Asus P5E - Vista won't Install, Can't detect HDD's at all

mismajor99

Member
Apr 21, 2004
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I'm about to shoot myself. I've been trying to get friggin Vista installed on my P5E mobo which has the X38 chipset. Although the board has RAID, I'm using my HDD's(500 gig 7200rpm Barracuda) in standard IDE mode in the BIOS and for my currecnt XP install. I keep getting an error when it looks for the harddrives, and when I put my ASUS driver CD that came with my Mobo, I won't recognize any of the drivers on the disk, even though it allows me to browse my current XP installation and my other 2 backup HDD's. This is driving me crazy.

Also, I can't make a boot disk, since I have no floppy drive, I tried selecting my USB drive to make bootable disk, and it wouldn't let me. I also tried setting the HDD's to AHCI mode, that won't work either.

I didn't think I would need a driver in the first place if I wasn't using the RAID function.

Any help is appreciated, I just don't know what to do at this point.

 

QuixoticOne

Golden Member
Nov 4, 2005
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Try this:
http://dlsvr03.asus.com/pub/AS...F_V8301013_xpvista.zip

make a directory called intelinf on your USB flash drive or on another partition
of your HDD you will NOT be deleting/reformatting during VISTA install.

Unzip the file.

When the installer asks if you want to load additional drivers, try pointing it to:
...your drive letter..\intelinf\Intel_INF_V8301013_xpvista\INF\Vista
or basically the exact correct path to the Vista subdirectory of that extracted set of files,
and see what drivers from there it finds that are valid for your motherboard and load them.
You may need to remember / type in the exact path by hand since I think the file browser in the vista setup mode sucks or doesn't work well / at all IIRC... In that case it might be easier to move things to a nice simple short path keeping the vista directory intact as a distinct directory.
If Vista doesn't find your USB drive because Vista isn't working with your USB drivers / drive (which is possible), then of course it can't load the drivers from there in which case I'd just format a 1GB partition on your HDD as FAT, stick the drivers you need for vista install there, then make another partition with the rest of your space for the actual vista install.

Although this appears to be the Intel Matrix Storage Manager ICH9 MakeDisk for your P5E motherboard, I do not see why you'd need to use IMSM unless you intend to RAID the drives:
http://dlsvr03.asus.com/pub/AS...k_v7501017_xpvista.zip
...so I wouldn't worry about
ICH9_IMSM_Makedisk_v7501017_xpvista/Makedisk/64bit/F6flpy64.exe
...not wanting to extract the files to your USB disk or extract without a floppy because I doubt you need that. If you really do I can send you a copy of the contained files since you can't extract them.



Originally posted by: mismajor99
I'm about to shoot myself. I've been trying to get friggin Vista installed on my P5E mobo which has the X38 chipset. Although the board has RAID, I'm using my HDD's(500 gig 7200rpm Barracuda) in standard IDE mode in the BIOS and for my currecnt XP install. I keep getting an error when it looks for the harddrives, and when I put my ASUS driver CD that came with my Mobo, I won't recognize any of the drivers on the disk, even though it allows me to browse my current XP installation and my other 2 backup HDD's. This is driving me crazy.

Also, I can't make a boot disk, since I have no floppy drive, I tried selecting my USB drive to make bootable disk, and it wouldn't let me. I also tried setting the HDD's to AHCI mode, that won't work either.

I didn't think I would need a driver in the first place if I wasn't using the RAID function.

Any help is appreciated, I just don't know what to do at this point.

 

mismajor99

Member
Apr 21, 2004
105
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0
Thanks for the help QuixticOne, I'll give this a try in the morning. I know for a fact that Vista detects my USB drive so that shouldn't be a problem. BTW, I'm running the Upgrade version of Vista btw, but I'm doing the workaround where you can install a full copy , then install the upgrade and activate. Not sure if you're familiar with the method.

Also, Is there a known issue with the X38 chipset and Vista, or possibly the latest bios from ASUS that I've upgraded too? I've been hearing there a few issues with my board that I wasn't aware of.

 

QuixoticOne

Golden Member
Nov 4, 2005
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Good luck. I don't know much about X38 issues with Vista.

I've done a couple installs on P35 boards and had some problems relating to BIOS settings or the way I had my hard drives partitioned. Vista has a buggy / picky installer that gave me hours of problems to get the install started even on a system I had JUST clean installed XP SP2 on, so Vista's installer is a lot worse in ways than XP's.

Update the BIOS to the latest reputable one, clear the BIOS settings to factory defaults and then change only the needed ones for a start. Consider either IDE mode or AHCI mode as you have been, one or both should work. Consider limiting the DMA mode to PIO4 if you're stumped and having disc I/O errors but usually it wouldn't be a problem.
Be careful with "cable select" or getting parallel IDE cables on backwards (motherboard end on drive end) in any case. Make sure if you have "master" jumpered on a twin set of drives that the other one is "slave" or if it is a single drive that "master" doesn't really mean "this is the master and I am expecting a slave drive to be present also" in which case no jumper or whatever may be the right setting for a lone drive.

Try to get a Vista + SP1 already integrated together ISO image to install from, it might just work a lot better than Vista original release since you're having problems.


For the "clean install" with the upgrade disc, AFAIK there's an easier way to do it,
just don't enter your key during the install as you've already heard, pick the right edition to install, install it... Then when you're done and installed and updated to SP1 and it's all working you can do this with only having to install ONCE:
START CMD.EXE as Administrator or
RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR CMD.EXE
for a command shell and type at the shell prompt:
slmgr -ipk xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
where xxxx-xxxx-..... is your key.
then after a while it should pop up a dialog telling you it accepted the key, then
slmgr -ato
to activate vista online immediately via the internet using your currently entered key.
Or alternatively:
slmgr -dli
to show your system product ID digits which you can then input in the phone system with a phone call to activate over the telephone... or alternatively I imagine you can use the GUI "activate windows" thing to get it to show you how to activate over the phone once you have the key in there .....then..
slmgr -atp your-telephone-response-confirmation-id
to enter in the activation code you get back over the activation phone call

You can also do from an admin command prompt:
slmgr -rearm
which resets your grace period before you have to activate windows back to exactly 30 days from the current day when you give the command; you can do that up to three times, so if you wait just under 30 days, rearm, wait another 30 days, rearm, etc. that'll give you a few months before you have to activate in case you're still reconfiguring / testing your system and software and don't have it all finalized for a while.

http://news.softpedia.com/news...se-Manager-44976.shtml

Originally posted by: mismajor99
Thanks for the help QuixticOne, I'll give this a try in the morning. I know for a fact that Vista detects my USB drive so that shouldn't be a problem. BTW, I'm running the Upgrade version of Vista btw, but I'm doing the workaround where you can install a full copy , then install the upgrade and activate. Not sure if you're familiar with the method.

Also, Is there a known issue with the X38 chipset and Vista, or possibly the latest bios from ASUS that I've upgraded too? I've been hearing there a few issues with my board that I wasn't aware of.

 

nerp

Diamond Member
Dec 31, 2005
9,865
105
106
Can you turn the HDs off of IDE mode and just leave them as regular SATA drives?
 

ToddQuinn

Junior Member
Apr 10, 2008
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0
I had this exact problem trying to install Vista on the ASUS P5E in RAID mode. The problem for me was the boot order was set incorrectly. I know, I know. Why should that have anything to do with Vista not seeing HDDs. It has to do with the way Vista queries the BIOS for attached drives. For some reason, if the drive you want to use as the boot drive is not listed as the 1st HDD in the P5E's "Hard Disk Drives" list, Vista will report that the HDD you are trying to install to is incompatible - even if the drive is otherwise working correctly and reports through BIOS upon boot.

I have three RAID arrays defined in BIOS and all three drives were visible in the Vista drive selection menu during the install. I wanted array 1 to be the boot array and everytime I selected it, Vista would complain that the drive wasn't usable. After hours of searching, I found a thread somewhere suggesting the solution. I tried it and it worked. If I would have selected array 2 on the Vista menu, it would have installed because array 2 got marked as the 1st HDD in my BIOS HDD list.

To set the boot order on the P5E, it's a two-step process. First, you must define the hard drive order, then set the boot order list.

From within BIOS...
  1. 1. Select the "Boot" menu
    2. Select the "Hard Disk Drives" option. The HDD list should include an entry for each IDE or RAID drive you have installed/configured
    3. Make sure the drive you want to use as the boot drive is listed first. I'm not sure the remaining order really matters. Save the list.
    4. Select the "Boot Device Priority" option.
    5. Make sure the drive you listed as 1st HDD is listed somewhere in the boot order list.
It's actually the ordering of the drives in the HDD menu that solves the Vista install problem, but you're going to want to boot from it after you install, so you might as well make sure it's in the boot order.

Vista supports the P5E's IDE and RAID mode right out of the box. I didn't need to load any additional drivers.
 

mismajor99

Member
Apr 21, 2004
105
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0
Originally posted by: ToddQuinn
I had this exact problem trying to install Vista on the ASUS P5E in RAID mode. The problem for me was the boot order was set incorrectly. I know, I know. Why should that have anything to do with Vista not seeing HDDs. It has to do with the way Vista queries the BIOS for attached drives. For some reason, if the drive you want to use as the boot drive is not listed as the 1st HDD in the P5E's "Hard Disk Drives" list, Vista will report that the HDD you are trying to install to is incompatible - even if the drive is otherwise working correctly and reports through BIOS upon boot.

I have three RAID arrays defined in BIOS and all three drives were visible in the Vista drive selection menu during the install. I wanted array 1 to be the boot array and everytime I selected it, Vista would complain that the drive wasn't usable. After hours of searching, I found a thread somewhere suggesting the solution. I tried it and it worked. If I would have selected array 2 on the Vista menu, it would have installed because array 2 got marked as the 1st HDD in my BIOS HDD list.

To set the boot order on the P5E, it's a two-step process. First, you must define the hard drive order, then set the boot order list.

From within BIOS...
  1. 1. Select the "Boot" menu
    2. Select the "Hard Disk Drives" option. The HDD list should include an entry for each IDE or RAID drive you have installed/configured
    3. Make sure the drive you want to use as the boot drive is listed first. I'm not sure the remaining order really matters. Save the list.
    4. Select the "Boot Device Priority" option.
    5. Make sure the drive you listed as 1st HDD is listed somewhere in the boot order list.
It's actually the ordering of the drives in the HDD menu that solves the Vista install problem, but you're going to want to boot from it after you install, so you might as well make sure it's in the boot order.

Vista supports the P5E's IDE and RAID mode right out of the box. I didn't need to load any additional drivers.

Thanks for taking the time to reply, but I have my HDD's in correct order. It just won't detect them, none of them, even though I can browse all of my harddrives to find a driver disk, which is REALLY confusing me.

I have 3 Sata II harddrives all running in standard IDE mode in the bios, none in raid mode or the other A something mode. In my "Harddrive list" in the bios, I have the HDD I want to intall Vista on as the first one, than the others. I tried moving them around, but that makes no difference. Maybe the problem you were having was Raid related.

I have my BIOS flashed to the most recent, do you as well?

I've tried what QuixoticOne suggested and that hasn't worked either. I'm really f'ing pissed off to say the least, I just don't get why I can't install this. If we don't need a "F6 driver" for the Vista Install, like you said, then I'm even more confused, as it should read them with no problem.

Does anyone have any further suggestions? At the age of 30, this is the first time in my life I've been stumped like this, and it's making me want to through my rig out the window and get a lousy stinking MAC, yes, I've gone clinically insane. I'm more than happy with XP, but since I've opened Vista, it's $150 coaster at this point.