XP Pro AMD64 build 1830--a8n-sli deluxe troubles.

[gpwolfe]

Greetings,

Hardware:

Asus a8n-sli deluxe

3GB RAM

Athlon 64 X2 4400+

2 37GB Raptors on nvraid as striped (Raid0)

Procedure:

1) I upgraded the chipset drivers to v6.65 in preparation for the BIOS upgrade. These were the latest available for 32bit windows.

2) Rebooted to make certain my current windows install wasn't horked. All was well.

3) I updated the BIOS to 1013...latest available. Asus' upgrade notes said to upgrade to v6.65 or later of the chipset drivers.

4) Rebooted to, again, confirm all was well w/current installation. All was, indeed, well w/current install.

Downloaded the AMD 64 bit windows nforce4 chipset drivers from nvidia's site. The version they have is v6.66. Extracted the archive, which extracted to:

nForce4_amd_6.66_winxp64_international

Note that on nvidia's site there's no mention of international versus non international for this particular download. I also grabbed the 64bit display drivers from them as well. On that download page there are 2 options, "normal" and "international".

I copied all the files in nForce4_amd_6.66_winxp64_international/IDE/WinXP/sataraid to a freshly formatted floppy.

5) Booted off of 64bit xp cd and pressed the "any" key to start the installer.

6) Pressed F6 when appropriate.

7) Inserted floppy disk w/nvraid drivers on it into floppy drive.

8) Pressed 's' where it asks to install storage drivers.

9) Pressed return.

10-12) Selected the storage driver first. (2nd choice in list.) I had read before that for some

reason they were listed incorrectly. This data is old and could be incorrect. However it

doesn't seem to matter for my issue as I've tried all permutations of the damnable loading order.

13) Pressed return.

14) Pressed return. This is the part where it says to press return/enter to setup windows.

15) Pressed F8; EULA bit.

16) It found the RAID drive

17) Selected it and pressed return.

18) Selected NTFS (quick) and pressed return.

19) It formats to 20% and hangs.

Here's where I'm at a loss on what the hell the issue is. It seems to have something to do w/64bit xp. If I'm really quick with the driver loading bits above it will make it to where it's loading idecoi.dll off of the floppy. But then it hangs w/floppy LED ON...I've waited 20 minutes and it doesn't progress so it's not just "sluggish".

I've tried the driver integration bit following the nlite 1.0b4 as the guide on this forum suggests. That part seems to have gone well as it detects the raid volume just as if I had gone through the F6 method manually. It also gets a bit further into the install.

It all seems really timing dependant, like I've got only 1 minute of use before the thing hangs. I've broken out the raid set into discrete drives and tried letting xp install to it with the default ide drivers. It sees the drive but I get the same thing. If I doddle whilst doing stuff it hangs on formatting. Otherwise it hangs during copying of files.

I've reburned the disk at the slowest speed my notebooks supports (8x) and still no love.

I saw someone mention to not have any USB devices plugged in on the unattended nlite nv drivers forum. I had a USB mouse plugged in so I removed that. And, yet, still no love.

I can plop in the xp pro sp2 32bit windows and it works just fine. With the 32 bit raid drivers, or with the raid set split using the stock ide drivers.

I've installed 64bit Gentoo 2005.1 on the thing w/no issues. All signs point to the 64bit XP being fux0r3d either this build or my specific collection of bits...but I haven't found anyone else having the problem(s) I'm having.

What gives?

Please help.

Thanks,

Gary

[TheDr!ll]

Im not sure if I read your post correctly but, why not use the native drivers supplied in xp64 to boot up, then install the updated ones whilst in windows..

If this is not the issue just ignore.

[gpwolfe]

Im not sure if I read your post correctly but, why not use the native drivers supplied in xp64 to boot up, then install the updated ones whilst in windows..

If this is not the issue just ignore.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I mentioned that I tried that also.

...and tried letting xp install to it with the default ide drivers. It sees the drive but I get the same thing.

One more data point is that I am able to install the AMD 64 bit version of longhorn beta 1 flawlessly.

What the hell is the deal with this POS OS?

[dale5605]

It's a really great OS and is a lot better than xp 32bit. Because it is built off server 2003 which is made for stability.

The fault is your own, not the os.

[gpwolfe]

It's a really great OS and is a lot better than xp 32bit. Because it is built off server 2003 which is made for stability.

The fault is your own, not the os.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What are you some kind of troll? One should never feed them, but I must in this case. You are an id***.

I posted my process, show me where the issue is fanboi? Spewing useless drivel as you have done and then stating that it is not the OS but my fault is not helpful _at all_.

But thanks for playing.

[Seanie's Show]

The OS is not the problem, nor is the hardware, its the 64bit Nvidia v6.66 floppy F6 drivers, they dont work properly and I dont know why nvidia havent sorted them out yet.

There is no point using the windows IDE driver if you have NVRAID set-up like me. you MUST !!! have that F6 floppy. you need the v6.56 floppy drivers for the set-up, and when windows is installed then you can instal the lastest drivers (v6.66 overwrighting the v6.56).

Get v6.56 drivers from here: http://www.planetamd64.com/index.php?download=266

[f14]

Yesterday night, I have completed WinXP 64 installaion with Nvidia V6.66 driver. I have the same mobo and two seagate SATA disks on nVidia Raid0. I suggest to install both drivers from the driver floppy after you press F6. ("NVIDIA RAID CLASS DRIVER" and "NVIDIA nForce Storage Controller").

I hope you'll pardon my poor English. : )

[gpwolfe]

Yesterday night, I have completed WinXP 64 installaion with Nvidia V6.66 driver. I have the same mobo and two seagate SATA disks on nVidia Raid0. I suggest to install both drivers from the driver floppy after you press F6. ("NVIDIA RAID CLASS DRIVER" and  "NVIDIA nForce Storage Controller").

I hope you'll pardon my poor English.  : )

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

As I said in my original post, I did that. Observe:

I copied all the files in nForce4_amd_6.66_winxp64_international/IDE/WinXP/sataraid to a freshly formatted floppy.

5) Booted off of 64bit xp cd and pressed the "any" key to start the installer.

6) Pressed F6 when appropriate.

7) Inserted floppy disk w/nvraid drivers on it into floppy drive.

8) Pressed 's' where it asks to install storage drivers.

9) Pressed return.

10-12) Selected the storage driver first. (2nd choice in list.) I had read before that for some reason they were listed incorrectly. This data is old and could be incorrect. However it doesn't seem to matter for my issue as I've tried all permutations of the damnable loading order.

I did all the steps in my first post several times w/no success. The latest bit of information about the 6.56 drivers seems promising. I will be grabbing 2 new Raptors today so I should be able to try that out this weekend.

Thanks.