[Fireplay5]

this has been driving me crazy for 5 straight days now. I have done everything I can think of with no prevail.

I just upgraded my system to a intel p4 2.8ghz cpu, Asus P4P800 deluxe motherboard, and (2) sticks mushkin black 512mb level 1 ddr400 pc3200 memory.

I fdisked and reformatted the hard drive which is a 120gb maxtor ata133 prior to installing xp.
I have the latest bios upgrade 1010 on the motherboard and have left bios on default settings.

I begin by booting up to WinXP Pro and install to harddrive which is recognized. It begins copying files neccessary to begin installation. Not a minute into the file copying I get a message;

Setup cannot copy the file: ****.***
To retry, press enter
If you are installing from a CD, make sure the Windows XP CD is in the CD Rom drive.
to skip file, press esc.
Caution: If you skip this file, setup may not complete and windows XP may not work properly.
to quit setup, press f3.


So I try pressing enter. Nothing happens. finally i skip the file and it works for a while and comes up again with a different file name.

this goes on about 4 or 5 files that dont get copied. then it goes into the main installation and freezes about in the area with networking.

I have tried copying from a dvd drive, cdrw drive, and a dvd-rw drive all with same conclusions.
I have even bought a new hard drive thinking that was the problem with no luck.
I have replaced all cables with new cables and had no luck.
I have changed out my memory with my old samsung pc2700 and had no change.
I then thought it might be the WinXP cd so I reformatted another computer I have and loaded it up and it installed great on the other system.
Could it possibly be that I need a new WinXP cd that contains the SP1 (which I dont have) for this to work?

I can think of no other possible solutions other than some bios settings which I am not familiar with causing file transfers to be messed up.

Please tell me that someone out there has heard of this and has a solution to cure my constant nightmare....

thankyou for you help.

Fireplay5

 

[clintfan]

It sounds like you have indeed tried a great many things.

Could it possibly be that I need a new WinXP cd that contains the SP1 (which I dont have) for this to work?

Well it's possible, but no, I don't think so. Chipset devices will initially come up in generic, "standard" modes and run (mostly) fine. Then you apply the Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility immediately after the install, to correct this initial condition. Others have already successfully applied regular XP on your same or similar mobo's, then the ICSIU, then the SP afterward. So that's not it.

Not a minute into the file copying I get a message;
Setup cannot copy the file: ****.***
...I have tried copying from a dvd drive, cdrw drive, and a dvd-rw drive all with same conclusions.

Obviously it should not do this. It either cannot read from the CD, or cannot write to the HDD. You said you haven't adjusted any BIOS settings for these devices.

??So tell us about your CD cabling. I know you tried different cables, but what port you have it plugged into, how you have your CD/DVD strapped, what sort of cables you are using. Also what power supply you have.

You don't have it attached to the Promise "PRI RAID" port, do you? That port doesn't support ATAPI devices, but Asus doesn't say what "doesn't support" means, if you were to try it.

I fdisked and reformatted the hard drive which is a 120gb maxtor ata133 prior to installing xp.

I could be wrong but I think DOS "Format" can only format the drive as FAT16. Personally I would not do this. XP setup has partitioning/ formatting tools built in, as you already know from going through this on the other computer. I would just let XP do its thing, and format as NTFS.

It makes me wonder if the trouble your XP setup is having, is with trying to copy some particularly nasty files into an FAT16 file system. But you probably followed the exact same process when you installed on the other computer, right?

I then thought it might be the WinXP cd so I reformatted another computer I have and loaded it up and it installed great on the other system.

Well the CD could still be scratched, and the other computer's reader is able to plow through the defect but your problem computer can't. I was going to say, how about bringing the CDROM reader from the other computer over to yours? But you already tried several other drives, that's why I'm thinking cabling.

-clintfan

 

[Fireplay5]

thankyou so much for your post. I appreciate your help.

I think you are right with the XPsp1 thing. I dont think it will make any difference.

I have used IDE cables bother the 40 pin and the ata133 80 pin cables. I have the hard drive set as primary master on the end of the cable (of course I tried it in the center of the cable also) attached to IDE1. And I have just 1 dvd drive set as secondary master on IDE2 also jumpered as master and on end of cable. I have not tried to plug in any drives to the raid ports on the motherboard.

My powersupply is an Enermax whisper 430W.

At first I did use Dos formatting but then I tried the XP formatting both leaving it in Fat32 and NTFS. I have also used Maxblast3 to format it specifically for WinXP several times with no luck.

Immediatley after installing XP on the other computer I did pull it's drive out and plug it to mine but then ran into the same problem so I dont believe it is the drive.


At this point I am hoping it is something with the bios settings. I read somewhere that it is possible that the default settings wont work so I have been messing with that for the past 6 hours. If I find any answer I will post. until then any help is appreciated. thankyou.

 

[clintfan]

Well that still sounds real strange. I was going to tell you to stop using the same entire pigtail that powers your CD and try another line instead, but then I figured they probably all go to the same place inside the supply anyway.

Could still be a flaky power supply, though. The watts are enough, but if the voltage is cutting in and out, that could be bad.

Are there any bent or broken pins in the IDE connectors on your mobo?

Have you yet tried strapping the CD as slave, and putting it on the Primary IDE bus with the HDD? If this works, then your Secondary IDE port would appear to be bad.

Any time you start beating your head against the wall over something like this, it usually turns out to be bad hardware, and in your case the mobo is looking like the common element.

What am I missing here?

-clintfan

 

[Fireplay5]

Wooohoooo! I finally got windows loaded. All I did was take out 1 of the sticks of memory. I took it out of dual ddr400 mode I guess and it worked good and is stable once installed.

The new problem now is after I got everything installed I thought it would be safe to put that second stick of memory back in but I was wrong. It became very unstable after that.

I am running (2) sticks of 512mb Mushkin black level 1 ddr400 pc3200.

I also tried running (2) sticks of 512mb Samsung pc2700 with no luck.

So this is no good at all! the entire reason I purchased this board was for the dual ddr400 characteristic. And now I find I cant put more that the one stick in at a time. That is crazy!

I would be willing to purchase a different brand memory if I knew for certain it would be compatible but what is the chance of that! I assumed that the memory I have is excellent brand, guess I was wrong.

anyone have any ideas on how to get both these sticks working together in the dual mode? That would be great if so? i still do not have my bios changed from default because I was just looking for a stable system. If I need to change something that would be great also. Thanks again. and again. and again.

 

[clintfan]

Glad you figured out the pull-one-stick routine. WooHoo is right!

Well in that case you just might want to monitor EB1's thread that opened up, P4C800-E Deluxe Recommended RAM. It's not quite the same mobo as yours (your P's 865 Northbridge vs. the C's 875), but you still may find it useful since they're both FSB 800 and DDR 400.

One thing though, your mobo specs say it doesn't support ECC DIMM's so don't bother looking for those. My guess is it'd probably run them, just not in ECC mode.

-clintfan

 

[garygfx]

I have exactly the same problem installing XP on an Asus A7V8X motherboard with a single 512mb DDR400 chip made by Samsung and recommended by Asus. The CPU is an Athlon 2000mhz, not overclocked.

I've been running XP on the PC for months but Windows died at the weekend so I've been trying to reinstall it from scratch for 3 days now with just a few hours sleep!

I even made a backup copy of the installation CD in case there was a scratch but it made no difference, the disc is not damaged. I also slip streamed in SP1a in case Microsoft fixed the problem - whatever the problem may be?!

In case you're wondering how I instaled XP in the first place, I was using another m/board and upgraded to the ASUS earlier in the year without reinstalling Windows.

If anyone can help please let me know! I only have a few strands of hair left.

Thanks.

 

[Fireplay5]

Ok,

I think what it ended up really being is the ddr voltage setting in the bios. You need to go to jumperfree - AI overclock tuner and set it to manual. Then change ddr voltage to 2.75. This should allow you to install windows hopefully. I think this is a true issue with the asus board bios setting getting the default screwy. Oh well. Mine ends up still being a little unstable after I put in both sticks but I am still working on that. Good Luck.

Michael

 

[Cspud]

So jacking down the voltage for the ddr allowed you to install XP without all the "blue screens"?

Cspud

 

[garygfx]

I dropped the DDR voltage to 2.75 (it was on Auto) but I'm still getting "setup cannot copy the file: xxx". It's a different file each time I run the installation. Installing from the i386 files copied to my HD wasn't any better as it kept giving a "ql10wnt.sys file is corrupt" error. Shall I drop the voltage some more? I feel like increasing it to 10,000 volts!

BTW, I didn't understand what Michael meant by this:

You need to go to jumperfree - AI overclock tuner and set it to manual.

Was there something else I'm meant to do apart from change the voltage?

Thanks.
Gary.

 

[Fireplay5]

You need to go to jumperfree - AI overclock tuner and set it to manual.

That is just the route to go in bios to get where you need to get using the ami bios in the p4p800 deluxe motherboard.

Actually it is increasing the voltage to 2.75 I believe. What I did to install WinXP was to take 1 of the sticks of memory out of the board and put the single stick in the b1 slot which is the first black slot. I left settings at default at that time. Once Windows was installed I noticed that it was still unstable with both sticks in so I changed the ddr voltage to 2.75v and then with both sticks it seemed stable. I was messing with other things and my computer crashed soon after I posted here and I could not boot back up without the blue screen of death so I rma'd my memory back to newegg and am currently looking for some stable memory for this machine. Good luck to everyone with this problem, and hopefully it wont happen when I get the different memory.

 

[garygfx]

After playing with all sorts of BIOS settings (voltages, disabling caches etc) and removing my non critical PCI cards the darn Windows installer still couldn't copy files.

Next I ran MemTest86 and it reported 1000's of errors by the time test #2 had finished. I have nothing to compare it to but had a hunch this was way too many! Luckily I had a spare DRAM module, but only a 256mb PC2100, so I replaced the PC3200 module and tried memtest86. Well, what do you know? Zero errors! Surely I'm on to something now? If WinXP installs now I'll definately hastle the retailer to replace the Samsung PC3200 module even though I've had it for 7 months. Okay, just 2 minutes to go before the file copying part is over... my palms are sweating in anticipation!

Wowzers, it worked! It was the friggin' memory after all! If you don't hear back from me then this is the solution! Download memtest86 and test your RAM immediately!

Thanks for your support, it's nice to know others have the same problems and I'm not alone!

Gary

 

[Fireplay5]

I rma'd my memory just a few hours ago. now I have to find some that I know I can use. If someone has any suggestions on what memory to get to overclock the piss out of the p4p800 asus board I am all ears. Thanks.

Michael

 

[Mental_Myopia]

I just built a system with an Asus P4C800-E Deluxe and 2.8GHz P4, and am loving the Corsair TWINX1024-3200LLPT 1GB DDR400 XMS3200 Ultra Low Latency Dual-Channel Memory w/Platinum Heat Spreader that I installed on it! This package contains two 512MB modules which are paired up to take advantage of dual channel DDR, and automatically boot using the lowest latency possible. I grabbed two of these pairs for a total of 2GB of RAM simply for giggles. This was the main expense for my system ($283 per pair), but it was worth it since I've had no real problems from the motherboard. (Knocks on wood.)

 

[Aedak]

I'd just like to add...with some asus systems, the manufacturer's jumper settings on your HD might cause it to not recognize it when you put it together for the first time, make sure you have the right jumper settings. ie: master/slave/default, whatever. I couldn't install XP on my Asus A7N8X Deluxe until I removed the jumper completely, worked fine after that. :bandit:

 

[Mental_Myopia]

Good point!
The Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 SATA drives I recently installed actually told me to remove the jumpers before installing.
Well, the instructions told me - If my hard drives started talking to me, I believe that I'd be having more problems than my PC.

 

[Cspud]

I've been trying to get my p4c800 deluxe up for three days. I ran the memory test on my Corsair CMX256A-3200C2 and errors all over the place! Of course I have some more of this memory enroute to me in the mail. Now I have to get motherboards.com to take it back and send the "right stuff". Anyone ever work with MB.com on their RMA policy?