Cant Install XP on a SATA

[acousticlemur]

hey i have been trying to get windows to install on my Maxtor 120 Gig Sata drive for a few hours. it finds it in the BIOS and i have to cde and floppy with the drivers on it. i pressed F6 to install SCSI or Raid drivers, and used the ones on the floppy, tried not pushing F6 tried booting from my MOBO CD booted form Hard Drive cd and floppy and have formatted and made new partition and reformated. and i cant get windows to install on it at all. it wont find it. and if i try to boot to it it says error cant find ntldr something. any advise???:rockout:

[ktr]

check the hard drive boot priorties in the bios, and make sure the the sata drive is first.

[acousticlemur]

it is, i unplugged the IDE drive the whole time

[Testing]

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000465.htm

Please try the information here, you mave have already, but hopefully it's a small oversight.

"Ntldr" is a common issue, do not be alarmed.

[ktr]

it is, i unplugged the IDE drive the whole time

is it still unplug when you try to boot?

[acousticlemur]

the only thing i havent tried is making a new boot.ini file. i am at my girl friends house right now, but when i get home i will try it. any more ideas?

[Mediocre]

Make a slipstreamed windows CD with your sata drivers on it already (along with any other dirvers you might need).

Worked WONDERFULLY for installing RAID. Didn't even have to press F6.

O and you can do an 'unattended install' which is great too.

[ktr]

I think he can complete the "blue part" of windows installation, but cannot finish the GUI portion...he restarts his comp, and gives ntldr error.

[acousticlemur]

Make a slipstreamed windows CD with your sata drivers on it already (along with any other dirvers you might need).

Worked WONDERFULLY for installing RAID. Didn't even have to press F6.

O and you can do an 'unattended install' which is great too.

i have Nlite i think it is for making custom windows cd's is that what you are talking about?

[acousticlemur]

I think he can complete the "blue part" of windows installation, but cannot finish the GUI portion...he restarts his comp, and gives ntldr error.

nope not even the blue part. it starts and loads all the drivers, into memory i think. and then i get the screen that says push enter to continue R for repair and such. if i hit enter to continue instalation is says cant find hard drive. i am still not home to try it though. i should be there in a few hours and i will post back with my sucess i hope! thanks guys, and keep the ideas comming incase i still cant get it! :rockout:

[ktr]

i have Nlite i think it is for making custom windows cd's is that what you are talking about?

that's correct...nlite is the program you use to make customer installers of XP.

[Mediocre]

i think you choose integrate drivers or something

then you point it at your (extracted) drivers. You are usually best to download the latest from MFG website.

I would just choose that and 'make bootable CD'. I found a guide online for it and it worked well.

[DaMulta]

Time for the work around.....Install your OS on a IDE drive then transfer too your SATA drive.

Go to Seagate and install http://www.seagate.com/support/download/MigrateEasy7.0_STX_en.exe

Transfer your IDE drive to the SATA drive ignore will not work on other drives besides Seagate....I have seen no problems in doing this.

[Alec§taar]

AcousticLemur - Humor me, & try this little "experiment:

Any OTHER drives (harddisks-wise)? Temporarily REMOVE them from the system, & install w/ ONLY the SATA disk online, & have it listed as your FIRST booting device in your BIOS.

:)

* I've run into lunacy like this before, OR rather, something that sounds much like it!

(Same basic thing happened to me, when I had an INTERNAL IoMega IDE zipdrive in place... Windows kept trying to install to THAT, complaining of 'insufficient space' whilst I had other disks online of IDE & SATA type!)

APK

P.S.=> Ok, I read others' replies after your first one now, & it appears you DID try to do something along the lines of what I stated above - do you have ANY OTHER IDE/EIDE devices in place on that machine, besides the 2 HDD's you mention here (the IDE disk & SATA disk)? If so, pull them... just for a test @ least, & GOOD LUCK! apk

[acousticlemur]

AcousticLemur - Humor me, & try this little "experiment:

Any OTHER drives (harddisks-wise)? Temporarily REMOVE them from the system, & install w/ ONLY the SATA disk online, & have it listed as your FIRST booting device in your BIOS.

:)

* I've run into lunacy like this before, OR rather, something that sounds much like it!

(Same basic thing happened to me, when I had an INTERNAL IoMega IDE zipdrive in place... Windows kept trying to install to THAT, complaining of 'insufficient space' whilst I had other disks online of IDE & SATA type!)

APK

P.S.=> Ok, I read others' replies after your first one now, & it appears you DID try to do something along the lines of what I stated above - do you have ANY OTHER IDE/EIDE devices in place on that machine, besides the 2 HDD's you mention here (the IDE disk & SATA disk)? If so, pull them... just for a test @ least, & GOOD LUCK! apk

yeah i did have the other hdd unplugged, i just read the manual that came with my A8V Deluve and it just said to hit F6 and install from fllopy (the drivers) and i have done that a bunch of times. it somes up saying WinXP Promise FastTrak SATA150 TX Series Controller after i install the drivers, but still wont find the disk. i am gonna try somthing diferent now, cause i just realized i have 2 SATA controllers on my board, so maybe i am using the wrong drivers or SATA ports??????? i have no idea what is going on. the only reason i want to put windows on there is because i figured i would get some peformance boost being that it is a faster connection (transfer wise) i will keep ya posted, and thanks for all the suggestions...
YOU GUYS ROCK!!!:rockout: :rockout:

[DaMulta]

Time for the work around.....Install your OS on a IDE drive then transfer too your SATA drive.

Go to Seagate and install http://www.seagate.com/support/download/MigrateEasy7.0_STX_en.exe

Transfer your IDE drive to the SATA drive ignore will not work on other drives besides Seagate....I have seen no problems in doing this.Forgot to say this makes you install the SATA driver which makes the transfer work.

I used to do this all the time because of lack of floppy drive.

[acousticlemur]

well i havent tried it yet any other way since i have got home. i have been posting and reading threads. i have a clean install of windows in my IDE drive...the problem is using drive to drive coping software i tried to just copy the windows,doccumetns and settings, and program files and it would not boot. and i copied all 100 GB of music, downloaded programs, games mods and such that was on my SATA drive to my working windows IDE to format my SATA and then reinstall windows and delete my curent copy of windows off of my IDE and use it for storage. i dont know......i will try a few more times and then i will get bak on here and let you guys know what happened. andthanks again!!

[Alec§taar]

i just realized i have 2 SATA controllers on my board, so maybe i am using the wrong drivers or SATA ports?

Disable the OTHER SATA controllers onboard your mobo, just for now, & try it again... we want to have the PROMISE UNIT being the ONLY unit capable of showing the OS it has a HDD to install to, & that only/period!

GOOD LUCK!

APK

[DaMulta]

Well that drive to drive software will copy everything that's on the hard drive.

[acousticlemur]

no such luck on the trying of diferent sata ports. still the same thing. i took a few pics while i was there in the land of black screens and blue screens and text. i will upload them here in a few.

[acousticlemur]

ok here they are

1)i hit tab to go to the raid config utility to see if it could find my drive...

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g97/acousticlemur/c.jpg

2) then i used the Maxtor cd utility fo partition and format and create a MBR

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g97/acousticlemur/a.jpg

3) tried to install windows

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g97/acousticlemur/b.jpg



i was kinda confused with the Maxtor utility cause my drive came up as BIOS drive (80 hex) 122.9 GBYTES i figured that being a Maxtor drive it would know what it was. any ideas?

[acousticlemur]

ok, i found a utility on my MOBO cd called make disk that puts the mobo drivers on a floopy and i am gonna try that now. hopefully i will be talking to you next time on my XP Pro SATA instalation!!! hopefully........

[acousticlemur]

well after 2 days of headache i finally got it!!! WOO HOO who would have thought that i should have been using the MOBO SATA drivers the whole time instead of the hard drive drivers!! WTF??? i felt so dumb after it worked! but thanks for all the help and advise! now i am going to make a errr (cough cough COUGH) copy of my xp cd and put all my drivers and a few programs on it, so it will not happen again!! i hope. later...

[Yin]

what version of windows do you have?
if your installing onto one SATA hard drive you dont need to press f6\use floppy disc
make sure u unplug all your other hard-drives too

[Wile E]

what version of windows do you have?
if your installing onto one SATA hard drive you dont need to press f6\use floppy disc
make sure u unplug all your other hard-drives tooYou have to press F6 if your SATA controller is set to AHCI or RAID, regardless of the number of drives. The exception being if your SATA controller's drivers are one of the ones already on the XP install disk, or you have your SATA controller set to IDE mode.

[mullered07]

i was going to mention about it possibly being set to run in ahci mode before he sorted it, i had the same dang problem when i used my first sata hadd i was like WFT!! :wtf: then figured out setting the sata drive to ide mode in the bios fixed it doh! :slap:

[Wile E]

i was going to mention about it possibly being set to run in ahci mode before he sorted it, i had the same dang problem when i used my first sata hadd i was like WFT!! :wtf: then figured out setting the sata drive to ide mode in the bios fixed it doh! :slap:Mine performs better in AHCI mode. Had it in IDE, but it was laggy.

[Yin]

You have to press F6 if your SATA controller is set to AHCI or RAID, regardless of the number of drives. The exception being if your SATA controller's drivers are one of the ones already on the XP install disk, or you have your SATA controller set to IDE mode.

not in all cases.... and it doesnt hurt to try, i have to install my sata controller after windows has fully install, i got a asus a8n-sli premium its different but does it hurt to try?

[Wile E]

not in all cases.... and it doesnt hurt to try, i have to install my sata controller after windows has fully install, i got a asus a8n-sli premium its different but does it hurt to try?Then yours falls into the category of "drivers already on the XP install disk". Which, in my experience, is actually quite lucky for you. I wish mine were that way. lol

[Yin]

eh i dunno... i got sata drivers on my mb cd all that did was cause more problems so i didnt bother pressing f6 one day and it solved my problems

[acousticlemur]

yeah i got it, i just had to use the SATA drivers from myt mobo cd and put them on a fllopy. i was trying to use my hard drive drivers the whole time not even thinking that the problem was the mobo drivers. but it works fine now and i Super Pi about 4 seconds faster now. woo hoo i guess!! haha, thanks for all the advise!!

[Testing]

Errr I swore I PMd you yesterday and said use motherboard drivers..


Well go get Nlite and add them to the disk, be just your luck you forget all this the next time around :)