Octane2097

First of all HELLO! im new to this forum
my names Chris im from barnsley UK
this is my second PC i have build, my old one sort of blew up!

anyways the problem i have is that first of all everything else works fine
apart from i cannot install XP on the new SATA drive
the XP setup will see and format the SATA drive and put on the files required for windows setup, but thats all, once it reboots it just freezes!

so i thought i recover my old hard drive and just clone it on the new drive, do it that way
however when i run both drives together it will boot fine from the OLD IDE drive and will see the SATA but it ALWAYS and i mean ALWAYS asigns the SATA as C: and moving my old IDE to D and E (It has 2 partitions)
then when im trying to boot it gets to the XP welcome screen and just displayed WINDOWS XP and a nice logo and sticks there, i have been told this is due to XP looking on C for XP when now its been moved to D
this seems like a simple fix, change the drive letters, but i cannot actualy logon to windows to change the drive letters i have had to remove the SATA and run XP system restore to change the drive letters back

im stumped, i thought of trying windows 98 on it but my new machine dosnt have a floppy *and no way of adding one*
im stumped!
anyone? help pleaseeee!

linderman

hello & welcome to TSF:


first off I would like to say is your sata drive is larger than 137 gigs? (most are now days) and does your win XP cd have service pack 2 included

Octane2097

the HDD is a Samsing HDD160JJ 160GB
and no the XP CD dosnt have SP2

i originaly thought of that but that wouldnt affect it if i booted from my IDE drive, re the swapping of drive letters would it?

linderman

next thing; I would remove the IDE drive from the mix; it just deepens the mud.

I would wipe the hard drive with a zero fill utility to start over again, before doing this; see if you can enter the bios, there is usually a plave in the bios where you can change the sata controller to treat the sata drive as an IDE drive until you get the OS loaded and the motheboard chip set drivers installed. I often see this option in the bios as IDE mode

the sata drive is not going to work correctly until the sata drivers for your motherboards onboard sata controller are installed. The drivers for the sata controller are normally included with the motherboard chipset package.

once the OS is installed on the drive its easy to then install the motherboard chipset drivers.


there is another way to do it; by placing the sata controller drivers on a floppy disk, then when you perform the OS install from the beginning you will see a prompt PRESS F6 TO INSTALL THIRD PARTY SCSI RAID DRIVERS

its at that time you press the F6 key and let it load the sata controller drivers from your floppy drive >>>>>

changing to IDE mode is easier for me = I am lazy

linderman

the problem you are encountering now is you have two drives with a "C" drive and windows on them >>>>> the sata drive is a C drive boot device and so is the IDE drive.

you can add SP-2 to your install CD


look in my signature links / under procedures (slipstreaming)

Octane2097

i did originaly try that f6 thing during setup but asks to load them from a floppy and ofcourse i dont have a floppy lol

i remeber seeing that IDE mode in BIOS i was under the impretion that was to "TURN OFF" the sata capability
il give it a try and see what happens

Octane2097

RE that slipstreaming thing
A: can you do it with a recovery CD
and B: could you an SP2 CD i have

linderman

the problem with adding sp-2 after the OS has been installed is / your sytem has already been configured and the hardware installed into the windows system / then you come along "after" and add SP-2 its helps somethings but not the stuff we are looking for SP-2 assistance with!


I strongly advise you buy your self a retail version of Win XP recovery disks are very limted in nature


try the slipstreaming with the recovery disk it may just work ???

linderman

http://kadaitcha.cx/slipstream.html

Octane2097

well i did that slipstream thingi and it worked yay im on my new SATA drive right now

only problem is it keeps wanting me to activate windows only it wont as it says my product key has been activated too many times
(this im assuming as it was activated on my old IDE drive)

linderman

yeah you get like 10 activations with each windows install OS disk >>>> once you exceed that you need to call microsoft to get a new activation number; but given your situtation and having built a new computer I will be shocked if they accomodate you with a manufactured computer builder disk; MS is going to send you back to the original builder that supplied you with the disk; I think you can figure out how that conversation is going to go ?


You need to buy a retail version of Win XP I saw them cheap on ebay and genuine ones too

http://cgi.ebay.com/Microsoft-Window...QQcmdZViewItem

Octane2097

10 activations?
this is the 1st time i have used it!
well minus the 1st time i installed it on the old PC

so yep it worked, but after all that i need to buy a new OS?
thats not good :(

linderman

give your system disk provider a call, and let them know you have not activated very much they should give you an activation code

Octane2097

yea its ok i called microsoft, told them i had upgraded my hard drive and they gave me a new key for it :) problem solved

linderman

WOW impressive thats a first! I am happy to hear you have everything under control, Kudos to ya

Octane2097

i was expencing the 3rd degree
but no i just told them i had upgraded my drive (which it technicly true) and they gave me a new key for it, pleased :D

linderman

all is well that ends well