Building my buddy’s computer: Athlon64 3000+, Corsair 512mb PC-3200, MSI Neo Platinum motherboard, and a Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 SATA hard drive.
Now, I knew going in that there’re are issues installing XP on a SATA hard drive, but from what I understood, one just needed to select the “Press F6 To install 3rd-Party driver” option at the beginning of installation.
However, my friend’s computer spends a good 20-30 seconds hanging immediately after the memory test, then refuses to start the WinXP installation. It runs through some proprietary MSI program (to help setting up a new computer or something), but this eventually craps out at the computer asks me to insert a system disk.
So, brilliant shining stars of the Doper community, how does I make this not-working concoction work again?
If the computer is hanging before it even gets to the Windows installation then it’s probably has nothing to do with the drive.
Is the computer actully freezing? When the computer asks for a system disk, that means the BIOS is done doing its job and is trying to hand off to an operating system (windows). Normally you would have your Windows CD in the computer, and it would come up with “Press any key to boot from CDROM”. Is it doing this? If not, you might want to check your boot order in the BIOS and make sure the CDROM is in there.
I built a server recently with a similar board from MSI, only with a P4 processor. It gave me very similar issues (I was mirroring the SATA drives), and the SATA drivers that came with the board were for SATA RAID only; no drivers for the standard SATA interface. Turns out I didn’t need them; I had the drive cables reversed and Windows was trying to boot from the non-bootable drive (long story on why the “mirror” drive wasn’t bootable…). This might not apply to your situation, but you could try connecting the SATA cable to the other SATA interface - simplistic, but sometimes the simple solutions are the ones we overlook.
SATA uses a seperate boot setup. You need to make sure your jumper is enabled for SATA boot up and then configure the SATA drive (for me it was shift + f1). After you get that working and change the boot sequence you should be set.
Let me ask a stupid question, what is SATA. It was a feature touted by my motherboard, but I have little idea what it does. IIRC I can run 2 HDs that mirror each other?
SATA is Serial ATA vs what you probably have now PATA, Parellel ATA, or just ATA for short. PATA is easily identified by the wide cables that runs from the motherboard to the drive, SATA has a much thinner cable.
Oops, missed the second part of the question in my previous post, TWo hard drives mirror each other is RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks). SATA is the technology to access the disk, RAID deals with mirroring. Completely differnt technologies. Not all SATA capable motherboards support RAID.
Eventually, it freezes, but it freezes at a different point in the boot sequence each time. At one point, I actually got the XP installation window to appear, right where it says “Press F6 to install a 3rd party driver”… which I did, at which point the computer froze.
It starts going REALLY slow immediately after doing the RAM check, right at the point where it’s trying to detect the IDE drives. After about 30-45 seconds, it continues to the “DMI pool data” screen, brings up a “Boot from CD” window, and then freezes. Or it loads MSI’s proprietary installation helper software that is of no help at all, then concludes with a “Insert disk” message, whereupon nothing can be accomplished.
I have the Boot sequence set in BIOS to load CD-ROM only. Everything else is disabled.
I tried setting up the SATA disk as a single-disk RAID array (someone recommended that on another message board). Still no luck.
I’m gonna try plugging the SATA cable into a different port. Hell, I’m at my wit’s end at this point… we may just send the SATA drive back and get an IDE (well, I’m gonna test it with a spare IDE drive first, to see if it actually works).
Well, first I would check to see if the problem is even a hard drive. I would suggest disconnecting everything from the motherboard, exept the minimum required (CPU, RAM, Video, Power) and see if the computer still runs slow.
How many sticks of RAM do you have? If you have more then one stick you can also try each stick one at a time, try them in the slot closest to the CPU. See if the problem only happens on one stick, both, or neither. If it happens with one stick but not any others, then it would be a bad stick. If it happens with both sticks, then the problem is not the RAM. If it happens with neither stick then the problem most likely is the motherboard or CPU.
following this with interest, as I am about to build a pc with almost identical parts. I agree with Hirka, try reseating the memory/cpu (if it isn’t too much of a PITA) in the motherboard if you haven’t tried that already.
For all those who came to address the OP, I do have another question RE: SATA and XP: a coworker of mine indicated that you had to have a 3.5 floppy to install the SATA drivers for XP - it was simply not doable with a CD-ROM (as I write this, it occurs to me that he might have been assuming the optical drive was SATA too - which it isn’t - but I doubt it, considering how rare SATA optical drives are). Is this true, and if not, how might he have gotten that idea (he knows a hell of a lot more than I about PCs, and I’m not completely ignorant on that subject). I’m hoping he’s wrong, but I suppose I can always borrow a 3.5 from another PC to do the install…
If you are booting from the CD to install Win2000 or WinXP, you cannot use a CD to install your SATA drivers.
You need to have them on floppy. Which is kind of a pain, because a lot of times the hard drive manufacturer doesn’t provide them that way and you have to figure out which files you need to shove on there.
Yes, you need a floppy to load the operating system on a SATA hard drive. You do not need a floppy if your loading the operating system on an IDE drive, and your putting SATA drives as additional drives. Why? Don’t ask me, for some reason Microsoft made it so the computer will only look at drive A: when loading the OS. Once the OS has been loaded you can load the drivers from a CD.
Remember, you need the drivers for the SATA controller, not the hard drive.
Folly, Hirka- thanks for the explanation, makes perfect sense when you explain the why. (The good news is MSI has thoughtfully included a 3.5" with the SATA controller drivers on it.)
SPOOFE - don’t leave me hanging on this - did you ever get the system to recognize the drive and install XP? If it helps, I was poking around on help sites while waiting for my memory to arrive ( :mad: ), and it seems that some people with problems getting xp to load had outdated SATA drivers (this was not specifically for an MSI board, so I don’t know if it’s an issue or not with this specific manufacturer) - did you go to the MSI webiste and ensure all of the SATA drivers included with the mobo were the latest? Man, I hope I don’t have all the problems that people seem to have with SATA intalls…
OK, this is long winded, and might not address the specific problem discussed in the OP - in fact, we aren’t using the exact same mobo, and I don’t know if SPOOFE has onboard RAID, but I did have some problems with my SATA install, and thought I’d share in case anyone has a similar issue:
Had to enable the drives by changing the BIOS settings (integrated devices)before I tried to install XP. (you didn’t mention that you did this, did you?)
Then I had to hit F10 at startup to configure RAID (just realized you aren’t using raid, not sure if you have to follow this step). Went to install XP, hit F6 to install third party drivers…
I had some serious problems with the 3.5 floppy included in the package - sounded like a bag of gravel in the floppy drive. Copied files to another 3.5 floppy - “no bag o’ gravel” sounds, but still didn’t work. Followed manual directions, made driver disk off of included CD but XP installer still would not install drivers. At this point in time, I tried to back out and restart and had a simlar problem to OP - system would run through system check, and then it hung up when it should start booting OS. Problem (apparently) was it was trying to pull OS boot info off of (still unformatted) SATA drives. I had to go back to bios settings and reset CD as first boot device. I went to MSI website and got the most current SATA/RAID drivers for this motherboard and made a driver disk, despite the fact that they had included a SATA/RAID driver disk and you could make one off of included CD. This time during XP setup, there was no problem. So the moral of the story is, if at all possible, get the most current drivers off of manufacturer’s website and make a driver disk before you start My install would have taken less than an hour if I had…
…still curious as to whether you got PC up and running, and what solved problem if you did…