE device on board, ie. the primary IDE device? I've read that SATA drives are really considered IDE by some BIOS.

Thanks. Any other ideas you might have are welcomed. I realize this is abnormal.

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The BIOS is able to see and count the full size of the RAM. Everything is brand new, including RAM.

I have never successfully installed XP pro on this computer/drive. I have successfully ran through the blue DOS screen setup part of the installation, which consists of formatting the drive and copying files to it. I loaded the SATA RAID drivers from Gigabyte's website found here: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Motherb...Name=GA-M61P-S3

I have not added any new hardware. I ordered and installed a case, mobo, processor, cd-rom, RAM, and hdd. I plugged in a floppy temporarily during the F6 attempt. The WinXP copy is new and legal, with SP2.

Since you don't have a RAID array, you should be able to install Windows XP SP2 without hitting F6 and loading any special drivers.

Look into your BIOS and check all IDE, S-ATA and RAID settings. Your S-ATA hdd and your IDE drive (CD-ROM) should be correctly recognized, RAID should be disabled.

Some questions I have:

- Could the HDD be bad? BIOS can recognize it, WinXP can format and copy initial files to it. I'd think it's fine.

- Could there be a conflict between the CD-ROM being the only IDE device on board, ie. the primary IDE device? I've read that SATA drives are really considered IDE by some BIOS.

1. You can check it by using the SeaTools from Seagate.

2. No, this is very implausible as you don't have any IDE hdd.

My suggestion: Check the BIOS settings and then try to install XP by booting off CD without hitting F6.

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1. You can check it by using the SeaTools from Seagate.

2. No, this is very implausible as you don't have any IDE hdd.

My suggestion: Check the BIOS settings and then try to install XP by booting off CD without hitting F6.

I used SeaTools from Seagate and the short and long tests both passed successfully. The drive is solid. I also went through another series of various tricks. I tried different SATA ports on the motherboard, I tried different combinations of nVidia drivers (including the Vista ones), I took out a memory chip and ran off of just one, I went back and tried the basic WinXP install without including drivers, and I tried the F6 floppy trick again.

Same result.

At this point I guess I have to decide whether I want to RMA the motherboard and try something different, or go with a slower IDE drive as my primary.

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I also went through another series of various tricks. I tried different SATA ports on the motherboard, I tried different combinations of nVidia drivers (including the Vista ones), I took out a memory chip and ran off of just one, I went back and tried the basic WinXP install without including drivers, and I tried the F6 floppy trick again.

Same result.

What exactly happened?
At this point I guess I have to decide whether I want to RMA the motherboard and try something different, or go with a slower IDE drive as my primary.
I don't agree with you.

I believe, that something else is responsable for your trouble.

Check your BIOS settings (S-ATA ports should run in IDE and not in RAID mode), your S-ATA cables and the MBR of your hard disk drive.

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I also went through another series of various tricks. I tried different SATA ports on the motherboard, I tried different combinations of nVidia drivers (including the Vista ones), I took out a memory chip and ran off of just one, I went back and tried the basic WinXP install without including drivers, and I tried the F6 floppy trick again.

Same result.

What exactly happened?
At this point I guess I have to decide whether I want to RMA the motherboard and try something different, or go with a slower IDE drive as my primary.
I don't agree with you.

I believe, that something else is responsable for your trouble.

Check your BIOS settings (S-ATA ports should run in IDE and not in RAID mode), your S-ATA cables and the MBR of your hard disk drive.

As to "what happened?" in your previous post, the answer is that I was again caught in an endless re-boot loop. Each time I change something, I change only that one thing and then run the WinXP setup. I then get caught in the endless re-boots and I try something else.

I'll take pictures for you tonight to show you the options, but this is basically how it goes on my BIOS. The ATA/RAID settings are as so:

Enable = enable RAID on ATA

Disable = run as ATA only, without RAID

port0 disabled

port1 disabled

port2 disabled

port3 disabled

I've tried all four SATA ports on the motherboard. They all work the same. The drive is recognized, can be formatted, can be copied to. I have borrowed a different SATA drive to test out this process on a different drive tonight.

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As to "what happened?" in your previous post, the answer is that I was again caught in an endless re-boot loop. Each time I change something, I change only that one thing and then run the WinXP setup. I then get caught in the endless re-boots and I try something else.
So your installation ends always at the point of the first reboot (after Setup had loaded all files, but before the real installation and hardware detection begins). Is that right?
The ATA/RAID settings are as so:

Enable = enable RAID on ATA

Disable = run as ATA only, without RAID

port0 disabled

port1 disabled

port2 disabled

port3 disabled

I've tried all four SATA ports on the motherboard. They all work the same. The drive is recognized, can be formatted, can be copied to. I have borrowed a different SATA drive to test out this process on a different drive tonight.

That was a good idea.

If you can get access to your broken XP installation (for example by booting with an MS-DOS or Windows Start floppy disk), you should look into 2 files of the WINDOWS directory: SETUPERR.LOG (has it any entry?) and SETUPLOG.TXT (interesting are only the last lines).

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As to "what happened?" in your previous post, the answer is that I was again caught in an endless re-boot loop. Each time I change something, I change only that one thing and then run the WinXP setup. I then get caught in the endless re-boots and I try something else.

So your installation ends always at the point of the first reboot (after Setup had loaded all files, but before the real installation and hardware detection begins). Is that right?

Yes.

The ATA/RAID settings are as so:

Enable = enable RAID on ATA

Disable = run as ATA only, without RAID

port0 disabled

port1 disabled

port2 disabled

port3 disabled

I've tried all four SATA ports on the motherboard. They all work the same. The drive is recognized, can be formatted, can be copied to. I have borrowed a different SATA drive to test out this process on a different drive tonight.

That was a good idea.

If you can get access to your broken XP installation (for example by booting with an MS-DOS or Windows Start floppy disk), you should look into 2 files of the WINDOWS directory: SETUPERR.LOG (has it any entry?) and SETUPLOG.TXT (interesting are only the last lines).

A breakthrough tonight. I removed the 320Gb Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 and put in a 80Gb Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 drive. The slipstreamed WinXP disk I created worked like a charm and Windows was set up in no time.

SO. Hm. In doing some research in the difference between 7200.10 and 7200.9, there is actually quite a bit of difference. The 7200.10 uses "perpendicular technology" which is a fancy way of saying that data is organized differently on the drive. I don't know, but I'm guessing that we've ran into a driver issue for the new 7200.10 drives.

Thank you for all of your help and suggestions. If you have more, please add them. I'll be reading. I plan on returning the drive... but am unsure what to replace it with. Go with the same drive to prove that I'm right? Or go with a different model/make and avoid the situation altogether?

Edited by almostlucid
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A breakthrough tonight. I removed the 320Gb Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 and put in a 80Gb Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 drive. The slipstreamed WinXP disk I created worked like a charm and Windows was set up in no time.

SO. Hm. In doing some research in the difference between 7200.10 and 7200.9, there is actually quite a bit of difference. The 7200.10 uses "perpendicular technology" which is a fancy way of saying that data is organized differently on the drive. I don't know, but I'm guessing that we've ran into a driver issue for the new 7200.10 drives.

Thanks for your reply clearing up the device which was responsable for your problems. It is probably not a driver issue, but a hardware or firmware one. Your example shows, that it is not always a good idea to buy newest hardware technology.

My advice: Ask the Seagate support for a solution.

CU

Fernando

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  • 3 weeks later...

No dice with either the cdrom or just F6 and floppy. Setup gets as far as loading drivers, then says "starting windows 2000" and bluescreens with inaccessible boot device. I'm not even using a SATA drive though, so it puzzles me why it won't work ! (obviously if the cdrom boots it can access the IDE channel just fine).

Update: Turns out it was a fault cd-rom the whole time.. used a different cd-rom drive and it installed fine. I now have everything ready for when I switch to SATA though ! :)

Edited by SkeletonMan
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Hi Fernando,

I'm really tryin'not to disturb you, because I found your guide very useful, clear and well-written, too. :whistle:

But as far as my problem goes on, I just feel the need to tell you my "story", 'cause I want to understand what's happening to my new PC. :blink:

Here are the tech specs:

AMD 64 X2 5600+

ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe (nVidia 590 chipset)

2 x 1Gb CORSAIR Dominator DDR2 6400c4 EPP

ASUS Nvidia GF8800GTX

Creative X-Fi Gamer

and

2 x WESTERN DIGITAL WD3200YS 320Gb SATA2 in RAID 0 (http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=233&language=en)

This is meant to be my high-end new PC, I assembled it myself just as I did with every PC I owned.

One last introduction:

From the first moment the PC was ready, I was unable to install Win XP because of the problems I will soon describe, so I tried VISTA 64 that works great with RAID 0...

But let's get back to XP.

There is no way to install XP with the "F6 + floppy" method, cause the installation freezes when it should detect the HDD. :angry:

So I checked for a solution and got on your great post.

Hooray, I partitioned the RAID-under-vista disk in two (C:/ vista and D:/ where XP should go...and I know I'm goin' to face other problems with the boot.ini there but ot's another story...) and "nlited" the Nvidia RAID drivers in the XP cdrom (I only got the SP1 cd so I had to slipstream SP2 into it together with nvidia drivers).

Wow, It works.

Booting the system from the nlited XPcd, it finally detect the RAID HDD and the two partitions!!!

Then in the very moment I have to choose on which partition XP have to go, I realized that the installation is frozen again...

Now I feel I'm stuck.

I'm an hardcore gamer and (after a slight overclok) I really need to have a dual-boot PC with XP.

I tried a couple of new games on Vista 64 and even patched they crash again and again...

Bad bad bad XP, what I have to do with you?!?!? :realmad::realmad:

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Hooray, I partitioned the RAID-under-vista disk in two (C:/ vista and D:/ where XP should go...and I know I'm goin' to face other problems with the boot.ini there but ot's another story...) and "nlited" the Nvidia RAID drivers in the XP cdrom (I only got the SP1 cd so I had to slipstream SP2 into it together with nvidia drivers).

Wow, It works.

Booting the system from the nlited XPcd, it finally detect the RAID HDD and the two partitions!!!

Then in the very moment I have to choose on which partition XP have to go, I realized that the installation is frozen again...

Now I feel I'm stuck.

I'm an hardcore gamer and (after a slight overclok) I really need to have a dual-boot PC with XP.

I tried a couple of new games on Vista 64 and even patched they crash again and again...

It should be no problem to get a dual-boot PC with Vista x64 and Windows XP.

My advices regarding the XP installation:

1. You should use default BIOS settings (no overclocking) while installing an OS.

2. Take/borrow an original untouched XP CD (without SP) or with integrated SP2 as source for creating a CD with integrated nForce SataRaid drivers.

3. Try to remove the X-Fi card during the XP installation.

Concerning Vista x64 you should wait for better nForce chipset drivers.

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First of all, let me thanx Fernando for this guide.

Whithout him I would be stuck forever.

Now I will post my successful experience, and *ONLY* the successful one.

This do not mean that I made at the first try. Things went wrong lots of times but I hope this can help anyone with the same problem.

I used my new mobo, an ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe, based on the nVidia Nforce 590 chipset and

two Western Digital Caviar II HDD in RAID 0 configuration and the latest release of nVidia drivers (9.35).

I used a WinXP SP 0 version as "base" to build my new setup cd with Nlite and the latest Nlite version (1.3) available.

First of all, in the same Nlite session, I slipstreamed a clean SP2 (i.e. without OS) in the SP0 folder.

Then I integrated *ONLY* (this was very important!!!) textmode SATARAID drivers (one by one and not together). I have *NOT* instegrated the SATA_IDE drivers even if you will need it soon after the OS installation, nor I have integrated any other driver.

I created the ISO image and then I've burn it into a CD-RW with the same Nlite 1.3 burner (other tries with Nero resulted in an

unreadable setup cd around the 75-83% of XP setup drivers copy).

Now, here we are.

The brand new setup cd detects nVidia RAID controllers and let you install XP SP2 even if you won't be sure that all will be right until the very end of the setup process. :ph34r:

After the first installation, XP was still a lot unstable. I strongly suggest to "re-run" a new Nforce Drivers Setup within the OS to overwrite RAID controllers and install fresh SATA_IDE drivers. Also, do not try to install eventual other components detcted by the OS (like audio cards, etc.) before Nforce drivers.

Now all works and it's alive and well :thumbup:thumbup but I was lost without this guide.

Thanks again Fernando, it's because of people like you that communities like this will grow stronger and stronger.

Thank you.

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First of all, let me thanx Fernando for this guide.

Whithout him I would be stuck forever.

Now I will post my successful experience, and *ONLY* the successful one.

This do not mean that I made at the first try. Things went wrong lots of times but I hope this can help anyone with the same problem.

I used my new mobo, an ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe, based on the nVidia Nforce 590 chipset and

two Western Digital Caviar II HDD in RAID 0 configuration and the latest release of nVidia drivers (9.35).

I used a WinXP SP 0 version as "base" to build my new setup cd with Nlite and the latest Nlite version (1.3) available.

First of all, in the same Nlite session, I slipstreamed a clean SP2 (i.e. without OS) in the SP0 folder.

Then I integrated *ONLY* (this was very important!!!) textmode SATARAID drivers (one by one and not together). I have *NOT* instegrated the SATA_IDE drivers even if you will need it soon after the OS installation, nor I have integrated any other driver.

I created the ISO image and then I've burn it into a CD-RW with the same Nlite 1.3 burner (other tries with Nero resulted in an

unreadable setup cd around the 75-83% of XP setup drivers copy).

Now, here we are.

The brand new setup cd detects nVidia RAID controllers and let you install XP SP2 even if you won't be sure that all will be right until the very end of the setup process. :ph34r:

After the first installation, XP was still a lot unstable. I strongly suggest to "re-run" a new Nforce Drivers Setup within the OS to overwrite RAID controllers and install fresh SATA_IDE drivers. Also, do not try to install eventual other components detcted by the OS (like audio cards, etc.) before Nforce drivers.

Now all works and it's alive and well :thumbup:thumbup but I was lost without this guide.

Thanks again Fernando, it's because of people like you that communities like this will grow stronger and stronger.

Thank you.

Thank you, Tommaso, for your helpful and friendly report.

According to your experience I have modified my guide (first post of this thread) to avoid similar problems of other users with the same nForce chipset.

Thanks again!

Fernando

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