XP install problem! Please Help!

scarrylarry

Obliviot
hello all, my brother has a 1.4 Ghz amd athlon 256mb ram CPU. His original

Hard drive was 40Gig running Windows 98SE that hard drive went bad so he

bought a new Western Digital 80Gig. Now I tried loading XP on it for him and it

initializes and runs through the setup process then it says windows has

finshed loading this part restart the computer for windows to finish loading

but when it comes back up it starts all over again from the begining? Now

when I go into the BIOS the hard drive is not even recognized or listed Its the

only drive in the Cpu and the jumper pin is set to master. Also the drive came

with a CD called Data Lifegaurd Tools so I tried that disc after I tried XP

Thinking I had to use that disc to set up the drive and a window popped up

saying that the BIOS was OFF????? And the program would not run. If the

bios IS off how do you turn it back on??? I didn't know it could be turned off.

Right now I hooked the drive up to my cpu that has xp already on it and when

I looked at the properties only 533MB of XP was copied to it so now I'm

Reformatting it to try again. Any help would be appereciated. Also If I can

turn the BIOS back on Is it possible to load XP on the drive while it's

temperarily hooked up to my CPU and then just hook it up to the other one.

TIA for any help.
 

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
Now I tried loading XP on it for him and it initializes and runs through the setup process then it says windows has finshed loading this part restart the computer for windows to finish loading but when it comes back up it starts all over again from the begining?

When that reboot happens, I would pull out the CD-Rom before it has a chance to load. If at that point, Windows is not finished installation, it will just ask for the disc again when it next needs it.

If your BIOS (Which could never be turned off btw) is not recognizing the hard drive, then there is a conflict somewhere. I would unhook *everything* peripheral wise, such as CD-Roms and *only* hook up the HDD as Master. If it's detected then, then you know it's a conflict of some kind.
 

scarrylarry

Obliviot
OK I tried your suggestion but that didn't work so while I had everything unplugged I removed the jumper pin from the drive completly and tried again and the Bios finally recognized it. I then ran though the data life tools steps and afterwards it told me to put in the XP disc but when I reboot it now it say press any key to boot from cd when I do that it says error NTLDR is missing. What the heck is that???????
 

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
It looks like it's trying to boot into a Windows that is not there. Did you format the drive again before booting into the CD?

Make sure that the HDD and CD-Rom are on the same cable, HDD as Master and CD-Rom as Slave. I wouldn't bother with the Lifetools either, just try sticking to the WinXP setup disc to do the formatting.
 

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
Well, usually NTLDR errors mean hardware issues. You may want to test the hard drive in another computer to see if it's ok... do a chkdsk on it.
 

scarrylarry

Obliviot
I searched on the internet and one website told me to reboot the computer with an old 95,98 2000 or ME startup disk booting with cd support then after that loads put in xp and that worked the computer is loading xp as I type this. Thanks for all the help and suggestions.
 

scarrylarry

Obliviot
Ok everything is running good there is only one problem left under the SCSI and Raid controllers section in the device manager the mass storage controller has a yellow ! by it and the properties say code 28 drivers for this device are not installed. under manufacturer it say unsup how do I find out what driver I need.
 

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
Try Windows Update and *see* if that fixes anything. I can't say if it will or not, because you seem to be running into every problem possible. :)
 
SCSI and RAID controllers have to have the drivers loaded during the XP install (press F6 repeatedly when you start the setup), and MUST be loaded from a floppy. The driver CD for his motherboard will have the drivers on it, you just need to copy them to a floppy, and put that in when Windows asks for it.

What brand/model of motherboard is it? If he doesn't have the motherboard driver CD, you can *usually* get the RAID drivers from the manufacturer's website.

Personally, if he's only running one hard drive, he doesn't need to worry about the RAID drivers. Just ignore that little yellow ! . If he definitely wants them installed, you'll have to do another reformat and reinstall of XP.

Oh, the reason you need to have a copy of an older OS around is probably because your XP disk is the "upgrade" version. It requires you to have a legal copy of 98/98SE/ME/NT or 2K to fully install.
 
Last edited:

Flipi

Obliviot
You have to load those drivers only if you use the respective controllers. Otherwise you can install drivers for them after install.
And I do not recomend leaving the yellow mark there, it is quite easy to identify the correct drivers. See your mobo manufacturer and modell and go to their website and download the drivers - I gues it is an integrated controller. And then you have no more problems...hopefully;)
 
Flipi said:
You have to load those drivers only if you use the respective controllers. Otherwise you can install drivers for them after install.
And I do not recomend leaving the yellow mark there, it is quite easy to identify the correct drivers. See your mobo manufacturer and modell and go to their website and download the drivers - I gues it is an integrated controller. And then you have no more problems...hopefully;)

Unfortunately, no, that's not the case. The newest SATA enabled mobos will allow you to add SATA drivers after a Windows install..........actually, the newest mobos don't even NEED SATA drivers. It's native to the chip. Older mobos with the first and second-gen SATA controllers work off of the RAID drivers, and cannot be installed once Windows is up and running. You can do a "repair" install, and add the drivers that way, but there's no way to add SATA drivers otherwise.
 
Top