OEM XP install problem on new custom rig

[dakels]

Set up a new rig last night

2.8C 800fsb
Gigabyte 8KNXP motherboard
(2) 512mb HyperX PC3200 400mhz CL 2-2-2-6
(2) 80gig Maxtor DM9
(2) SATA WD Raptor 36gig/10k rpm RAID 0
NEC DVD+RW
Radeon 9800
Audigy 2 Platinum
Zalman 7000 ALCu CPU fan
(3) Thermaltake smart fan II
(2) IOSS RD3XP shielded rounded cables
Thermaltake Xaser III w/purepower 420 watt PSU and fanbus

BTW all these parts except for the new Gigabyte mobo and new case have been used before without any problems.

After dealing with a few wiring/grounding issues putting the system together, everything posted to the BIOS ok on initial start. The ATA drives are from an previous dell rig (Not from dell, I installed aftermarket), as is the processor and the R9800. One of the drives that I put into slave mode has Win XP already on it and was the main drive on the dell. The other drive I set as master is formatted and clean. I am using my Dell Windows XP home recovery CD. I would think it's fine for normal install. Apparently not or so it seems. Watching the installation setup closely showed a few dell items fly by as it prepared for the Xp install setup. After I installed the system wouldn't finish booting to the XP desktop. It would flash the windows XP logo like normal, then start to go to the setup/register screen then crash giving me the blue screen of death (Kernal panic for XP?) with this message:

error: win32k.sys address bf87e09f base at bf800000

When I changed my boot sequence to boot off the old XP install on the slave drive, I get a similar blue screen of death. It tells me that my copy is not registered (It is registered) and then flashes my old personal desktop image then proceeds to crash to the blue screen and do a memory dump. I tried a reformat and reinstall on the master drive again and I get the same crap. It can't finish booting windows or let me into the setup screen. It flashes a quick error message that it's not registered then proceeds to crash to the blue screen of death and do a memory dump.

Some things I have concluded here, The dell OEM windows XP CD must be proprietary to at least some degree because I see a few dell branded install components prepare in the windows pre-installation when I boot off the CD. That initial blue screen you see when you boot off CD and are about to install, before the installation begins it goes thru a checklist on the bottom of install compnents. I see a dell name go by here and there. I'm thinking that something must be set up either in the bios, or a system partition (The dell drives have this oddball tiny partition (64k or something) on the HD's). Also the other drive which used to work fine with it's XP won't load now and reports it's not registered. I find that really odd too. Maybe something in the registration is tied into the hardware other then the HD itself, maybe the dell bios?

I don't know what to think. I just know its really abnormal to me and I could use some advice other then wait for the retail software to come. I don't want to rebuild the dell machine and I can't wait till the action pack comes in, could be weeks for all I know.

The reason I am not using the raptors yet is because they will be getting a clean Win XP Pro and win 2k Pro install in a RAID 0 stripe when that software comes in (MS action pack). Until then I need just XP home working for now.

help or considerable courses of action would be appreciated.

 

[bacillus]

afaik the dell oem xp cd looks for a dell bios string before it will install!

 

[Johnnie]

dell disk won't work

 

[dakels]

holy crap that sucks
I had a feeling it was something like that even though I never heard of that. All the factors just seemed to add up to something like that. what a PITA!

well on the bright side a friend is going to come by with a XP pro and license (from a multiuser pack) I can use.

I can't beleieve dell goes as far as to do something like that. How shady! They shouldn't refer to it Window XP. It should be called dell only windows XP. Do they do this on their XP pro upgrade as well? That would be really annoying to pay for a pro upgradew only for it to be limited to a dell bios system.

thanks for the reponses

 

[dakels]

Noob question,

if an app works for XP home, will it work for XP pro? I would assume all would but what about very specific utilities? Are there cases of XP home software not working for pro? Is this common or rare?

 

[mikecel79]

Originally posted by: dakels
Noob question,

if an app works for XP home, will it work for XP pro? I would assume all would but what about very specific utilities? Are there cases of XP home software not working for pro? Is this common or rare?

Anything that works on XP Home will work on XP Pro. However there are some XP Pro administration utilities that will not work with XP Home.

 

[dakels]

thanks mikecel79 I figured that, just wanted to make sure.

Looks like I still can't install... Now that I have a non dell bastardized XP pro CD, it's still not working. I am getting the blue screen of death when trying to even format. It does the format OK but then when it goes to copy files I get the blue and a ATAPI address error. I checked the cables, set the jumper on the NEC 4x DVD+RW (from a dell) to master. No dice.

Also, the drive that is currently set to slave has an old ghosted image of the dell installed XP. On there was a FAT partition of 39mb/36mb free. It looked to me like those old proprietary machine bios/system boot info on the hard drive partitions. I wiped the partition with my XP Pro CD. I cannot wipe the other data but I don't care if I screw up that OS since I won't be using it. Even though I was loading the OS onto a clean formatted drive as the Master, I wanted to make sure it wasn't picking up that other info. Now with that part gone, it still didnt seem to help. I really should detach that slave until I can get the master working right.

After the dell sabotage of windows, I am a bit paranoid and wondering if my NEC DVD+RW firmware has something in it that sabotaging my install of my normal Win XP pro disc. The reason I say this is because I didn't have this much of a problem using the Dell OEM Win XP. That formatted and installed just fine, but it just couldn't boot windows. The XP pro disc I have won't even get past formatting. Anytime it tries to copy data off the CD, whether at the end of an format, or OS install, it gives me a BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) and ATAPI error.

The XP pro CD is from the MS Action Pack subscription. Do I need to do something special before using the OS CDs? Maybe there is some special bios installer I have to use first? I didnt see anything like that. The CD's come with Keys for the other software but not he OS install CD's. It just says Action Pack Subscription on the CD and Windows XP Pro. No Reg Key listed. I just figured it would be configured after the OS install as usual, not before.

My course of action I will try: I have a CD-Rom from another dell I can try. Also a DVD-Rom from a HP I can try but the HP could also bring in proprietary confusion, though I'd doubt it on just a optical drive. I also have a firewire CDRW I could try but I don't know if it's bootable on the PC.

Any suggestions or info would be appreciated.

 

[mikecel79]

Hmmm did Gigabyte give you a floppy with the IDE drivers on it? My GA-8IK1100 didn't come with any but I think the default Windows one should work fine. Can you get the entire BSOD message for us?

 

[dakels]

thanks mikecel79, I got a CD but I didn't see anything to the fact that it has drivers on it. Norton systemworks, easytune, and a bios flasher. I dont have floppy in my system anyways. When I tried to boot off the Gigabyte CD it only gave me a bios backup/flasher utility.

All SATA has been disabled at the moment, as is the GigaRAID controller (ATA), and the SATA RAID controller via the bios. The Maxtor 80 gig drive I am using is formatted clean and set to master and for now the only drive I have on any ATA bus. Plugged into ATA channel 1 (where it's supposed to). I took out the DVD+RW and put in a lite-on CD-Rom and installed as as master on ATA Channel 2. Nothing else is plugged into either ATA channel 3 or 4 or the SATA channels. The Bios rees the drives fine and reports their model numbers accurately.

I then boot off the brand new from MS, XP Pro CD (not dell OEM) and go to the setup:

After dealing with errors and such I tried pressing F5/F6 at CD setup start. I select the "standard PC with C-Step i486 option"
Then it asks me to install custom mass media storage drivers but I can't do that because I have no floppy drive, nor any floppy disks provided to me be by either gigabyte or Maxtor. Both have CD's that have to be run from windows.
I then just go with the continue (Loading generic driver sets).
Then it takes me to the partition setup. I select the only partition there which is for the Maxtor.
I can then either go to format (Or continue either resulst the same error) in which it formats fine but as soon as it starts to copy files off the CD onto the HD, I get this BSOD (Blue screen of death) error. No matter what I do, format first, not format, delete partition then reformat, etc. It does the format fine but as soon as it passes that and goes to "copying files...." I get BSOD.

ok the full BSOD error screen is:

A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

If this is the first time you've seen this bla bla bla

bla bla boot in safe mode bla bla

Technical information:

*** STOP: 0x000000D1 (0xF000EFEB, 0x00000002, 0xF76B2817)


*** atapi.sys ? Address F76B2817 base at F76AC000, DateStamp 3d6ddb04

The IRQ error is the big flag. Something must obvisouly be in conflict but I cannot tell what. Only PCI card in there is the Audigy 2. My Bios's IRQ settings are on auto.

I will try to disable more devices in the bios but alot is already unconnected and disabled. I'll also pull the audigy also I guess.

I dont know why this just isnt automatic. Maybe if I can just fix the IRQ's and get windows installed, I can then run the driver CD from windows then reenable everything in my bios, connect the extras like the USB and firewire, and Audigy, etc....

:disgust:

 

[dakels]

btw after disabling USB 2 and all the serial and parralel ports in the bios, I got a little further in the setup and it went to copy the files. But stopped very shortly at about 1-2% progress and this message:

The file ws2.32.dll was not copied correctly.
The file Setup placed on your hard drive is not a valid Windows XP
system image. If you are installing from a CD, there may be a problem
with the windows XP CD.

*To retry, press ENTER

*To skip press ESC

*to quit press F3

If I retry it goes to the BSOD message listed above. Same exact message. There is nothing wrong with the CD. It's brand new and I have tried another CD anyways with the same result.

 

[mikecel79]

hmmm...I think it's definetly a hardware problem at this point. Have you tried different memory yet? Or make sure it's seated correctly. A couple of years ago we got a similiar BSOD when trying to install NT4 on a Compaq Proliant ML530. Turns out the memory wasn't seated correctly. Do you have other memory you can try? Or maybe use just one stick instead of both? Another possibility is to turn down the timings on the memory.

 

[Ketchup]

Even though this doesn't sound like a memory problem, try relaxing your memory timings, and see if that helps. Memory problems can cause all sorts of weird errors.

 

[dakels]

I read around that alot of people have had this problem while trying to use the RAID. XP apparently always screws up the installation when using it's own RAID setup. But I'm not using RAID right now... I got one IDE drive on ATA channel 1... by itself. I'd reseat the RAM but my stupid Zalman 7000 nuclear mushroom cloud is blocking my first Dimm slot. I had to put it in then put the HS on after and trap it in there. Even though this board has 6 slots, the 1 and 4 slot are best for double sided dimms so I used it. Still, I don't think it's a memory issue. From what I see and what I have ben reading it seems like a driver issue with windows.

I don't see an option to relax latency timings in the bios. Only frequency either manual or via SPD presets. I can push the voltage up a little, doesn't that usually help hold a low latency? These Hyper X chips are for 2-2-2-6@400mhz. Pretty aggresive. I dont know whether to back the frequency off to 333mhz or push the voltage up .1 v?

Come to think of it when these chips were in the dell, the dell bios wouldn't run it at 400mhz and opted to run at 333mhz... That sounds like a red flag to me. It would really pi$$ me off if I paid all this money to run the rig at 533 fsb@333mhz DDR. I'll try to step the frequency back though but it doesn't seem right to me but who knows.

oh wait I'm stupid I had to push F1 for advanced controls. I can set the latency timings now. I will try 2-3-3-6

thanks fellas for your help brb with good news I hope...

 

[dakels]

I'm buying you, a pizza.

you guys are frickin' geniuses! It worked!!! I'm, on the desktop now of XP pro. wooooohooooo!!!
Now I'm gonna power down reinstall the audigy and stuff, go back into my bios and turn everything back on. I don't foresee any problems since the latency thing did it.

Now I just have to deal with this 2-3-3-6 timings which is not the SPD like I wanted. I guess I can deal with that later and it probably doesn't help thatits 100 degrees in here

THANKS!!

 

[dakels]

 

[mikecel79]

These 875P boards can be picky with memory timings. I know I've got a Gigabyte one just like yours! Well mine has a few less features one it.

I'll take a :beer: with my pizza. Glad I could help!

 

[dakels]

yea the thought hadn't really crossed my mind. I just figured the SPD would be ok with such a high quality mobo. man this irg is fast so far

I'll buy you a beer if you live in the NYC area