Windows XP (fresh install) won't boot from SATA drive

[smimon]

Hi, hope somebody can help me out with this...

My old IDE har drive completely died on me so I thought i'd use the opportunity to upgrade to SATA.

I bought a Hitachi 7k250 Deskstar 80Gb SATA drive and an EIO-8301R SATA controller card in case I ever got another drive and wanted to use the RAID.

When I try to install XP, I load the drivers for the controller from a floppy disk I made and partition the drive. The drivers show up as Silicon Image 3x12 SATARAID.
If I try to format the partition with NTFS, it proceeds to 100% but then tells me that there was an error and setup cannot proceed. When I format the partition with FAT32,
setup copies the installation files over correctly and then reboots. However, after rebooting the systems halts with a black screen after trying to boot off the cd.

I have tried changing every possible sequence of bootup options on my BIOS (HDD-0, HDD-1, HDD-2, Floppy, CD-ROM, LS120, SCSI), disabling the onboard IDE (both channels),
unplugging every other drive except the SATA one, copying the driver files manually to the system32\drivers folder manually, and delaying the IDE detect by 5 seconds,
but all to no avail. It seems my system cannot detect my SATA drive as bootable.

Any suggestions or advice anyone could give me on this would be greatly appreciated

[boobzilla]

seems like ur doing everything right, i would ask c-deck, hes the maSTER!!LOL

[C_deck]

there are others here just as knowledgable.

in the bios, try boot from scsi or boot from other. when you install a pci drive controller, the contoller's bios loads up just after the comp's bios. do you see it on the screen after bootup? it will say something like press cntl - S, tab or something like that. what options do you have in there? as well, you are not creating a raid array so you have to load the ide drivers. what does it say in your manual for the controller?

[smimon]

Managed to get it working in the end; even though i'd reset the bios earlier in the day something seemed to have been changed in it. I took the battery out for a few hours and when I put it back in the system booted.
It all went wrong again though when I put the VIA 4 in 1's on. Rebooted and windows was stuck in 4-bit colour mode. Put my graphics card drivers on but then when I rebooted again windows said something about not being able to find my profile and would not get past the welcome screen. Looks like i'm going to have to reinstall again...
Don't suppose anyone has any idea why I can't format my primary partition NTFS?

[ECC]

funny you should say that. i put on the latest 4 in 1's yesterday and my rig got totaly borked(even after 2x reinstall of winxp). then i took the hdd out and tryed it in a differnt rig and no spin up, tryed it in my rig again- same result. RIP dirve.- dunno if they are connected-

[C_deck]

that looks like a corrupted registry or page file problem. make sure the ide ribbon and power cables are securely attached to the hdd and the mobo.

[smimon]

I checked the cables but everything seemed fine. I've now reinstalled again. After disabling both IDE channels my system now boots in under 5 seconds! I haven't put the 4 in 1s back on as I am worried it will screw my system again. Is there a known compatibility issue with my SATA controller and these drivers? And will I suffer any kind of significant performance hit without them installed?

[C_deck]

you can install the 4 in 1's without the ide driver but before you do, contact via and ask their tech support peeps about your problem and which driver version would be the best for you.