Tony
Fri Oct 19 03:24:43 PDT 2007
It's great to see a bit of well founded disagreement. None of what I've seen
here can be said to be wrong or off the mark. It's all usefull information.
These other guys are far more professional than me, anyway. Solving a
problem, however, to me is a bit like playing golf - if with each stroke you
manage to substantially shorten the distance to the flag, you're doing
alright. Not being in the middle of the runway, or not as far ahead as you'd
wished isn't automatically a miss.
Here, with a lot of 'unknowns' (we have a problem, it could be hardware or
software. Driver or a simple connection) I believe, the next time you have
this error it will be usefull to have eliminated most of all these
alternatives. I agree completely with R.C. - I also don't think it's a
memory problem or checksum, but the next time you error out you'll be glad
if you've eliminated the possibility, and I believe NOW is a better time to
do it.
With this last step, I think you have made a step forward - but your
configuration of the IDE channels seem to be somewhat uncommon. I don't
think it really matters, but:
I would certainly put the System drive (HD) on the Primary IDE
CD/DVD's on the Secondary IDE
where the SATA ends up will be a question of how the system is built - the
engineers probably had some sort of vision in their mind when they laid it
out and there could be nameless considerations to finally determine this -
at other times details in the physical lay-out will decide for you. Beyond
this, I believe the optical reader sits best in the Master slot and the
burner configured as Slave. Your system may have it otherwise.
But then, Dominic seems to be familiar with the actual board and chipset -
yes, I would certainly begin by disconnecting the machine and putting it on
a well lit table and give all the wires and components a gentle 'wiggle' and
if the problem persist dowmload a good memory tester and run it for a day or
two.
Tony. . .
"Jay Wagner" <JayWagner@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:D439A747-3949-4A82-97D7-DA10174A35BE@microsoft.com...
>I appreciate everyone's input here.
>
> The floppies I have do not have any kind of boot information on them that
> the system will recognize, so exactly how do I install them before the OS?
> From what I understand from what the manufacturer has on their site
> (Silicon
> Image Sil 3114 SATA Raid) that the driver on the floppy is to be utilized
> during Windows setup. Anyway, if I leave the disk in the drive by itself,
> I
> get a message from the system to "remove all disks and press any key to
> reboot." nor is there a DOS executable, either.
>
> But anyway - this time I tried unplugging the cable to my SATA drive, AND
> reconfiguring the hard disk configuration & boot priority. Beforehand -
> this
> is how I had the drives configured
>
> Primary IDE Device: My DVD drive (16x R+-/RW+-/DL)
> Primary Slave: None
> Secondary IDE Device: Quantum Fireball IDE drive (6 GB)
> Secondary Slave: None
> 3rd IDE Device: Western Digital 120 GB SATA drive (120 GB)
>
> I was thinking maybe the setup was getting confused here, so I swapped the
> Primary and Secondaary and left the SATA unplugged (from the disk - I left
> it
> plugged in the board). Also set in the BIOS to have the IDE disk
> (Quantum)
> as the first boot drive, too. Then I tried running setup again with a
> newer
> copy of the downlaoded ISO burned at 1X on a different media that I knew
> was
> good (haven't used and in the original packing since I got it for my
> birthday
> last July), but nope - I still have the same problem - setup reboots after
> "loading Windows NT File System" (or similar - don't recall the exact
> wording).
>
> SO.....If I had unplugged the SATA drive, wouldn't setup just ignore this
> and nullify what R.C. White suggested (no offense to his suggestion)? Or
> would it make a difference if I unplugged the cable from the board as
> well?
> Also, I tested my memory and ran it for 10 cycles for 5 hours, but got no
> errors whatsoever, if that helps.
>
> My board is at least 2 years old, probably a bit more, but the BIOS I have
> is dated from May 2006. The manufacturer states they made a minor fix
> reguarding their Logo displaying at setup, but if there was any issue with
> 64-bit OS compatibility with Windows, they would've addressed that then or
> in
> an earlier release, right?
>
> Maybe I should contact Microsoft for an 'official' CD?
>
>
> "R. C. White" wrote:
>
>> Hi, Jay.
>>
>> > (remember, I want to install this on the 2nd drive, which is IDE, not
>> > SATA.
>>
>> Probably one of the most-misunderstood phrases in installing Windows.
>> :>(
>>
>> No matter where you install Windows or Vista, 32-bit or 64-bit, the
>> boot-up
>> will always start in the System Partition, then follow the instructions
>> in
>> WinXP's Boot.ini or Vista's BCD to find the Boot Volume for the operating
>> system. (The terms "system volume" and "boot volume" are
>> counterintuitive
>> and this causes most of the confusion. Remember that we boot from the
>> system partition (not the boot volume) and keep all our operating system
>> files in the boot volume (which may or may not be the same as the system
>> volume). See KB 314470, Definitions for system volume and boot volume,
>>
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/314470/EN-US/)
>>
>> So, even if you install Windows on the IDE drive, if the SATA is
>> designated
>> in your BIOS as the boot device, then the SATA drivers must be used to
>> start
>> this session. After the POST and a few other opening procedures, the
>> main
>> action will switch from your SATA to your IDE drive. But those critical
>> first few steps depend on that SATA drive - and its drivers.
>>
>> To bypass the SATA drive entirely, you would need to designate your IDE
>> drive as the boot device, then run Setup in that configuration. And then
>> you would have to tell the BIOS to boot from IDE every time you want to
>> run
>> whatever you installed with that setup. This is not the kind of
>> "dual-boot"
>> system that MS had in mind, but many users do it this way. And, if you
>> are
>> trying to add WinXP x64 to an existing Vista installation, you might
>> prefer
>> to do it this way, although I wouldn't.
>>
>> I don't think you have a hardware problem, or a memory problem, or a CRC
>> problem. You just need to get the proper drivers installed for the HD
>> that
>> your boot-up actually starts from. In other words, install the SATA
>> drivers
>> so that the computer can find instructions there (in the System
>> Partition)
>> to find Windows on your IDE drive (in the WinXP x64 boot volume). Or set
>> your BIOS to boot from the IDE drive. Note that you don't need the SATA
>> drivers installed at boot time unless you are booting from the SATA
>> drive.
>> You don't need them to use the SATA as "just another data drive".
>>
>> In case you are wondering, after the 64-bit drivers are properly
>> installed,
>> you can easily dual-boot into 32-bit Windows from that drive, too.
>>
>> RC
>> --
>> R. C. White, CPA
>> San Marcos, TX
>> rc@grandecom.net
>> Microsoft Windows MVP
>> (Running Windows Live Mail beta 2 in Vista Ultimate x64 SP1 beta v.275)
>>
>> "Jay Wagner" <JayWagner@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:7A784F4E-37D6-4060-9BCF-C55ABF1CBF6F@microsoft.com...
>> > Thanks you guys for your input. I've downloaded a newer driver for my
>> > SATA
>> > drive that supports the 64-bit version and extracted the zip file to a
>> > blank
>> > floppy. Then I rebooted, ran setup, and pressed F6 when prompted.
>> > This
>> > time
>> > I got further than before, so I pressed enter to bypass setting up the
>> > SATA
>> > (remember, I want to install this on the 2nd drive, which is IDE, not
>> > SATA.
>> > ;-) ), and it continued to load the rest of the drivers. However, it
>> > still
>> > reboots - I just get a little further than before (If it makes it
>> > easier
>> > to
>> > describe, I don't get to the 'End User Liscence Agreement' screen.)
>> >
>> > Puzzled, I called the store where I got my system 2 years ago (nice
>> > place
>> > to
>> > buy hardware, btw -
http://www.infotechnow.com) , and spoke to a
>> > technician
>> > on the phone. We verified that the hardware I got supports this OS,
>> > however
>> > he suggested bringing it in as it's hard to tell what's going w/o
>> > taking a
>> > look. He told me he doesn't think I have a hardware problem - of
>> > course
>> > the
>> > only surefire way to tell is to send it in, which I don't want to do,
>> > as I
>> > am
>> > constantly using this machine.
>> >
>> > I've been using this computer for 2 years with no hardware problems.
>> > Dominic - I appreciate your suggestion of testing the memory, but if it
>> > was a
>> > memory problem, wouldn't that manifest itself when I'm using the 32-bit
>> > version (like the system rebooting by itself or something)? I
>> > *never*
>> > had
>> > a "BSOD" or a "Windows STOP" error since the time I've used this
>> > machine.
>> >
>> > The only suggestion he had was to contact Microsoft to get a CD from
>> > them -
>> > that way I know for sure I am getting a good copy, unless you guys can
>> > show
>> > me exactly what I do with the checksum - in terms of what or where I
>> > can
>> > find
>> > the "official" checksum to compare to what I got. Here is the
>> > checksum -
>> >
>> > "c983b75bbda964336c87996dec8838ca *WS03SP1_RTM_1830_PX6_EN.iso" (w/o
>> > quotes,
>> > obviosly)
>>