XP loads SATA drivers, then loses them.

[LT7]

Athlon 3000+
MSI K8T Neo w/ VT8237 Southbridge
1GB RAM
BFG 6800 OC
Seagate 160GB SATA HD
WinXP Pro w/SP2 integrated


OK I've been looking all over the internet for the solution to this problem. Lots of other people have had the same issue, but none of the solutions I've seen have worked in my case. From the beginning:

I boot to the XP setup cd and hit F6 when it prompts. I insert the floppy with the SATA RAID drivers. Setup gives me a list of drivers, I choose the XP version. The drivers are loaded and setup proceeds. I can see my hard drive with the two partitions I made with the Seagate Disc Utility CD earlier. I select the partition I want to install to, and it begins copying files. Setup then says that it cannot copy viamraid.sys and the two other files it needs. WTF? Didn't it just use those same files from the same floppy to enable me to see the HD in the first place?

Everything is fine in the BIOS. I installed the RAID drivers on my existing HD and I can see the new drive just fine, including formatting and file transfer. The HD is obviously working. The drivers obviously work. The BIOS is obviously set up correctly.

Here's a list of the drivers I've tried:
- The ones on the VIA SATA RAID Driver floppy that came with the board
- The ones from the Drivers and Utilities CD, transferred to floppy
- New ones downloaded from MSI's website and put on floppy
- New ones from VIA's site and put on floppy

What is going on? It's like the setup cd just isn't bothering to look very hard on the floppy, even though the light is coming on and it is reading the floppy. I've tried putting the pertinent files in the root instead of the directory structure of the original, but it makes no difference. PLEASE help me, I'm about to take the XP cd and put it in my clay thrower...

 

[Harvey]

What version is your BIOS? On MSI's BIOS page for your board, version 1.2 addresses these issues:

1. This is AMI BIOS release
2. This BIOS fixes the following problems of the previous version:
- Updates VIA SATA ROM to version 2.31
- Fixes CPU vcore selection item.
- Fixes Corsair DDR466/500 stability issue.
- Supports Athlon64 CG version CPU.
- Adds RealTek LAN Boot ROM.
- Updates VT8237 SATA ROM the wrong physical memory size

They're up to version 2.2 so you may want to check some of the later versions, too.

Hope that helps.

 

[LT7]

I'm running 1.8 apparently. Flashing now, will see if it works.

 

[LT7]

Flashed the BIOS, the problem is still the same. It finds the drivers, then "can't copy" them. I think it just "won't" copy them....

 

[xtknight]

Did you leave your floppy in during the whole installation? I think you need to for it to copy the drivers.

 

[Invariant]

These two things usually fix the problem:

1) toggle the APIC setting in your BIOS
2) try installing from an XP disc without a service pack slipstreamed into it. I don't know why this fixes install problems with SATA drives but it does.

Good luck.

 

[LT7]

Yes, the floppy was in for the whole installation. It never moves between the time the drivers are loaded and the time they "can't" be loaded.

 

[LT7]

OK how 'bout this - has anyone with the same motherboard actually gotten a SATA drive to work? If so, which drivers did you use? Also, should I try to integrate the drivers onto the XP cd, or will that not make a difference?

 

[xtknight]

I have gotten Sil RAID drivers to install fine using a floppy. For SATA, my nForce4 doesn't need extra drivers for it.

 

[LT7]

My onboard RAID is a VIA chipset, and I don't have NF4...I'm almost at the point where I want to buy a new motherboard/processor. This is ridiculous.