Installing Windows, can't copy sata drivers

[Shortass]

Tried 2 different harddrives and 2 different Windows cd's and the same thing happened. Hit F6 to load additional raid/sata drivers and it appears to work (hit S, load the WinXP set of drivers, it recognizes it) but when it starts the setup it says that "Setup can't copy the selected file : (viamsata.sys?).

It tells me to retry or to cancel, and I end up just cancelling the 5 or so files it needs. Then with windows installed, it blue screens before it loads windows, saying there's some harddrive problem and I should remove it or format and clean install (installed twice after full formats).

Anyone have any idea what the problem is, or what I should do?

 

[John]

We need more info.

1) What make and model of mainboard?
2) Onboard SATA?
3) XP 32 or 64-bit?

 

[Shortass]

MSI K8T-Neo2, it's onboard and it's a Venice AMD64.

 

[Severian]

do you have more than one hard drive running? WinXP sometimes hiccups when you're trying to install to a SATA drive when there's an IDE drive also detected.

alternately, I've had this same issue when the driver disk is improperly formatted.

edit: also noticed that your board has two different SATA controllers, one Via, one Promise. are you sure you're using the right driver for the right controller?

 

[John]

Originally posted by: Shortass
MSI K8T-Neo2, it's onboard and it's a Venice AMD64.

Funny you should say that because it took me at least 3 different SATA drivers to get one that works. I don't recall which ones they are so try these. and extract to a floppy.

 

[Shortass]

Originally posted by: Severian
do you have more than one hard drive running? WinXP sometimes hiccups when you're trying to install to a SATA drive when there's an IDE drive also detected.

alternately, I've had this same issue when the driver disk is improperly formatted.

edit: also noticed that your board has two different SATA controllers, one Via, one Promise. are you sure you're using the right driver for the right controller?

How can you tell which controller you're using?

 

[Shortass]

Originally posted by: John

Originally posted by: Shortass
MSI K8T-Neo2, it's onboard and it's a Venice AMD64.

Funny you should say that because it took me at least 3 different SATA drivers to get one that works. I don't recall which ones they are so try these. and extract to a floppy.

Tried this and it didn't work at all, I'm not using the 64 bit windows so I figure that's the problem with that.

 

[John]

Sorry about that....try these.

 

[Shortass]

Originally posted by: John
Sorry about that....try these.

Hey no problem, I'll try these out now. Your help's appreciated.

 

[Severian]

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_detail.php?UID=608

just looking at that picture, I would assume the SATA ports are controlled by the nearest chipset, i.e., the horizontal ports would be controlled by the VIA southbridge chip, and the vertical ones by the Promise controller chip.

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/support/d.../dvr/spt_dvr_detail.php?UID=608&kind=1

Drivers for the board can be found at the above link.

Good luck to a fellow Mainer

 

[Shortass]

Originally posted by: Severian
http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_detail.php?UID=608

just looking at that picture, I would assume the SATA ports are controlled by the nearest chipset, i.e., the horizontal ports would be controlled by the VIA southbridge chip, and the vertical ones by the Promise controller chip.

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/support/d.../dvr/spt_dvr_detail.php?UID=608&kind=1

Drivers for the board can be found at the above link.

Good luck to a fellow Mainer

I looked at the picture and compared it to the version I'm working on, and it's rather different. It said on the page that there are 2 versions, so I'm assuming I have the one with only 2 sata ports as opposed to the 4 port version.

I also tried the drivers on the site and the one that John linked to and the same problem happened. After I hit F6 and load the drivers it says it can't copy them after it gets to the setup .

Is this a motherboard problem or could it be something else?

 

[Shortass]

Anyone know which component is giving me the trouble?

Also, just remembered, the first option in the bios page, when entered, is kind of freaky. It dissappears and changes colours. When we flashed the bios to the latest version it didn't get fixed, hinting at a hardware motherboard problem. Agreed?

 

[Severian]

If you only have one set of SATA ports, they must be the VIA ones.

Can you be more specific about the BIOS error you mention?

I have had this same issue a few times, and honestly don't remember how I ended up resolving it. What I would try is, use a different floppy disk with the drivers, and copy the driver files to the root of the disk in addition to being in A:/WinXP/ etc. Check the file txtsetup.oem for the expected folder and file structure, you can open this in notepad.

Lastly, you never answered my question regarding the presence of an existing IDE hard drive in your system. Is there one? If so, I'd disconnect it until the windows install is complete.

 

[Shortass]

Originally posted by: Severian
If you only have one set of SATA ports, they must be the VIA ones.

Can you be more specific about the BIOS error you mention?

I have had this same issue a few times, and honestly don't remember how I ended up resolving it. What I would try is, use a different floppy disk with the drivers, and copy the driver files to the root of the disk in addition to being in A:/WinXP/ etc. Check the file txtsetup.oem for the expected folder and file structure, you can open this in notepad.

Lastly, you never answered my question regarding the presence of an existing IDE hard drive in your system. Is there one? If so, I'd disconnect it until the windows install is complete.

There's no IDE harddrives in the computer, and none to test out an installation of windows on it in either :\.

I'm back at school and that computer is in my house, but I'll see if he can write up some specific details about it as he goes through it. Thanks for the help so far.