Asus A8n-SLI Windows 2000 Install Problem

[orlenfrost]

Well it seems like there has been a lot of problems installing windows on this mother board. I have read through all the strings I could find, but none of them reflect my problem.

I have been working on installing Windows 2K for about 14 hours, and I am at the end of my rope so I am on my knees begging for help.

Here is my configuration:

ASUS A8n-SLI
AMD Athlon 3500+ 939 pin Winchester
1 gig Corsair 2x512 DDR 3200
2x ASUS NVidia 6600GT
520 Watt 24pin PSU from Vantec
2x 300 Gig SATA Maxtor HDD 7200 RPM with 16 MB Cache


The problem occurs during installation. Here is how I have the BIOS configured:

Boot Order: cdrom, HDD, Floppy
Hardware Configuration: Nvidia Raid enabled, Sata 1 Enabled, Sata 2 Enabled, Silicone Raid (sp?) Disabled

1. I insert the Windows installation Disk.
2. Hit F6 when it asks for raid drivers.
3. When it asks I load the floppy with Raid driver, (there is another file on called NVidia Mass storage controller) I have tried loading that as well, and tried with only loading the raid driver.
4. It continues to load OS system files.
5. Gets to "Windows will now install" I hit enter.
6. Here is where I run into problems. A window pops up that says, "what partition do you want to insall on?" There is a, Unformated C: that says it is 131070 MB partition. I never created a partition on the 600 gig of raid. But perhaps win 2K wont recognize a disk that big so fine. I choose that one and it formats that partition.
7, 30 minutes later it is partitioned and it continues with the install. It once again asks me for the raid floppy, which I put in, and then it loads a few other files and then it says "Take the floppy out of a drive, restarting computer......"
8. When it restarts it says, "A disk read error occrred....Press ctrl alt del to restart."

I have not flashed the bios, but I did reset the CMOS jumper and went through the whole process again. Did not make a difference. I have noticed that in the BIOS the SATA Raid does not show up as recognized unless I disable the SATA 2. Then I get the First Sata Master recognizing the one 300 gig maxtor, but then when I restart I get a RAID ERROR in red.

I am stuck, and any help would be GREAT.

 

[orlenfrost]

I see a new thread that says there may be a problem with compatibility with the Maxtor drives....

I am trying to install on a single maxtor 300 gig not in raid right now. I was almost going to go out and by windows xp Pro, but perhaps I will hold off and see if I need to take my hard drives back instead?

 

[FastEddie]

This is an ongoing item with your drives and ,seems, a continuation from nf3.

 

[orlenfrost]

Just tried to install windows 2000 on a single SATA 300 gig Maxtor 16mb drive with NO success. I make it through the installation until I get to a window where it wants me to select which patition to install on. I have not created any partitions, it wants to install on a partition listed as:

C: NTFS 82349MB of a total of 130070 MB????

Even if I go ahead with that and it formats the partition. Once it goes through the installation, it still gives me an error on restart that says, "DISK READ ERROR, Ctl Alt Del to restart..."

So I think I am going back to Fry's Electronics and exchange these drives for a different brand.

What a bummer, had a good deal on these. 199.99 for each 300 Gig drive.

GO CHARGERS

 

[pudds]

I doubt its the drives , are you sure win2k supports drives of 300gb straight out of the box? Try slipstreaming a copy with the latest service pack and using that to install

 

[orlenfrost]

How do you "slipstream" a copy of Win2k?

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Window 2000 will not support drives over 137gb out of the box. You have to upgrade to service pack 2 or higher (I would use SP4), you also have to make the following registry changes.

Microsoft Article on large drive support for Window 2000

Since you have already formatted a partion on the array, you will have to delete the partition and reformat the array, once you enable LBA support

 

[pudds]

enter slipstream windows 2000 in google

 

[FastEddie]

I know it's a PITA, but maybe it's time to bite the bullet and get XP. At least you can use the drives.

 

[orlenfrost]

well, Just went back to fry's, traded in the 2 300 gig drives for 2 120 gig drives and a OEM of windows XP. I like windows 2K and would not mind slipstreaming it, but I could not even get it installed no matter how small I made the partition. I was using the Maxblaster software that came with the drives to partition, perhaps that was the problem??? I dont know but I am going to plug in the new ones right now and give it a go.

GO CHARGERS

 

[FastEddie]

I fought off XP up until last month. Have done dozens of builds with it, but my personal box was W2K. I've got XP set up to the look and feel of W2K.

I'm using a pair of Seagate S-ATA II drives with this board in raid0---not enough "o's" in smoooth to describe it.

 

[pudds]

xp would have worked fine with the 2 300gb's

 

[Insomniak]

XP is basically 2k with a built in cd-burning wizard as far as I know...once you get the cartoons and services killed that is...

The only real advantage 2k still has is that it's about a half-gig install whereas XP eats up a couple gig on those useless images...and tends to be a lot more open to getting nailed by viruses...

Still though, I'd say a properly configured XP is every bit a good as 2k...but man do I have a fond soft spot for 2k....still the high point of Windows so far...

 

[orlenfrost]

Still Not Working???

I am reading through more of the manual, It does not mention how to set up a BOOTABLE Stripped Raid on the SATA ports???

It tells you how to set up a bootable Raid on IDE channel?!? Does anyone have their A8n-sli set up with their operationg system on a RAID 0 on the NVIDIA SATA PORTS???

WHY CANT I GET THIS F@#@(@$)KING THING TO WORK?

go chargers

 

[FastEddie]

Yes, I do.

You need to setup the nv ports, then configure the drives using the nvraid configuration utility, found as a sub-menue in the Onboard Device Configuration. In the nvraid configuration, enable Raid Enable, which will allow you to configure the sata ports.

Next configure your Boot Order in Boot Menue = cdrom, harddisk, removable.

Now you should be able to see the drives by selecting Hard Disk Drives in the Boot menue.

Save and exit the bios, then you need enter the nvraid utility on the reboot by pressing F10 during the dos post and setup the raid volume you desire. The Utility will look like the one on 5-24 of the manual.

 

[orlenfrost]

Its doing the same thing. Once I get to the Windows Set up I still get the choice of 2 partitions. I think what is happening is I am seeing the drives as individual drives NOT as one raid drive.

I did not recognize this before because the 300 gig drives I had at first were only being recognized as 130 gig due to the limitations of Windows 2K.

I am going to try find the raid drivers of the NVIDIA mother board disk and re-write them on to the floppy. When I first tried to grab them off the Nvidia disk I had some problems because my Floppy was not being recognized as DRIVE A: it was being labeled B: ???

I had the hard drives mistakenly hooked up to the red SATA RAID ports which are the Silicon Raid Ports not the Nvidia raid ports. (A little confusing) After I switched those that took care of my problem with my Floppy, but I never remade the floppy for the raid drivers.

Pehaps that will help?

 

[orlenfrost]

Thanks for the post there Fast Eddie.

I had it set up just the way you said. Still no go.

ON THE MAIN BIOS SCREEN I ONLY HAVE THE 1.44 Floppy, MY PLEXTOR DVD READER LISTED, AND THAT IS IT!!!! THERE IS NOTHING LISTED AFTER THE SATA MASTER OR SATA SECONDARY.

I get the feeling there should be? Everything else is configured just how you said.

NVIDIA raid is enabled
The SATA 1 port is enabled
The SATA 2 port is enabled

If I go through the F10 Nvidia Raid Support in the Bios I see my two 120 Gig harddrives as a Stripped Raid of 240 Gig It is labeled as Healthy, It is Labeled as Boot.

But when I install Windows I get through OK, and when it restarts I get "Disk Read Error...Press ctl alt dlt to restart..."

 

[FastEddie]

Originally posted by: orlenfrost


ON THE MAIN BIOS SCREEN I ONLY HAVE THE 1.44 Floppy, MY PLEXTOR DVD READER LISTED, AND THAT IS IT!!!! THERE IS NOTHING LISTED AFTER THE SATA MASTER OR SATA SECONDARY.

That's as it should be. You can see the hd's in the Boot Menue under Hard Disk Drives. But that's not your problem. You have everything set up in the bios correctly and have created a healthy raid array.

You also created a floppy disk from the asus cd for the nv raid drivers and load them at the prompt when you start the install of the os.

I think your problem has got to be W2K, and not being able to load the NVidia Mass storage controller driver.

With XP, it takes all three of the drivers on the disk. You load two of them from the start, then it comes back and asks for the disk again for the last driver.

 

[orlenfrost]

HANG ON.

I resaved the RAID Driver on the Floppy and tried it again. I think that was it. Because of my earlier problem with the Floppy drive being mislabled, I must of had a bad raid driver disk.

This time when I got to the WINDOWS IS SETTING UP screen there was only one option a 234gig drive space!!!! WOOT that is what I was looking for.

It is formating the Hard Drive right now, 77% we will see once it gets through loading the operating system if it worked.

So, if you are out there having problems loading Windows on your new A8N-SLi Take Note:

1. Make sure your raid is in the BLACK SATA control ports (not the red ones that say SATA RAID)
2. Make sure your Raid Driver disk gets saved without any errors on it. If you have a hiccup while saving it, redo it until it saves clean
3. When windows asks you for the Raid Drivers select the Raid Drivers and then hit the "s" again and choose the Mass Storage Controller Driver as well.
4. Make sure you Bios is set with NVIDIA RAID ENABLED and then enable the drives under that that you have the Hard Drives plugged in to.

I am at 93% formatted. I will let you know how it goes.

Wish me luck

No chargers

 

[orlenfrost]

Thanks again Fast Eddie.

Yep I ditched the Win2k

Traded in the 300 gig drives for two 120 gig drives and a OEM version of Windows XP.

I saved myself one penny!!!!! LOL

At 96% formatted,

I think my trouble was 1. win 2K not seeing anything larger than 130+ gig HDD and 2. The raid floppy I had Must have been corrupt.

I let you know if it worked this time.

 

[FastEddie]

Smooth runnin'

Oh. Did you stay with Maxtor Drives?

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Good news there Orlenfrost!

I'm also running OS on a raid array on the NVports. The only thing I can add is that in the NVraid utility you have to hit "B" to change the bootable indicator to "Yes". I guess thats obvious, but thought I would mention it anyway

 

[orlenfrost]

YEAHHHH!!!! Its up and running!!!!

Live from my new A8N-SLI

Still have a couple of questions though.

How do I know if the SLI is working??? In the device manager it shows the two controllers. I did activate the Multi-GPU option from the NVidia Desktop Manager UI, is that all I need to do? No separate SLI driver? Seems too easy.

ALSO, this worries me too. In my task bar I have a "safetly remove hardware" Icon. When I click on it is has my two Maxtor 120 Gig Hard Drives Listed as SCSI. I dont want to have them load up like that every time or eventually I will Safely un-install them and that will probably mean trouble.

Should these be listing like this? Is there some way to configure them so they dont show up on task bar?

Other than this, it appears everthing is functioning normal, except for the XP windows that pop up all over the place to annoy the hell out of a guy.

 

[pudds]

remove hardware icon is normal, don't know if you can disable it

 

[orlenfrost]

bummer,

I was just looking through the Registry, and found this:

C:Windows\system32\nvraidservice.exe

I was debating whether this was a utilty program, or if this actually installed the raid each time on start up?

EDIT: I made a back up of this and tried to delete it from the registry. After which Windows would not load. Had to restart in safe mode and restore the registry key. So now I am just living with the unwanted icon in my task bar...