Solved: Problem installing xp

Hey guys/girls. I built a computer about 2-3 years ago and got XP running on it. I eventually got a laptop and stopped going on the PC. Other people still used it and the computer was going insane. My zonealarm was causing the internet to not work and I was restricted access to a lot of things in internet explorer. Googling helped me navigate through bios but the registries I needed to change were not there.

I decided to reinstall xp. I kept getting a 0x0000000b error which is a hdd problem or something. Ok, so I pop in my vista cd and it says my hdd can't be detected.

I have 4 drives. A hdd, dvd-rom, dvd-rw. Whenever I configure my jumpers and such and change master/slave settings, I always get one of the drives to disappear in bios (all three show in post and stuff). My hdd is alone on a cable and it always shows in bios. Now whenever I always get a second area that says hard drive and allows me to choose the two drives taht show up in bios. When I change my priority, I can change floppy, atapi, and whatever I chose under hard drive.

I formatted my hdd using some kill program via dos. If I choose hdd (and stick the xp cd in either dvd drive), it doesn't detect and I get:

Failed to load operating system

However, if I choose whatever dvd drive is sshowing under hard disk in bios and put the xp cd in there, xp starts up but my hdd is never detected. This leads to the bluescreen with that 0x000007b error. If I put the xp cd in teh dvd drive that isn't detected in bios, nothing happens and my screen goes away with the monitor displaying "out of range."

I've tried many combinations and none seem to work and only the hdd and one of the dvd drives seem to get detected (I believe the one that gets detected is the one I have on master at the time).

I have a external cd-rw drive that I could connect via usb.

When I did have xp installed, XP loaded each time. I could play things in teh dvd-rom, and burn with the rw.

 

http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/2006.04.12-HDD-Low-Level-Format-Tool/

if you need a good tool to check the hdd

try xp install with just the system hdd and cdrom installed. reseat memory chips and also the video card if one is installed..disconnect all other devices.and disconnect power to those devices

enter the bios and set all safe or default settings. set device boot order to cdrom first
make sure that you create ntfs system not dos when get to partitions setup

 

I tried that as well.

See what happens is, when I have even just two devices (on completely different cables), in the bios...the boot priority list has three choices regardless (floppy, atapi cd-rom, and one of the two attached devices). In the bios, another area called "hard disks" shows up and it allows me to choose only ONE of the installed devices (meaning I can only boot from one). When I install xp (if I chose the dvd-rom drive), the hdd doesn't get detected. The atapi cd-rom thing confuses me because I don't have anything like that connected.

When I attach a 3rd dvd-rw device, the same thing happens as before...but now....the extra device isn't detected in bios (even though the ide check shows every drive connected with proper names). I believe the slave is never detected.

 

i would remove all devices check that the hdd you want xp installed. Has the correct "jumper" in place for a master or single hdd some hdd's have no jumper for a single or master setting.Jumper settings are shown on top of hdd case.
if the rom drive is a single then a master setting should be set if its on the same cable as the hdd it should be jumpered to slave.

if the bios in the machine is award/phoenix the main window shows the devices installed.make sure the date and year and time is correct.
advance menu shows the boot order.

set boot order to cd-rom floppy hdd disable other devices.

 

I must be missing something simple here. A unresolved issue from the past has been brought up again. My computer has pri_raid1, sec_raid2, and pri_ide1 slots on the mobo. In the mobo (p5gdc deluxe) manual, it says that these will work as ide. When I have everything hooked up to raid, the hdd is detected and so is one other device (but they seem to work together and allow me to only pick one of them in boot priority). The other drive is not detected.

Anything I put on the ide slot is detected. I am having difficulty getting things to be detected while installing windows (and showing up in bios) if they are on the raid slots. However, when the post is running and the ide check is happening, all of the drives show up.

I must be missing a easy configuration in my bios.

In addition, I used a external cd-rw drive and hooked up the hdd to the ide slot and installed a lite version of vista. For some reason, my keyboard stops working when I have to pick what I want to do. I read this may be because it is a old xp cd.

Anyone know a fix for this?

 

This problem keeps getting worse. If things are going right, my keyboard stops working (after the xp cd initially loads). If my hdd isn't being detected, my keyboard decides to work. I believe I am having a problem configuring the raid slots. On my ide slot, I will have my dvd-rom and dvd-rw. On my raid, I have my hdd. However, my hdd never gets detected by vista or xp like this. I have tried different settings and it never gets detected unless I hook it up to the ide slot (bios detects it).

Will I need some sort of driver to let windows detect my hdd (i.e. press f6 during installation)? Where do I get these from? Keep in mind I am not making a raid but just using my raid lines as a spot for my ide hdd.

 

if you have a usb keyboard then it won't work during xp install you need ps2 keyboard and mouse. Do you have sata2ide adaptors on the ide drives connected to the sata ports?You will need sata drivers to install when you press F6(go to manufacturer site of Mb) if your installing on sata put your cdrom on ide secondary disable the primary ide controller so windows can't see the primary one then you can install on the sata drive. If you have a system mother board disk you will find the sata drivers on it .

As i said before disconnect all other devices the cdrom is never connect to the primary IDE controller as a master only as slave when on same cable as the hdd.

 

Here is the update. Trying more stuff out, I decided to only hook up 3 drives. My floppy (on the its own cable), dvd-rom drive on the pri_ide channel, and the hdd on teh pri_raid channel.

When I did this, the usb keyboard finally worked. However, my hdd wasn't detected. After reading more about the raid setup, I have come to the conlusion I will need to press f6 and get some raid drivers.

The next step is where?

 

UPDATE:

Looks like I wasted people's time. I figured it out. Just in case someone else gets lost like me (man I am a idiot).

I connected the hdd to the raid slot and I used the Asus Cd (came with my asus mobo) and went to drivers and prepared a floppy. Pressed f6 and loaded the driver and it found my hdd. I don't know why I was getting these usb problems but I believe it was due to a hdd connection problem (on my part).