HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ikickpigeons]

I NEED HELP!!!!!! I just went through BIOS and i set up eveything, BUT i cant get the OS working!!!! Im freaking out. I inserted the XP Pro disc and it stared installing it. After about 20 minutes the instalation was complete, some how it just went back to booting my computer back up. Then nothing happened. I just got a black screen. I tried restarting my computer my self and it acted like i did nothing. If i try to instal it again it says that this partion already has an os on it and that you shouldnt install another one. PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!!

 

[rumptis]

Sounds like you are pretty new to building and setting up computers. Heres what I would do.

1. Reset the Bios to the Default settings until Windows is installed. It should detect everything fine and work just fine. The only thing you may need to change is to make it boot from you cdrom drive.

2. Go ahead with the install processes and let it repartition the drive again and format and start the install process again. The error its giving you is just warning you about doing a daul boot like having to installs of XP on the same partition which I don't think will work and for sure you don't want. Its not going to hurt anything to wipe it out and start over.

What is the list of the parts that is in your new pc?

I hope this helps.

 

[mechBgon]

The motherboard needs to be told to boot from the hard drive now. If you can't figure it out, post your full specs including what type of hard drive (SATA or PATA).

 

[ikickpigeons]

Specs:
AMD Athlon 64 3500+
MSI K8N Neo 2 Platnium
Corsair XMS ram
BFG 6800 ultra
Hitatchi 80gb SATA
Sound Blaster audigy 2zs

So do you think i should just re install XP Pro?

 

[ikickpigeons]

How would i tell the mobo to boot directly? through boot priority in BIOS?? BTW thank you so much for the replies, i know i can always rely on the helpful and friendly people at anandtech

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: ikickpigeons
How would i tell the mobo to boot directly? through boot priority in BIOS?? BTW thank you so much for the replies, i know i can always rely on the helpful and friendly people at anandtech

Yeah, and the terminology will vary from one motherboard to the next, but basically, you have WinXP installed and now the mobo just needs to try booting from the hard drive rather than the CD-ROM drive. Make sure your network cable is unplugged until you have a firewall in place, whether it's hardware or software. Also get your chipset drivers installed BEFORE your video-card drivers.

 

[ikickpigeons]

Ok so i tried doing what you said early and after the POST screen, it goes to another black screen where it says, "Detecting Array". Next it says, "Verifying DMI Pool DATA". After this there is many othe computer information being said. So is the mobo not reading my SATA drive? Do i need to install the driversand utilities now, then try again?

 

[Raging Wolf]

Just making sure. Is it an original copy of windows or a boot? I know alot of people that used boots and had the same problem

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: ikickpigeons
Ok so i tried doing what you said early and after the POST screen, it goes to another black screen where it says, "Detecting Array". Next it says, "Verifying DMI Pool DATA". After this there is many othe computer information being said. So is the mobo not reading my SATA drive? Do i need to install the driversand utilities now, then try again?

No, you just need to get the board to boot from the SATA controller that your hard drive is actually plugged into, which might (just guessing) be called the OnChip SATA for your particular board.

If you don't make any headway, then help us out by listing out every option in the Boot Priority lists, like "floppy, CD-ROM, SCSI..." yadda yadda, so we can see what options you're being given.

 

[ikickpigeons]

ok so in BIOS there is an option called, "Hard Disk Boot Priority" i dont kow if this is important or not but its there anyways. Right now i have my boot priorities set as the following:
1. Hard Disk
2. floppy
3. CD-Drive
On last thing i went through my motherboard contents to see if i missed anyhting and i found a floppy disk that is the nFORCE 3 SATA raid driver.

 

[trexpesto]

During the install were you able to see the Hitachi hard drive and specify partitions on it, do the format and everything?

 

[ikickpigeons]

yes, do i need to reinstall it or install a raid driver??? Normally what happens after you instal XP Pro?

 

[ikickpigeons]

Should i just try reinstalling XP pro and ignore the warning about installing it on a partion that already has on OS on it?

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: ikickpigeons
Should i just try reinstalling XP pro and ignore the warning about installing it on a partion that already has on OS on it?

If you go to alter the setting on the 1. Hard Disk, what are the options in the list? Also go into Hard Disk Boot Priority and see what it has for a hard disk in there. Bring your common sense along when you go

 

[ikickpigeons]

after spending a couple of hours going through bios and reading the manuel ive come to these conclusions:
1) my motherboard wont read my hard drive.
2) I need to set up a RAID array because i havent yet?
3) My computer wont boot from my motherboard.

If anyone could be as so kind enough to explain to me how to check the following or any help at all, it will be very appreciated.

 

[mechBgon]

Read my post right above yours. Answer the questions. I don't mind downloading the manual and reading it myself but I have dial-up and it takes a long time. Basically, you installed Windows and now you just need to adjust the motherboard's boot options so it looks for a bootable hard drive on the controller where your WinXP installation has been installed to.

 

[ikickpigeons]

In, "Hard Disk Boot Priority" it has only one choice and its, "Bootable Add-In Cards". The different choices i have for boot priority are:
1) floppy
2) LS120
3) Hard Disk
4) CD ROM
5) ZIP
6) USB-FDD
7) USBZIP
8) USB CD ROM
9) Legacy LAN
10) Nvidia Boot age
11) Disable option
Those are my 11 choices.
Also i appoligize for being an idiot at this stuff, but as a n00b at this i freak out easily.

 

[mechBgon]

If you go into the Bootable Add-In Cards, what's in that menu?

 

[mechBgon]

Also, it seems to be MSI's mission in life to make it as hard as possible to download support material from their website I can't even find a manual to download. If you can find a link to it, could you post it?

 

[Chronoshock]

I have the same mobo and I installed winxp on my raptor (SATA) without using the included floppy for sata RAID. What you need to do is as people have said, is set boot priority. Set first device to cd rom, second to harddrive, and third to floppy or whatever else you want. This is in advanced bios options. Then in primary bios options (I forget what its called, its the one under advanced bios options) you'll see options to set time and also to set harddrive boot order. If you have any other harddrives in (like IDE drives in slave mode) make sure that you set the SATA with the OS on it as first.

 

[ikickpigeons]

MechBgon here is the link to download the manual CLICKY and chronoshock im trying what you said right now

 

[mechBgon]

Thankies, downloading now Good luck in the meantime!

 

[Xeyes]

He already has his HD set as first boot, so if the install took properly it should be booting. Still, changing the boot order as you said is a good idea

--------------------------------------------

From another MB (shuttle) website:

1. Boot up from CD-ROM with Win2000/XP CD

2. The message " Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver..." will appear at the bottom of the initial OS setup screen. Press <F6> few time in order to install RAID driver prior Windows200/XP installation.

3. When the "Windows 2000/XP Setup" window is generated, press "S" to Specify Additional Devices.

4. Insert the Windows 2000/XP RAID driver floppy disk in drive A: and press <Enter> key.

5 Highlight (name of your RAID Controller for WinXP) then press <Enter> key

6. Press "S" to use the driver on floppy

7. If you need to specify any additional devices to be installed, do so at this time.

8. Once all RAID/SCSI devices are specified and respective driver installed continue with Win2000/XP installation.

------------------------------------

Might be easier to reinstall. Change boot order as suggested so you boot off the XP CD first, HD second.
Whether you do the F6 thing is up to you (I didn't go SATA on my new machine, so I'll take someone else's word that you don't have to). If this is a new HD, the existing OS is the XP you just installed but now want to replace, so you would want to overwrite it.

 

[ikickpigeons]

would i have to do the F6 thingy if i only had one SATA drive???
*EDIT* how could i earase the whole hard drive? in BIOS???

 

[Xeyes]

Depends on the chipset on your board. I'm scanning another support forum now dealing with an Asus setup.

--------------------------------quote---------------

Why do i have to install a RAID-driver to install XP? My drive is on the SATA1?It's because the mobo you chose, only supports RAID on those ports. The VIA 8237 chip doesn't support running the SATA1 &amp; 2 ports in non-RAID mode. EDIT: Hate to say this, but the only mobos I know which can run non-RAID SATA are those using the Intel ICH5 class of chipset, and those are P4 boards, not AMD. I think everybody's hardware can do it, but for some reason nobody's writing software drivers that run this way.

-------------------------------------------------------

I haven't gone through your board specs, so how much of that applies to you I don't know. The other thing mentioned is making sure your BIOS has the SATA RAID controller turned on. (That'll be under advanced chipset / onboard peripherals or something like that in your BIOS)


EDIT--

going thru the manual. Nice board!

Since it seems to support both SATA/PATA RAID setups, I would think you shouldn't need the RAID driver installed - it's separate from the HD controllers. You do need to make sure your SATA is turned on in the BIOS (Integrated Peripherals).

Make sure your 1st/2nd/3rd Boot Device in Advanced Bios Features are set to CDROM, SATA HD (or whatever they call it), FLOPPY. Turning on the "Boot from other device" might help (you can always turn it off again).

This board also has an F11 "Select First Boot Device" option. This does not change your BIOS, it works only for the current bootup.