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P4C 800 E Woes

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Quarl

Registered
Joined
Jan 6, 2004
OK I'm having major difficulties getting windows xp home edition installed on my new system. All the parts are installed correctly (as far as I can see), it powers up ok, I flashed to BIOS version 10014 just fine. Setup finds all of my drives. 1 WD SATA 36 GB drive that I'm trying to install the OS on. 1 WD 120 GB Special Edition. P4 2.6 ghz, 2 x 512 Meg Mushkin L2 3500 RAM.

I left the settings in the BIOS as default except disabling the promise raid controller since I'm not setting up a raid. (SATA drive is installed thru the primary SATA port) Booting up, It sees my plextor 708a dvd burner and finds the cd rom in there just fine.

The first time I tried to format the SATA drive I received an error and had to redo it. I tried installing windows xp like 5 times last night. I keep getting interrupts in the installation saying that different files were not copied correctly, sometimes I can hit enter to retry and it'll go past it, but sometimes it won't go past a specific file. It is also never the same file, it's been several different files with each installation attempt. Once or twice I got through the installation but when it reboots and the windows xp screen is coming on it goes to a blue screen giving 0x0000000a errors and IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL and junk like that.

I also tried to load it up in the EIDE drive, it seemd to go better, got all the way through the installation w/o a problem, rebooted then got a black screen on starting up that says windows had been halted because a file was missing or corrupt in the system/config file.

Anyway, it's very frustrating, this is my first home build and I'm unsure what to do next. Is it a bad Motherboard? Can anyone give me some clues on where to look or what to try next?
 
You need to enable the promise controller for SATA so you can boot off your Raptor. Under the promise controller inthe BIOS set it for SATA.
 
Thanks for the quick reply, isn't the promise controller just for RAID setup? I don't have anything installed in the RAID ports at all...
 
Quarl said:
Thanks for the quick reply, isn't the promise controller just for RAID setup? I don't have anything installed in the RAID ports at all...
Quarl, Welcome! Hey we all have problems at times, but we all get thru it, TRUST ME!hehe You can run a non Raid Sata orphan off of either the Ich5r ports or the Promise 378 ports. The Ich5r is by far the better alternative because it operates independant of the normal bus channel and it affords you the ability to migrate all data over to an array at a later date thru windows effortlessly if you so choose too! Pretty neat huh? If you still need further help, just pm me.:D After all, that's why we're all here, to help and support each other. :beer:
 
I managed to get windows xp up and running on the IDE drive but I still can't get it installed through SATA. I tried plugging the SATA drive thru the southern port (RAID controller ports) and installed the win xp drivers (The ones mentioned in the link posted above for single drive setup) by hitting f6 during installation. Yet I still got errors of missing files or corrupt files during windows installation. I hit enter to get past those by retrying and eventually got blue screened again.

I seriously feel like something is wrong with one of the parts. Even installed on the IDE drive I'm getting wierd errors from time to time. I logged in once and couldn't go online, via some IE error but this morning I got on just fine. I tested both hard drives via wester digitals utility and they both came through clean. I'm going to try and get memtest running the rest of the day while I'm at work.

Am I on the wrong track here? Maybe I'm just missing something. I enabled SATA promise controller, the drive was recognized and I installed the driver via floppy but pfhsh. That's it. Plus, if it's purely a SATA why am I still having strange errors on the IDE?

Edit:

Ok so I started up memtest before leaving for work. Before the first pass finished I had 30 errors...

My question then is, is it safe to assume this is what's causing all my problems and that if I RMA the sticks I should be able to get moving again?
 
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Quarl said:
I managed to get windows xp up and running on the IDE drive but I still can't get it installed through SATA. I tried plugging the SATA drive thru the southern port (RAID controller ports) and installed the win xp drivers (The ones mentioned in the link posted above for single drive setup) by hitting f6 during installation. Yet I still got errors of missing files or corrupt files during windows installation. I hit enter to get past those by retrying and eventually got blue screened again.

I seriously feel like something is wrong with one of the parts. Even installed on the IDE drive I'm getting wierd errors from time to time. I logged in once and couldn't go online, via some IE error but this morning I got on just fine. I tested both hard drives via wester digitals utility and they both came through clean. I'm going to try and get memtest running the rest of the day while I'm at work.

Am I on the wrong track here? Maybe I'm just missing something. I enabled SATA promise controller, the drive was recognized and I installed the driver via floppy but pfhsh. That's it. Plus, if it's purely a SATA why am I still having strange errors on the IDE?

Edit:

Ok so I started up memtest before leaving for work. Before the first pass finished I had 30 errors...

My question then is, is it safe to assume this is what's causing all my problems and that if I RMA the sticks I should be able to get moving again?
Quarl, what type of ram do you have and have you made any overclock or ram adjustments in the bios yet? (just want to minimize issues and try to isolate problem):D
 
It's Mushkin L2 3500 2 X 512 sticks. No adjustments made in BIOS at all yet. Still running at default with all timings, bus speeds etc. Just device configuration changes during installation.
 
Quarl said:
It's Mushkin L2 3500 2 X 512 sticks. No adjustments made in BIOS at all yet. Still running at default with all timings, bus speeds etc. Just device configuration changes during installation.
Well then, that's excellent, You certainly shouldn't have an issue with ram! pm me:D
Which version of XP do you have? (home or pro)?
 
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