300gb HDD Problem

[Fibbles]

I recently killed my P4 board, so for something new and a cheap 'upgrade', I bought a socket 754 AMD64 3400 and a Soltek nForce 3 250gb board. My plan was to use only my 300gb Maxtor SATA HDD, but when I have it hooked up as the only HDD, my board fails to boot and instead attempts to initialize the NVRaid setup which begins looking for the drives. I'm not using raid, so it keeps on searching until I shut it off. It does it if it's on any of the 4 SATA headers. if I connect my Raptor, the board automatically boots off of it, and then I can use the Maxtor as a secondary drive. Using both is fine, but does anyone know why it doesn't like the Maxtor alone? There were no problems getting the drives detected and Windows loaded.

[zer0]

you know loading the drivers dosent mean it will use the raid (i think) so if you can get the drivers on a floppy and let it have them... and if it trys to setup raid then i dont know what to do...

(that a good answer...?)

[Fibbles]

you know loading the drivers dosent mean it will use the raid (i think) so if you can get the drivers on a floppy and let it have them... and if it trys to setup raid then i dont know what to do...

(that a good answer...?)
I think it's a good answer, but I've already tried it. Same thing happens.

[fivecheebs]

strange...

The raptor ... has it been in another system already running? Was it the only boot disk on the last install? I'm wondereing if there is a boot.ini thats taking charge on the raptor and allowing it to boot. Maybe you could copy it over? I dont know an awful lot about boot.ini files, but i do know the comp should not have a problem booting if it cant find a boot.ini!

Or maybe something to do with the size of the disk? Try partitioning it?

Sorry buddy, just clutching at straws really.

[ỒĊBłůē]

Just reading through the manual here - what happens if you disable RAID in your BIOS (Integrated peripherals - IDE function Setup)?

[furious trout]

I think Cheebs may have nailed it. Windows can have issues if the boot.ini file is written past a certain block on the disk ( i forget how far out it has to be) Occasionally defrag utilities can move it past the boundary and then your system won't boot. Obviously now disk are getting bigger and bigger this is going to be a bigger issue.

[fivecheebs]

Just thought of one more possibility ...

Do you have more than one sata controller? Maybe booting from one is more reliable than another when there is no OS avaliable.

[Starbuck3733T]

Have you configured the array already?

[fivecheebs]

he says he hasnt configured an array because hes not using raid.

[Fibbles]

I have the onboard RAID off. The Raptor was formatted with the WinXP install, as was the 300 when I booted from the CD to get into the Windows setup (it only let me get to the Windows install when I have it to boot from the CD. Setup only saw it as a 137gb drive, so I can't imagine it thinks it has too much space (I would have just enabled the extra space later with Maxtor's utilities or SP1). It does the same thing on every controller too, but if it's second fiddle to the Raptor, every problem goes away. I'm using the Raptor as my Windows/Programs/Saved stuff drive and my 300 is my storage and games drive. That will work and I'm tired of messing with it :mellow:

[fivecheebs]

were both drives in postion when you did the xp installs?

Did you install XP on the raptor first?

Was the raptor and its XP install in the machine when you installed xp onm the maxtor?

If you can answer yes to those my bet is the boot.ini.

Try copying the boot.ini onto the maxtor from the raptor?

[Fibbles]

Nope. When I did the first WinXP install, the only drive connected was the 300 (off a clean reformat). Then, after it didn't make it past the NVRAID search after the WinXP restart, I thought there might be a SATA/HDD issue, so I removed the 300 (unplugged both the data and power to the drive and from the board/psu) and tried it with the Raptor. It started up the same, then after the setup restarted, I changed the bios to boot form the HDD (same as I did before) and it worked, it went right to the WinXP setup w/out checking for the NVRAID array. I tried the 300 alone with all the different options and controller, and even with RAID on, it stops at the drive detection spot (it's right after post).

[zer0]

I have the onboard RAID off. The Raptor was formatted with the WinXP install, as was the 300 when I booted from the CD to get into the Windows setup (it only let me get to the Windows install when I have it to boot from the CD. Setup only saw it as a 137gb drive, so I can't imagine it thinks it has too much space (I would have just enabled the extra space later with Maxtor's utilities or SP1). It does the same thing on every controller too, but if it's second fiddle to the Raptor, every problem goes away. I'm using the Raptor as my Windows/Programs/Saved stuff drive and my 300 is my storage and games drive. That will work and I'm tired of messing with it :mellow:
sounds like a good idea to me...

[Starbuck3733T]

PM me if you want a slipstreamed SP2 CD, or if you want a util that can put the partition out to the full 300GB after you install.

Quite frankly this sounds like a mobo firmware problem to me - i'd contact soltek.

[furious trout]

it's reporting it as 137gb Sounds like a you need to enable 48 bit LBA support

Kb article (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013)

[Fibbles]

I've got the full 300 up now. After I loaded XP onto the Raptor and got everything working, I added the 300 and it saw the full drive (maybe it was after I got SP1, I can't remember, I think I've been awake too long :unsure: ).

I'll shoot Soltek an email or find some more info. This board is definitely stable and I'm pretty gladI chose it over the others I was considering.

[Starbuck3733T]

it's reporting it as 137gb Sounds like a you need to enable 48 bit LBA support

Kb article (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013)

I think you nailed it - i dind't know some bioses would let you turn it off! (this is, of course, what I get for being purely on scsi for so many years!)

[Fibbles]

it's reporting it as 137gb Sounds like a you need to enable 48 bit LBA support

Kb article (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013)It reports 300 in the bios, Windows only sees the 137, but that's because it's not SP1/48 bit enabled yet (I have to DL SP1 after I get it installed). Maxtor has a utility to gain the rest of the space after Windows is set up too.

[furious trout]

It reports 300 in the bios, Windows only sees the 137, but that's because it's not SP1/48 bit enabled yet (I have to DL SP1 after I get it installed). Maxtor has a utility to gain the rest of the space after Windows is set up too.
fair enough, might be worthwhile slipstreaming SP1 (prefereably SP2) into windows so you don't have to download the patch everytime here's (http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp) a good walkthrough for you.
Saves a load of hassle & time ^_^

[Pug]

it's reporting it as 137gb Sounds like a you need to enable 48 bit LBA support

Kb article (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013)
Nice find. I'd not come across that. B)

[furious trout]

it's amazing the things you find out when you regularly break your pc :h34r:

[Fibbles]

fair enough, might be worthwhile slipstreaming SP1 (prefereably SP2) into windows so you don't have to download the patch everytime here's (http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp) a good walkthrough for you.
Saves a load of hassle & time ^_^
Allrighty ^_^

[fivecheebs]

Someone else, i dont remember who, posted a link to nLite (http://nuhi.msfn.org/nlite.html) on these boards. It slipstreams, take out the unwanted bits (even IE if you want), you can add drivers, you can set unattended levels etc... Its really good, but you must have net 1.1 iirc

[furious trout]

Someone else, i dont remember who, posted a link to nLite (http://nuhi.msfn.org/nlite.html) on these boards. It slipstreams, take out the unwanted bits (even IE if you want), you can add drivers, you can set unattended levels etc... Its really good, but you must have net 1.1 iirc
Or if you want to do an unattended install without .net or you just like to muck about with stuff like i do ^_^ here's how to do it (http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prbc_cai_pyhl.asp)

[fivecheebs]

Good link there FT :) It looks like nlite can make life a little easier for you though, and it can remove all the chaff that you dont usually get the option to not install.