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Resolved: An issue with installing XP on new Serial ATA drives, drives not being recognized by XP



 
 
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Old October 26th 04, 06:50 PM
Todd Wiese
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Default Resolved: An issue with installing XP on new Serial ATA drives, drives not being recognized by XP

Just thought I would post this resolution to a problem I had involving
installing Windows XP Pro on my SATA Raid 0 set up so that it's out
here.

Most posts dealing w/this problem have the user make sure they are
specifying F6 to install the drivers, and that usually works for most
people. This post assumes that you actually know what you are doing
up to that point. After that, you don't have a clue because you are
still running into problems :-)

Problem:
System sporadically failing, mainly around the drives. Noticed
clicking on a fairly old IDE WD drive (1 year), so decided to purchase
2 SATA WD 80GB drives for Raid 0 as replacement for the on board SATA.
Could not get a stable XP installation. Could get raid 0 configured
in BIOS, boot from CD for XP install, Press F6 to specify SATA
drivers, then I would start running into problems. Most of the time,
XP would not recognize the drives in the system.

I was incorrectly assuming that there were some snafu's around
installing SATA drives on my system, and mainly troubleshooted around
the drives and how XP gets installed. I could get XP installed and the
drives partitioned some times, however they would eventually start
clicking/seeking and then the MBR would get corrupted.

Symptoms/Troubleshooting
IDE Drives Clicking
Old IDE drives no longer readable
New Serial drives seeking/clicking
Using DataLifeguard would frequently hang when trying to format the
drives through the DOS utility
Aggressive BIOS settings would not see Raid 0 set in BIOS
Slowing down FSB to 133mhz and memory would allow me to see Raid 0 and
at least get XP installed (some times). However running XP install
would come across periodic 15 sec delays when reading/writing to the
disk
Eliminated memory as a failure by using it in an old system. Old
system did not have SATA so could not try the new drives

Old IDE drives which I thought were corrupted WORKED in the old
system. Now I'm scratching my ass...then the light bulb goes on.

Checked the +5V in the BIOS, it was reading a steady 4.3-4.4. Not
what you want on a 4 month old PSU.

Resolution:
Replaced Antec 480W PSU w/older Antec 350 PSU, +5V reading 4.9-5.0
All drives working now
Install Serial ATA, Raid 0, XP Pro w/SP1 w/no problems
Clean up mess

In short:
Check the PSU for +5 voltage!

Just FYI, I don't have old/new benchmarks for my system but it is
noticeably faster and completely rocks. SATA is definitely faster,
Raid 0 seems more efficient. XP boots up probably 50% faster. Drives
are ultra-quiet, it's like I'm running everything in memory. Tried
out an old Medal of Honor game and could not believe the difference.

Well worth the troubleshooting!

ASUS A7N8X Deluxe r1.04 1008 BIOS
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ Barton
Corsair XMS 3200 512MB
ATI 9800 Pro
Antec 35OW PSU (replaced a 4 month old Antec 480W PSU)
2 WD 80GB SATA Raid 0 (Striped)
Lite-on DVD -/+ R/RW
Antec Super LanBoy ATX
 




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