okay, i searched the threads and while a number of people have had problems installing windows on a sata drive, no one appears to be having the same problem i am

i originally had two ide drives set up with windows xp pro (oem with sp2) and didn't have any trouble

i got this 40gb sata drive and wanted to set it as my boot disk (after all, wouldn't you want your os disk to be the fastest one in your computer?)...i ran norton ghost 7 (as far as i can tell, the last version to support dos drive copying) in dos mode, and it finds all 3 drives (2 ide and one sata) without problems...but when i try to ghost the windows installation onto the sata, i get some weird message about my logs not being closed or whatever...so i decided to scrap the idea, and create a fresh xp install on the sata drive

i have a soyo sy-p4vte mobo running a 2.93ghz celeron-d with 1gb (2x512mb) ddr400 (just so y'all know)...the sata controller is integrated and in the bios gives me the option of setting any installed sata drive as a boot device...but of course the sata drive doesn't have an OS on it, so that doesn't really do me any good

i set my usb floppy as the first boot device, the dvd burner as the second, and the sata drive as the third (after physically removing the ide drives so that i can limit the amount of devices the computer can choose to boot from...makes my life simpler, anyway)...put the xp pro cd in the dvd burner, and turn on the computer

boots up normally, posts, finds the sata drive and all that jazz...but i do NOT get the message asking me if i want to boot from cd...instead, it goes straight into "setup is examining your computer's configuration" or whatever (does this with black background, not the blue of the windows installation)...it flashes on the screen for a moment, and then it's gone...the cd stops spinning, the hd light goes for a while and then stops...on the screen, nothing...the monitor doesn't go into save mode, either...it's like it's supposed to be doing something

i have tried everything i can think of...i got the sata drivers, put them on the cd, put them on the floppy, but the windows installation never starts (so i can't opt for the third party drivers)...i tried putting a blank ide drive in there (hoping to do a clean install and then try to ghost it over again) and i get the "press any key to boot from cd" but then it does the same thing...i can remove the sata drive and it works just fine...so what am i doing wrong? any ideas?

btw, this is a legal oem copy of windows (holographic-looking cover and everything), so it shouldn't be anything wrong with the installation itself

11/4/2005 2:32:45 AM

unplug all drives but your sata and the cd-rom, try that.

11/4/2005 6:53:01 AM

damn good luck getting someone to read that essay

11/4/2005 7:13:12 AM

^^ That's what I sould suggest.

11/4/2005 1:24:40 PM

i did...and still nada...though i have since realized that my cmos isn't displaying what it should (there's supposed to be an "integrated peripherals" option, and there isn't) and supposedly i can choose for the sata to act as an ide device instead of a raid one...but i can't FIND that menu (and seriously, i've been working on computers for 10 years, i'm not a complete moron, just an incomplete one )...awaiting tech support feedback

11/4/2005 10:17:39 PM

hopefully i dont have these problems. ill be setting up my new computer with a SATA 3GB/s drive this weekend.

11/4/2005 11:39:55 PM

^ good luck to you...i'm serious, not being sarcastic...i think if my cmos wasn't all funky, this would be really quite easy...as long as your mobo is fairly user friendly, you should have a quick time of it (isn't sata great...it's like driving a porsche when you're used to a hyundai)

11/5/2005 12:26:32 AM

yea i cant wait. im having a friend help me so hopefully itll work out fine for us. im going from my 3 year old laptop to:

amd athalon 64 3800+
2 gigs of ram
sata 3GB/s HD
256MB 7800GT
etc

im rather excited

11/5/2005 12:56:25 AM

calledtoarms: the best drive for OS is STILL raptor drives right now, hands down. get a 36gb raptor for OS, then the 3gb/s for storage drives.

11/5/2005 7:58:07 AM

ok i too am having problems. altho i have the integrated peripherals option, so i might be able to change something there. windows lets me format my harddrive and then restarts (at this point i take my CD out) yet, my computer still tries to boot from CD/DVD after its gone through the rest of the normal stuff that shows up on the screen.

i have checked boot priorities and i have "hard disk" selected as my primary choice for boot.

anyone have any ideas?

perhaps there is something i need to change in the int. periph. but it seems like something else. it shouldnt still be trying to boot from CD/DVD should it??

11/7/2005 10:30:27 PM

when you set the hard drive as primary boot device, do you have an option for ide-0 and then an option for your sata hard drive (or scsi or raid-0)? make sure that it's set for something other than ide...also, check to see if you have an option for "check for other boot devices" or something like that...set it to "no" or "off" or "disabled"

11/7/2005 10:50:46 PM

Is this a WD harddrive.

11/7/2005 11:12:26 PM

under my advanced bios it just has "hard disk" as the hdd related option.

i do have options for raid,ide,sata stuff under integrated peripherals but im not sure what should be enabled/disabled and there is a lot of stuff under there.

there is an IDE/SATA RAID Function that is enabled. im going to disable that...ok and it just disabled anything that has the words RAID in them. im going to restart and see if that does anything. i think i already tried that about 2 hours ago and it didnt work i dono.

im kinda lost at this point, its beyond the stuff that i have dealt with :-/

11/7/2005 11:17:48 PM

^^ yes.

when i disabled all the RAID stuff i got "windows could not start because of a computer harddisk hardware configuration problem Could not read from the selected boot disk. check boot path and disk hardware..."

so i guess my idea def didnt work heh


PS anyone on AIM who might be able to help, that could be more productive, i dono

[Edited on November 7, 2005 at 11:21 PM. Reason : ]

11/7/2005 11:19:27 PM

(sorry to post again but i hate cluttered posts, id rather triple post heh)

i MIGHt have something going here. i switched off all the RAID options and had tried this before and got the error because it hadnt done anything when i pressed a button to boot from CD.

so i looked at the BIOS again and USB keyboard was disabled. i enabled it and restarted and this time WAS able to boot from CD. now iw as able to delete my old partition and its creating a new one. this time when it restarts im HOPING that it will not go to the error.

::crosses fingers::

*************
TADA im installing now

[Edited on November 7, 2005 at 11:44 PM. Reason : phew]

11/7/2005 11:32:04 PM

im having trouble getting internet, i think something is loose on the motherboard or something because ive tried different cables that my roommates use that work for them. and for me it flickers b/w network cable unplugged and aquiring network address.


[Edited on November 8, 2005 at 12:48 AM. Reason : ]

11/8/2005 12:39:20 AM

going through router? on campus or off? wireless? details, man, details!

11/8/2005 11:06:42 AM

haha alright. im off campus at university woods. we use a netgear router. the internet is working fine because im getting wireless on my laptop as well as everyone else getting internet directly connecting to the router.

i also tried taking the ethernet cable out of my desktop and plugging it into my laptop and right away it aquired the network address and i had internet. and ive tried a few different cables.

On my desktop it either sits there showing "network cable unplugged" or flickers furiously between the beginnings of aquiring the network address and the network cable being unplugged. My guess is that there is something actually wrong with the LAN connection on the motherboard. Like its loose something, because i have also tried plugging straight into the wall with a cord as well.

altho id be pissed if that was it and i had to take this thing apart and ship it to get a new MB heh.

PS

i have a weird problem with my RAM/MB too. it only lets me run both of my 1GB sticks when i have them in the 2nd and 4th position..which is not what i want to do obviously. any other combination gave me beeping errors.

[Edited on November 8, 2005 at 11:39 AM. Reason : ]

11/8/2005 11:11:29 AM

bios updated?

11/8/2005 12:32:41 PM

im a n00b, is there a way to do it without internet besides just using my motherboard cd?

[Edited on November 8, 2005 at 3:16 PM. Reason : ]

11/8/2005 3:07:49 PM

updated the BIOS and downloaded the new LAN drivers and it still does the same thing.
and in the process somehow my external drive taht ive had zero problems with for a year just died on me i think (isnt being recognized by either computer and smells of burning silicon...)

ive had terrible luck

11/8/2005 4:35:44 PM

(illl keep updating in this thread so as to not clutter of tech talk with a new one most likely)

positives from the first attempt at putting my new computer together:
it ran fast as crap while it was alive haha
and i know understand how to install windows xp to an sata drive on a motherboard that has the integrated peripherals option

negatives:
-first harddrive died one me in less than 24 hours. just bad luck on getting a defective drive
-motherboard is also not in 100% good condition. The physical ethernet port itself is defective after inspecting my internet connection from every angle. upon reinstalling windows on a blank drive i aquired from a friend and installing the newest chipset and LAN drivers from my MB's website i got an error saying that the hardware that the LAN/network drivers were associated with could not be found. which based on this, and my previous problems of my internet flickering b/w on and off furiously, points all fingers at a physical hardware problem on the MB.
-RAM..also a motherboard problem. the paired RAM will not run in the 1,2 or 3,4 slots only in the 2,4 slot.

so i got the RMA for my harddrive and im sending that back ASAP and im doing the same for the motherboard tomorrow most likely. everything else seemed to work just fine and while the computer was up the few things i was able to run and mess with before the harddrive died ran quite smooth.

hopefully with a new motherboard and harddrive ill be able to put this back together and be running bug free just behind schedule

11/10/2005 2:07:51 AM

Quote :

"(isn't sata great...it's like driving a porsche when you're used to a hyundai)"

I stopped reading after this gem. Idiot.

11/10/2005 5:38:34 AM

^ you're right...oh wait, no, you're not...as a matter of fact, my opinion is based on experience (you know, instead of talking out of your rear, like you obviously do), and so therefore when i write something like that, i'm using it as a reference to actual experiences i've had.

idiot.

11/11/2005 5:33:52 PM