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XP Pro on P965 installation woes. Scratching my head.

P

planar3d

Junior Member
I have two very similar systems. Their configuration is listed below along with some data points and preliminary conclusions.



Enermax Liberty 620W
P5B with latest BIOS 1604
E6600
2 Corsair 2GB PC6400
7950GT
X-Fi
floppy
SATA 160GB hard drive plugged into SATA1 + erased with Linux dd command
SATA DVD+-RW Plextor 712A plugged into SATA3

Memory remap feature disabled in BIOS. BIOS see only 3GB RAM as expected.
SATA mode set to IDE (not AHCI) in BIOS
Jmicon controller disabled

Fedora 7 x86_64 DVD ISO boots fine. Installation screen/process starts just fine. Interesting note: Fedora 7 installation DVD will not boot when SATA is set to AHCI.

Ultimate Boot CD 4.1.1 will not boot at all. BIOS says insert boot media and reboot system

XP Pro CD will not boot at all. Does not display the message "Press any key to boot from CD". BIOS says insert boot media and reboot system

XP Pro CD with Service Pack 2 slipstreamed into it will not boot at all. Does not display the message "Press any key to boot from CD". BIOS says insert boot media and reboot system

XP Pro CD with Service Pack 2 + Intel P965 chipset drivers + Jmicron drivers slipstreamed into it will not boot at all. Does not display the message "Press any key to boot from CD". BIOS says insert boot media and reboot system

Vista 32 Business DVD does boot. Installation process appears to start just fine but I didn't complete it because I am not moving to Vista yet.




Enermax Liberty 620W
P5B with latest BIOS 1604
E6600
2 Patriot 2GB PC6400
8600GT
floppy
SATA 250GB hard drive plugged into SATA1
IDE DVD+-RW Sony plugged into sole IDE port

Memory remap feature enabled in BIOS. BIOS sees all 4GB RAM as expected.
SATA mode set to IDE (not AHCI) in BIOS
Jmicron controller set to IDE (not RAID)

Fedora 7 x86_64 DVD ISO boots fine. Installation completed; using PC right now. All 4GB RAM visible and usable with kernel 2.6.22. Kernel 2.6.21 resulted in a kernel panic.

Ultimate Boot CD 4.1.1 boots just fine

XP Pro CD partially boots. Displays the message "Press any key to boot from CD" followed by "Setup is inspecting your configuration..." then system just sits at a blank screen. No blue screen with the license agreement.

XP Pro CD with Service Pack 2 slipstreamed into it partially boots. Displays the message "Press any key to boot from CD" followed by "Setup is inspecting your configuration..." then system just sits at a blank screen. No blue screen with the license agreement.

XP Pro CD with Service Pack 2 + Intel P965 chipset drivers + Jmicron drivers slipstreamed into it partially boots. Displays the message "Press any key to boot from CD" followed by "Setup is inspecting your configuration..." then system just sits at a blank screen. No blue screen with the license agreement.



Conclusions:
Does not appear to be a hardware issue because the Fedora Core 7 DVD boots fine on both machines. XP Pro won't boot but Vista Business will. There's some BIOS setting or (more likely) some sort of driver/patch that XP needs to work with the P965 chipset. Any ideas on what is going on here?
 
1) try moving the DVD drive to SATA2

2) try pressing the F8 key during POST to bring up the boot-device menu, then force it to boot from the DVD drive


Any good? 😕
 
1) Following your directions configuration now reads:

Enermax Liberty 620W
P5B with latest BIOS 1604
E6600
2 Corsair 2GB PC6400
7950GT
X-Fi
floppy
SATA 160GB hard drive plugged into SATA1 + erased with Linux dd command
SATA DVD+-RW Plextor 712A plugged into SATA2

Memory remap feature disabled in BIOS. BIOS see only 3GB RAM as expected.
SATA mode set to IDE (not AHCI) in BIOS
Jmicon controller disabled

Fedora 7 x86_64 DVD ISO boots up just fine.

XP Pro CD with Service Pack 2 slipstreamed into it still will not boot.

Vista 32 Business DVD boots up just fine.



2) I hit the F8 option as you suggested. A list of my drives appeared. I selected the Plextor drive and XP Pro still will not boot.
 
Some more data points + random thoughts:

The P5B has 5 SATA ports: four are implemented in the P965 chipset, the fifth comes from the Jmicron controller. I connected the SATA optical drive to the fifth SATA port. In the BIOS I set the fifth port's mode to IDE and then again as RAID. In both instances I told the board to boot off the Plextor optical drive (using the F8 option to manually specify the drive) and the XP Pro SP2 CD failed to boot. BIOS comes back and tells me to insert boot media and reboot the system.

I will attempt to create XP Pro SP2 setup disks for a floppy install from: http://www.microsoft.com/downl...5368124&displaylang=en

I am not optimistic given that these floppy disk files are dated 2004. I don't expect them to have any better support for SATA than an XP CD slipstreamed with Service Pack 2. I combed through the list of post SP2 hotfixes on http://www.msfn.org/board/HOTF...SP2_Win200_t86450.html and none of the hotfixes relate to my problem.

I have little reason the suspect that my XP Pro CD is corrupt or damaged. It will boot up, start, and complete the installation process on an nforce4 based system (which was using an IDE drive). The P965 chipset has no support for IDE drives (it's SATA only) thus the reason why there's a Jmicron controller on most P965 motherboards.

All these data points are still pointing to some sort of shortcoming in XP Pro + SP2. Poor SATA support. Maybe poor P965 support (P965 did come out after SP2 but the SATA standard did not). I doubt the Plextor drive needs a firmware upgrade to boot an Windows XP disk.

Has anyone gotten XP to install on a purely SATA based system (i.e. no IDE optical drives, no using the Jmicron controller, no external/USB optical drives)?

Is this some sort of conspiracy that Microsoft and Intel worked out between themselves to push new systems + Vista?
 
Also try re-enabling the memory re-mapping feature and/or temporarily reducing the RAM to just 2GB for installation. I've dredged through a bunch of Asus's support FAQs and those are a couple of possibilities.

As for XP and/or SP2, I'm not aware of any SATA-specific features being added with SP2. If your controller needs drivers supplied in order to run the mode you pick (RAID or AHCI), then you supply them. If not, you don't.
 
I removed one of the DIMMs so now there is only a single Corsair 2GB stick installed. I get the same results. The XP Pro SP2 CD fails to boot. BIOS tells me to insert boot media and restart.

What do you mean by "If your controller needs drivers supplied in order to run the mode you pick (RAID or AHCI), then you supply them. If not, you don't."? Are you talking about the F6 option? If so you have to get to the blue scree license agreement before you can hit F6 and load drivers from a floppy. The XP CD won't boot and get to the license agreement.

Fedora 7 x86_64 boots and installs just fine.

Vista 32 boots and starts to install just fine (didn't complete the install because I don't want Vista yet).

Has anyone here installed XP Home or Pro on a P965 based system using only SATA drives?
 
planar3d, this is a very perplexing problem. Weird that only the XP Pro disc doesn't boot. I can only guess that it's that particular XP Pro ISO you've been using that causes the problem. You've said it's works well on an nforce4 based system, but not on this P965 system. For me, the next step would be borrowing an origional copy of XP Pro and trying that. You can put your origional serial in there and be Hunky Dorey with MS.
If you've already tried this, just ignore me. 🙂
 
One more idea as well: if you have a different DVD drive, you might try that too. I had a vague recollection that there were Asus FAQs specifically mentioning Plextors, which is why I went looking for their FAQs. If nothing else comes to light, it might be worth trying, anyway. Good luck!
 
Originally posted by: planar3d
Some more data points + random thoughts:

The P5B has 5 SATA ports: four are implemented in the P965 chipset, the fifth comes from the Jmicron controller. I connected the SATA optical drive to the fifth SATA port. In the BIOS I set the fifth port's mode to IDE and then again as RAID. In both instances I told the board to boot off the Plextor optical drive (using the F8 option to manually specify the drive) and the XP Pro SP2 CD failed to boot. BIOS comes back and tells me to insert boot media and reboot the system.

I will attempt to create XP Pro SP2 setup disks for a floppy install from: http://www.microsoft.com/downl...5368124&displaylang=en

I am not optimistic given that these floppy disk files are dated 2004. I don't expect them to have any better support for SATA than an XP CD slipstreamed with Service Pack 2. I combed through the list of post SP2 hotfixes on http://www.msfn.org/board/HOTF...SP2_Win200_t86450.html and none of the hotfixes relate to my problem.

I have little reason the suspect that my XP Pro CD is corrupt or damaged. It will boot up, start, and complete the installation process on an nforce4 based system (which was using an IDE drive). The P965 chipset has no support for IDE drives (it's SATA only) thus the reason why there's a Jmicron controller on most P965 motherboards.

All these data points are still pointing to some sort of shortcoming in XP Pro + SP2. Poor SATA support. Maybe poor P965 support (P965 did come out after SP2 but the SATA standard did not). I doubt the Plextor drive needs a firmware upgrade to boot an Windows XP disk.

Has anyone gotten XP to install on a purely SATA based system (i.e. no IDE optical drives, no using the Jmicron controller, no external/USB optical drives)?

Is this some sort of conspiracy that Microsoft and Intel worked out between themselves to push new systems + Vista?
Click to expand...

Integrate the drivers for the SATA chipset into a XP SP2 CD using nLite.
 
Partial success.

Gentlemen. Thank you for your time especially from veterans and elite members and forum moderators. I know your eyeballs have a limited number of hours.

Here's what happened.

I remade the ISO image using nlite. Reintegrated service pack 2, reintegrated the P965 chipset drivers and the Jmicron drivers.

I also made a floppy disk with the RAID/AHCI P965 drivers on it.

I also made the six XP Pro setup floppy disks. I will use the F6 option to insert the RAID/AHCI P965 driver disk mentioned above

First crack I used the six floppy disks. I got to the blue loading screen and hit F6. It asked for my RAID/AHCI P965 driver disk and I provided it. When it was finished with all 6 disks Windows asked for my XP Pro SP2 CD which I inserted. It came back and said the disk appeared to be damaged. No go. SATA ports were set to IDE mode in the BIOS.

I rebooted. Changed the mode of the SATA ports to AHCI and repeated the setup using the six floppy disk method. Same result. Windows told me the XP Pro CD was damaged.

I flip Windows the bird.

Back to the BIOS. SATA mode set back to IDE. I unplugged my SATA Plextor drive and dropped in my trusty Samsung IDE drive (taken from that nforce4 system I previously mentioned) into the Jmicron controller's IDE port. Floppy drive was empty. XP Pro SP2 CD was in the Samsung IDE drive. Reboot. XP PRO CD BOOTS UP. INSTALLATION STARTS NORMALLY. FORMATTING HARD DRIVE AND COPYING FILES OVER NOW. THINGS APPEAR TO BE WORKING...but...I had to use an IDE optical drive.



Conclusion: XP's boot/install process doesn't support SATA optical drives worth a damn (at least with the P965 chipset). I'll try again when SP3 comes out just to see what happens with that. Going through the IDE port/Jmicron controller works so long as you slipstream the Jmicron drivers into your install disk. Could still be a Plextor/ASUS conflict but that's a stretch since Fedora and Vista boot fine.



Favor: Can someone please ask a friend or anyone they know that built a new system if they ever got Windows XP to boot/install on a P965 system that was all SATA? I googled around a bit and I only found two people with similar problems to mine but they were all going through the IDE port provided by the Jmicron controller. Nobody was using an all SATA system.



Question: What the hell is that pre-Windows, blue loading screen during the install process? Is that still considered to be the Windows OS proper or is that some low level, boot strap, stripped down operating system that Microsoft uses just to get the install process going?



Comments? Logic fallacies? Anyone?
 
I flip Windows the bird.
Click to expand...
What took ya so long? 😀

I know I have read of others with this problem, but they were using an IDE CD drive and all it took was a little fiddling with the Jmicron controller settings. I can't believe the others would have slipstreamed any drivers as they weren't advanced users, like yourself.

Glad you got it up and running! :thumbsup:
 
Originally posted by: planar3d
Conclusion: XP's boot/install process doesn't support SATA optical drives worth a damn (at least with the P965 chipset). I'll try again when SP3 comes out just to see what happens with that. Going through the IDE port/Jmicron controller works so long as you slipstream the Jmicron drivers into your install disk. Could still be a Plextor/ASUS conflict but that's a stretch since Fedora and Vista boot fine.



Favor: Can someone please ask a friend or anyone they know that built a new system if they ever got Windows XP to boot/install on a P965 system that was all SATA? I googled around a bit and I only found two people with similar problems to mine but they were all going through the IDE port provided by the Jmicron controller. Nobody was using an all SATA system.



Question: What the hell is that pre-Windows, blue loading screen during the install process? Is that still considered to be the Windows OS proper or is that some low level, boot strap, stripped down operating system that Microsoft uses just to get the install process going?



Comments? Logic fallacies? Anyone?
Click to expand...

It works fine but you need to understand how to integrate the drivers, and you have to integrate the right ones. In nLite, did you add the drivers via the PnP option, or the textmode option?
 
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