Abit IP35 Pro, Raid Drivers, Windows XP, Slipstreaming

[Hop]

I'm trying to free myself for the need of a floppy diskette and a floppy drive.

I searched the forums with various keywords with no hits, which surprised me. I must be using the wrong keywords. =

I'm going to attempt to install Windows XP soon on my new C2D system, using the IP35 Pro. I have read a couple of dated threads on slipstreaming to eliminate the need for a floppy drive and diskette to install the raid drivers, but I reached a small snag. It appears that I need to have a floppy drive installed, and a diskette ready to get the drivers in the first place, via the Abit bootable CD. Is there a way to get those raid drivers as they would be put on the diskette but in an archive or whatever without using the floppy drive?

I'm also looking for references, links to some fresh slipstreaming threads. I've seen a couple good ones, but they were posted in 2004, and I'm sure things have changed since then.

The idea of course is to avoid needing to put a floppy disk into an installed floppy drive to be able to install windows on a RAID 0 array and have it be bootable.

What was Bill Gates thinking? Not allowing the use of a thumb drive, or other media to install these drivers? After searching for a floppy drive and a diskette that isn't too old to be reliable three times, I figure it's time to figure out how to eliminate that dependency.

EDIT: I can't believe I can't find these drivers on the Intel website. I searched for ich9r and came up empty. How is that possible? I have to be missing something here.

As always, thanks for your time!

Hop

 

[MichaelD]

On this page download the INTEL Application Accelerator RAID Driver and unzip it. In there should be a folder called "driver disk" or "floppy" or something like that. Those are the drivers you need for the floppy install OR to slipstream into you OS CD.

While you're at it, download the JMicron drivers and slipstream them too.

My IP35Pro is in the mail to me, now. I'm hoping it's a great overclocking board and my SATA RAID card will be happy in the other 16x slot. Are you happy with yours? Or have you not gotten it up and running at all yet?

Good luck!

 

[Hop]

Still working on the slipstreaming, but I did power it up last night out of the case. Everything works, and the raid controller after post recognized my two drives, and the raid volume on them. It's too early to say how I like this board, because I need to install the OS, make sure everything is stable, then start to overclock. I'm armed with some really good information I got here at Anandtech, especially SerpentRoyal who has been a really big help via his posts and responses, so I'm real excited about exploring overclocking for the first time in years.

I need to get a list of those post codes on the digital display. The 2 digit 7 segment LED is very active during the post.

I may have missed it, but I have been looking for a hardware monitor in the bios setup. It would be helpful if I could get some temp and fan speed info from there, although not really necessary. For this out-of-the-case testing, it's good to note that the on-board power and reset momentary switches are very handy. Also worth noting is that the HSF I installed, the Zalman 9500, was very easy, and the support brackets didn't conflict with any of the capacitors on the motherboard at all.

I'm still very new to this level of motherboard, with all its features, but I'm hoping there are temp sensors in the north and south bridges also. I'm probably hoping for too much, but since Abit went through all that trouble to link a heat pipe to three heat sinks on the board, I'm curious to see what those temps are. Not having a mini fan on the chipset in favor of a passive solution is refreshing, since many of my other motherboards had fans that quit or became noisy over time.

Sorry for the long-winded reply, but that is my first impressions of this motherboard. I'll be highly biased because this board with all its features is miles above my previous boards.

One final thing I'd like to mention is the uGuru connector. Abit makes a breakout LCD 5.25" panel that allows you access to a CMOS reset switch under a protective flip-up protector. I searched everywhere for this hardware and came up empty. I wonder if anyone has info about how the uGuru port communicates with this breakout hardware. If I can find that info, it would be a fun weekend project to tap into that port with a micro controller home-made device. I'm sure my Microchip 18F4550's could be configured to talk to that interface. =)

EDIT: Oh, thanks for the link. I must have found them somewhere late last night because I have 2 of the 3 files offered. I didn't have the jmicron sata drivers, but had the installation disk. What is that for?

 

[Hop]

Originally posted by: MichaelD
On this page download the INTEL Application Accelerator RAID Driver and unzip it. In there should be a folder called "driver disk" or "floppy" or something like that. Those are the drivers you need for the floppy install OR to slipstream into you OS CD.

While you're at it, download the JMicron drivers and slipstream them too.

My IP35Pro is in the mail to me, now. I'm hoping it's a great overclocking board and my SATA RAID card will be happy in the other 16x slot. Are you happy with yours? Or have you not gotten it up and running at all yet?

Good luck!

MichaelD, can you link me to a good slipstreaming tutorial/instructions? I am look at this page right now, but the post is pretty old. Not sure if that matters.

Thanks again!

 

[MichaelD]

You're very welcome.

AFA slipstreaming goes, NLite is all you need. There's FAQs and tutorials there too. NLite is very powerful. You can do everything from a basic slipstreaming (stick a few drivers in there) to an unattended install (you give the program your CD key, tell it what usernames/passwords to preinstall, set up IE and toolbar options etc).

Load up the program and poke around in it; it'll blow your mind how much stuff you can preconfigure. Be warned though; the unattended install stuff gets complicated and if you do something wrong you'll burn a useless CD. Start slow.

 

[Heidfirst]

Originally posted by: Hop

I need to get a list of those post codes on the digital display. The 2 digit 7 segment LED is very active during the post.

there's 1 in the manual just a few pages in from the back.

I may have missed it, but I have been looking for a hardware monitor in the bios setup. It would be helpful if I could get some temp and fan speed info from there, although not really necessary.

BIOS>uGuru utility> 2 sections Oc Guru & abit Eq

I'm still very new to this level of motherboard, with all its features, but I'm hoping there are temp sensors in the north and south bridges also.

nope, afaik the silicone doesn't have them.

One final thing I'd like to mention is the uGuru connector. Abit makes a breakout LCD 5.25" panel that allows you access to a CMOS reset switch under a protective flip-up protector. I searched everywhere for this hardware and came up empty.

the GP-02 was actually designed for the 2nd gen. uGuru equipped mobos & the IP35 Pro is 3rd gen.
What that means is that the hardware feed works fine but some of the software (for email alerts etc.) may not.
There are also a GC-02, GC-03 (very hard to find) & there was meant to be a GP-03 but that was cancelled very late in development (although I have heard that there may yet be a redesign).

 

[Old Hippie]

Originally posted by: Hop
I need to get a list of those post codes on the digital display. The 2 digit 7 segment LED is very active during the post.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
there's 1 in the manual just a few pages in from the back.

For some reason or another, some manuals came without the complete post codes.
If anybody neeeds the correct manual, it can be found here.

 

[vailr]

I've had good luck using these for slipstreaming drivers:
http://www.driverpacks.net/Dri...index.php/DriverPacks/
I'd recommend using: LAN, Mass Storage and Chipset.
(But: don't use the entire set of drivers, or it won't fit onto a CD).

 

[Hop]

Originally posted by: vailr
I've had good luck using these for slipstreaming drivers:
http://www.driverpacks.net/Dri...index.php/DriverPacks/
I'd recommend using: LAN, Mass Storage and Chipset.
(But: don't use the entire set of drivers, or it won't fit onto a CD).

Thanks. I'm trying that now. I thought I did everything I was supposed to with nLite, but it didn't work for me my first few attempts.

Originally posted by: Old Hippie
For some reason or another, some manuals came without the complete post codes.
If anybody neeeds the correct manual, it can be found here.

Thanks for the link. In my manual there were some omissions.

 

[Hop]

Originally posted by: vailr
I've had good luck using these for slipstreaming drivers:
http://www.driverpacks.net/Dri...index.php/DriverPacks/
I'd recommend using: LAN, Mass Storage and Chipset.
(But: don't use the entire set of drivers, or it won't fit onto a CD).

Hey Vailr! Thank you, I used the DPs_BASE system and CDIMAGE to build the ISO, and it worked just fine. No floppy drive needed! =)

I'll still use nLite and experiment, since it seems like it has a lot more options, especially for unattended installs, and I wonder if I could use the two in two stages. DPs_BASE first for the driver packs, then nLite to put in the CD key, accounts, configure the LAN. I'll have to give it a shot on my third, extra test machine.

It works though, thank you!

Hop

 

[Hop]

Arg, I thought it worked.
I got through the whole install process, but on a reboot, I see a flash of a blue screen, so fast I can't read it, then the machine reboots.

I'm working the issue of RAID verses AHCI, and noticed in the post a warning (in text) saying AHCI bios not loaded!

Also, when I started all this, I had two partitions on my 320gbx2 raid 0 array. I deleted, created, and formatted the first primary partition. After an unsuccessful attempt or two with nLite ISO's, I went back using the DPs_BASE solution, but this time, the partition I want to install on is drive "D", not "C". Not sure why that is, because it was the first partition I created on the drive initially. I don't know if that is the issue, and I'm not ruling out possible bad hardware, like video card, ram, etc. I'll be running memtest all night tonight to rule out the ram.

Any thoughts?

Thanks for your time!

Hop

 

[vailr]

The Driverpacks method + files should work, as long as the install is for the C: drive.
Try deleting all partitions and starting over, using the Windows install CD to create new partitions & format.
AHCI or Raid in bios setup: you can pick one or the other, but not both.
Whichever you pick, you have to go into one of their separate sub-bios menus to configure.
At least for Raid you do.
Haven't messed with the AHCI bios settings.

 

[Crimmers]

I just got an IP35 Pro a couple days ago.

For the RAID or AHCI Driver, I went to Intel's download site for the newest ICH9R driver, which seems to work fine.
Intel Download Page

When I installed Windows XP, I tired using a USB Floppy drive and just hit F6 to load the driver. Lo and behold, it actually worked. This is a great feature since I've never seen this work on other motherboards. If you have access to a USB floppy (which is nice to have anyway) then you should try it out.

The only problem I've had so far with the MB is that it won't seem to work with 2 sticks of Corsair PC2-6400 ram. I've tried a couple different sets of the ram in various slots, but I can't run stable with more than one of them (so currently limited to 1 gig of ram). I ordered another brand of memory so hopefully it will work.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

need to manually set Vdimm and timing per specs.

 

[Hop]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
need to manually set Vdimm and timing per specs.

Thanks Serpent. I should have asked you about that. I don't know why I assumed the motherboard would automatically detect and set everything for my Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC6400 memory (4-4-4-12 2.2v). I have made those changes, and running memtest86+ right now. Looking into a USB floppy too. I didn't know they existed. :\

 

[Hop]

Got it working. It was the voltages and settings for my memory in the bios. Still have drive lettering issues, but into windows now, so I can burn off data from that other partition I didn't want to delete.
Once done, I'll reinstall again, using the floppy, and then again with the slipstream because that's the way to go!

Thanks guys for all the help and advice! I'm so happy I'm finally able to use my new hardware!!!! WOOT!

Hop