Strange PC/reformatting issue

[IVB]

One of my PCs is a little flaky, so I figured I'd reformat it. It's the perfect PC really, Abit AB9 Pro, Intel north/southbridge, 2 different RAID arrays possible. I do a RAID1-OS, and RAID1-"mission critical data". I also use it for the CCTV server, and there's a modem in there too for C-ID for CQC.

Well, when I boot up with the XP installed on the HD, it works fine. But when I try and reformat it with the XP Home disc, it blue-screens whilst loading windows. It says to check the hard disks, run chkdsk. (That's running now. )

I happened to have 2 extra 300GB SATA drives from my hard disk consolidation efforts, so I plopped those in there in case there was a hard disk issue, but the same dealio.

Any idea why a PC would boot up off hard disk, but blue-screen when you try to install Windows? Or why it wouldn't even let me use different hard disks for this?

Could this be a memory thing?

 

[CollinR]

Format the HDD with multiple partitions, you shouldn't need more then 10GB for the Windows partition.

This will speed your whole process up plus XP before SP2 can't handle disks bigger then IIRC 250GB.

 

[IVB]

Thing is, I don't even get to the XP partitioning section. It blue-screens right when it goes into "launching windows" on the setup disk.

Bizarrely enough, when I pull the XP CD out, it boots just fine to that same HD. And if I put different HDs in to format, it goes back to blue-screen at the exact same location.

I've got a few random thoughts & suggestions elsewhere, i'll try those tomorrow. I've got a 7 day old backup, but i'm making another one now of my critical data "just in case", so I can't do it now.

1) run memtest, see if the memory is flaky
2) move the RAM to a different slot
3) move the hard disks to different SATA connectors

 

[CollinR]

Try a disk smaller then 250GB if possible.

 

[roussell]

Sounds like you may have a bad CD drive. I had a similar experience not long ago, could not install WinXP from a CD. Strange things is, I could install Linux or FreeBSD, just not Windows - I thought it was the computing gods trying to tell me something, then I realized that I had burned the 'nixes on DVDs instead of CDs, but XP was on a CD. Aparently different lasers are used to read the different media and something had happened to the CD laser in the drive. For a quick verification, I copied XP to a DVD and tried it, it worked. I eventually replaced the drive and all was well...

Hope it helps,
Terry

 

[electron]

I'm thinking that XP setup is having trouble reading the RAID / SATA hardware. What's the exact STOP code?

 

[DavidL]

Did you F6 to add the RAID / SATA drivers BEFORE installing (or attempting to) install windows?

This is proven hardware before the decision to reformat? What is definition of "flaky"? Possible RAM memory issue?

 

[IVB]

Yep, it was the **%&# 3rd party RAID.

The Intel RAID worked fine with the XP SP2 cd, but the JMicron RAID chipset was killing it. And, in typical 3rd party fashion, I had to F6/add the Intel drivers, *then* add the JMicron ones, not vice-versa, otherwise i'd bluescreen. Very very touchy.

Now I remember why I hate 3rd party solutions...

 

[IVB]

I think my favorite part of today was how I just got confused, and accidentally re-formatted my RAID1 1Terabyte array that was in the machine. Had several dozen ripped DVDS and my mission critical data.

I made a backup of the mission critical data 2 days ago before I started, in case I did anything dumb, but obviously not of the DVDs. I guess i'm not halfway through ripping all my DVDs after all...

 

[dsiroky]

typically this is a storage driver issue....

works during setup in ide emulation mode, but after the reboot you get a stop 7 error indicating the storage is not available.

sometimes you can work around it by pressing f7 (not sure if correct key), during the initial text based setup to add the storage driver during the text setup process.

if that doesn't work, send me a PM and I'll see if I can dig up a free msft support incident for you.

 

[IVB]

Thanks anyway, I got it working. I didn't load the 3rd party drivers in the right order, hence the crash. I had to load the Intel ICH8R driver first, then the jMicron.