Stuck at "Setup is starting windows" on fresh XP install.

CaxusCaxus
edited May 2008 in Science & Tech
I just built this system:

E8400 Wolfdale
Asus P5N-D
WD Raptor 150gb
2x2GB G.Skill DDR2 800

I keep getting stuck after a few min into the win xp installation when it says "setup is starting windows". It just hangs there forever. I did some searching and it looks like since my HD is a SATA drive i need to hit F6 and install the SATA drivers but no such drivers came with my motherboard. Is this what i need to do and if so, where should i get these drivers from? Thanks.

Comments

  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited May 2008
    You'll need to download the nVidia AHCI drivers from their site and either put them on a floppy or put them on your Windows CD. Or if you don't care about hotswap you can set your SATA controller to Legacy IDE mode in the BIOS.

    -drasnor :fold:
  • CaxusCaxus
    edited May 2008
    Actually, after some more searching i noticed that some people had success by hitting F5 instead of F6 during the 3rd party driver portion of the setup. I tried this and it gave me the option to choose Standard PC i486. It let me install windows but i'm wondering what drawbacks choosing this option might cause.

    I noticed that when i look at the performance tab on the task manager it only shows one cpu on the cpu performance meter. Does this mean mean that windows isn't detecting both cores? This is my first fresh install with a dual core so i don't know if windows is supposed to know that it's a dual core when you install or if you have to tell it later.

    What's hotswap btw?
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited May 2008
    You installed with a HAL that doesn't support multiprocessor so yes, Windows only detects one core. Go back to start and try again.

    Hotswap is a name for the feature that allows you to add or remove devices without powering off the computer. In this case, I'm talking about SATA hotswap which is useful if you have or plan to have eSATA hard drives or want to be able to plug & play internal SATA drives.

    -drasnor :fold:
  • CaxusCaxus
    edited May 2008
    So why don't all motherboards come with a floppy with the SATA driver on it if they know you're most likely going to be using a SATA hard drive? Seems lame to me.
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited May 2008
    SATA on new motherboards is usually supported by the standard AHCI driver. This driver is built into Windows Vista and most flavors of GNU/Linux. I'm having the same problem on my new HTPC build because Intel won't release the XP AHCI driver for the version of the ICH8 my motherboard uses. They suggest downgrading to Vista. I upgraded to Linux.

    Nvidia is usually pretty good about providing drivers for older OSes on their website. Go get them or enable legacy IDE mode on your SATA controller.

    -drasnor :fold:
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited May 2008
    I've built several systems in the last 18 months, with three different bands of modern socket 775 boards - Asus, Gigabyte, and Asus. Not one of these builds, even with a recent Service Pack 3 Windows installation would recognize SATA drives.

    I went the long way around: built the computers with a spare IDE, washed out the old drivers, installed new motherboard drivers, tuned up the OS and applications, then cloned the IDE drive to an SATA drive. Installed the SATA and boom. Long way around, but it works perfectly.
  • NiGHTSNiGHTS San Diego Icrontian
    edited May 2008
    Leonardo wrote:
    I've built several systems in the last 18 months, with three different bands of modern socket 775 boards - Asus, Gigabyte, and Asus. Not one of these builds, even with a recent Service Pack 3 Windows installation would recognize SATA drives.

    I went the long way around: built the computers with a spare IDE, washed out the old drivers, installed new motherboard drivers, tuned up the OS and applications, then cloned the IDE drive to an SATA drive. Installed the SATA and boom. Long way around, but it works perfectly.

    I'd not thought of that, that's not a bad idea. I'm looking into moving to SATA myself.
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