Here's a question for the Nvidia chipset / Windows Xp experts!

[m***@fuse.net]

I have an Asus A8N SLI Deluxe motherboard, 4 gigs of Ram,
(only 2.75gb avail tho) 5 internal harddrives (1 IDE and 4 Sata)
and an ATI Radeon x1800 Video card. (the one with 512mb cache
I can't remember if that's the xl or xt tho, altho it probably doesn't
matter) The hard drive on IDE is partioned into 2 partittions.
(C and H). I am running Windows XP Professional. Computer
Management/Disk Management it listing the IDE drive as Device 0
Which is correct I assume, my boot.ini file says (also correctly so, I
assume), and my bios settings are correct also I assume, as
it is correctly showing the IDE drive as the FIRST hardrive out
of the list of 5.

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional"
/fastdetect

The motherboard is using bios 1016. (tho I have used earlier
versions also, no diff) I am using the Nforce 4 chipset drivers
version 6.86 (altho I started out with the 6.70's).I am using the IDE
disk as boot, cause it does actually benchmark much faster
than any of my Sata drives, even the 10k rpm Raptor I was using.
(Because of the 16mb cache the IDE drive has I assume)
(Something like 80mbs compared to 62 mbs tranfer rate if I
remember) The Bios is basically set to defaults, except the
RAM timings which I set to manual (to get the 400mhz clock
speed in lieu of the 333mhz it defaults to on auto) The rest of
all those ram timing settings I have left alone, cause I have no
idea what they are. All I know is I have 4gb of Patriot Ram, with
a 400mhz speed.

Okay, so that's everything I have. Now here's my question/problem.
The system always boots fine, pretty fast in fact, considering how
much crap I have auto starting at bootup, And it seems to
run pretty well. Due to certain issues, most notably frequently
getting errors on the C drive (daily) requiring booting from the windows
cd and doing a chkdsk /r (which takes forever on these 500gb
harddrives) I had wanted to just do a repair install of windows to see
if that would help. The problem is, when I boot from the windows cd,
it says it cannot find any previous instalations of windows to repair,
and wants to proceed imediately to installing windows fresh.
But, if I were to pick the C partion to do the install, THEN
it comes up and says "There's already Windows installed on
this partition" ... so go figure. The previous setup screen says
there is no windows on here then the next one says there is.

I've asked on here, because asking on the Windows XP groups
have got me nowhere, I guess cause there is no one on there
that understands the Nforce chipset mother boards. Most noteably
how they argue with me and tell me "YOU MUST press F6 and
install Sata drivers BEFORE installing windows". I can't get them
to understand a: I have NO floppy drive and b: How is it then
that the windows install cd "sees and identifies all the sata drives
without me pressing F6?" (the most common comment was
Sata drivers have NOTHING to do with the motherboard, bios
or chipset)

Sorry this is so long winded, but I just wanted to explain what I
had ....Is there anyway I can get this Windows to acknowledge
"my previous installation"

Thank you.

[André, PE1PQX]

Post by m***@fuse.net
I have an Asus A8N SLI Deluxe motherboard, 4 gigs of Ram,
(only 2.75gb avail tho) 5 internal harddrives (1 IDE and 4 Sata)
and an ATI Radeon x1800 Video card. (the one with 512mb cache
I can't remember if that's the xl or xt tho, altho it probably doesn't
matter) The hard drive on IDE is partioned into 2 partittions.
(C and H). I am running Windows XP Professional. Computer
Management/Disk Management it listing the IDE drive as Device 0
Which is correct I assume, my boot.ini file says (also correctly so, I
assume), and my bios settings are correct also I assume, as
it is correctly showing the IDE drive as the FIRST hardrive out
of the list of 5.
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional"
/fastdetect
The motherboard is using bios 1016. (tho I have used earlier
versions also, no diff) I am using the Nforce 4 chipset drivers
version 6.86 (altho I started out with the 6.70's).I am using the IDE
disk as boot, cause it does actually benchmark much faster
than any of my Sata drives, even the 10k rpm Raptor I was using.
(Because of the 16mb cache the IDE drive has I assume)
(Something like 80mbs compared to 62 mbs tranfer rate if I
remember) The Bios is basically set to defaults, except the
RAM timings which I set to manual (to get the 400mhz clock
speed in lieu of the 333mhz it defaults to on auto) The rest of
all those ram timing settings I have left alone, cause I have no
idea what they are. All I know is I have 4gb of Patriot Ram, with
a 400mhz speed.
Okay, so that's everything I have. Now here's my question/problem.
The system always boots fine, pretty fast in fact, considering how
much crap I have auto starting at bootup, And it seems to
run pretty well. Due to certain issues, most notably frequently
getting errors on the C drive (daily) requiring booting from the windows
cd and doing a chkdsk /r (which takes forever on these 500gb
harddrives) I had wanted to just do a repair install of windows to see
if that would help. The problem is, when I boot from the windows cd,
it says it cannot find any previous instalations of windows to repair,
and wants to proceed imediately to installing windows fresh.
But, if I were to pick the C partion to do the install, THEN
it comes up and says "There's already Windows installed on
this partition" ... so go figure. The previous setup screen says
there is no windows on here then the next one says there is.
I've asked on here, because asking on the Windows XP groups
have got me nowhere, I guess cause there is no one on there
that understands the Nforce chipset mother boards. Most noteably
how they argue with me and tell me "YOU MUST press F6 and
install Sata drivers BEFORE installing windows". I can't get them
to understand a: I have NO floppy drive and b: How is it then
that the windows install cd "sees and identifies all the sata drives
without me pressing F6?" (the most common comment was
Sata drivers have NOTHING to do with the motherboard, bios
or chipset)
Sorry this is so long winded, but I just wanted to explain what I
had ....Is there anyway I can get this Windows to acknowledge
"my previous installation"
Thank you.

My guess is you have a failing IDE cable from the motherboard to your
IDE harddrive, try with an replacement cable.
An other thing might be the cable from your power supply, or te
powersupply itself. If possible, test with an other PSU.
Last thing is a failing harddrive, check in an other computer and if
needed and possible, backup data!

During the OS-install on a IDE drive, you do not need to access the
SATA drives, and to not need the drivers for it.
After OS-install, you allways can install the SATA drivers and drives.

One hint: after OS-install, first install the chipset drivers for
optimum result.

I hope this will help.

André

[André, PE1PQX]

Post by m***@fuse.net
I have an Asus A8N SLI Deluxe motherboard, 4 gigs of Ram,
(only 2.75gb avail tho) 5 internal harddrives (1 IDE and 4 Sata)
and an ATI Radeon x1800 Video card. (the one with 512mb cache
I can't remember if that's the xl or xt tho, altho it probably doesn't
matter) The hard drive on IDE is partioned into 2 partittions.
(C and H). I am running Windows XP Professional. Computer
Management/Disk Management it listing the IDE drive as Device 0
Which is correct I assume, my boot.ini file says (also correctly so, I
assume), and my bios settings are correct also I assume, as
it is correctly showing the IDE drive as the FIRST hardrive out
of the list of 5.
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional"
/fastdetect
The motherboard is using bios 1016. (tho I have used earlier
versions also, no diff) I am using the Nforce 4 chipset drivers
version 6.86 (altho I started out with the 6.70's).I am using the IDE
disk as boot, cause it does actually benchmark much faster
than any of my Sata drives, even the 10k rpm Raptor I was using.
(Because of the 16mb cache the IDE drive has I assume)
(Something like 80mbs compared to 62 mbs tranfer rate if I
remember) The Bios is basically set to defaults, except the
RAM timings which I set to manual (to get the 400mhz clock
speed in lieu of the 333mhz it defaults to on auto) The rest of
all those ram timing settings I have left alone, cause I have no
idea what they are. All I know is I have 4gb of Patriot Ram, with
a 400mhz speed.
Okay, so that's everything I have. Now here's my question/problem.
The system always boots fine, pretty fast in fact, considering how
much crap I have auto starting at bootup, And it seems to
run pretty well. Due to certain issues, most notably frequently
getting errors on the C drive (daily) requiring booting from the windows
cd and doing a chkdsk /r (which takes forever on these 500gb
harddrives) I had wanted to just do a repair install of windows to see
if that would help. The problem is, when I boot from the windows cd,
it says it cannot find any previous instalations of windows to repair,
and wants to proceed imediately to installing windows fresh.
But, if I were to pick the C partion to do the install, THEN
it comes up and says "There's already Windows installed on
this partition" ... so go figure. The previous setup screen says
there is no windows on here then the next one says there is.
I've asked on here, because asking on the Windows XP groups
have got me nowhere, I guess cause there is no one on there
that understands the Nforce chipset mother boards. Most noteably
how they argue with me and tell me "YOU MUST press F6 and
install Sata drivers BEFORE installing windows". I can't get them
to understand a: I have NO floppy drive and b: How is it then
that the windows install cd "sees and identifies all the sata drives
without me pressing F6?" (the most common comment was
Sata drivers have NOTHING to do with the motherboard, bios
or chipset)
Sorry this is so long winded, but I just wanted to explain what I
had ....Is there anyway I can get this Windows to acknowledge
"my previous installation"
Thank you.

My guess is you have a failing IDE cable from the motherboard to your IDE
harddrive, try with an replacement cable.
An other thing might be the cable from your power supply, or te powersupply
itself. If possible, test with an other PSU.
Last thing is a failing harddrive, check in an other computer and if needed
and possible, backup data!
During the OS-install on a IDE drive, you do not need to access the SATA
drives, and to not need the drivers for it.
After OS-install, you allways can install the SATA drivers and drives.
One hint: after OS-install, first install the chipset drivers for optimum
result.
I hope this will help.
André

I forgot to mention that Win XP can't handle 4 Gbyte RAM, it is a 32bit
limitation AFAIK...

[Rob]

Post by m***@fuse.net
I have an Asus A8N SLI Deluxe motherboard, 4 gigs of Ram,
(only 2.75gb avail tho) 5 internal harddrives (1 IDE and 4 Sata)
and an ATI Radeon x1800 Video card. (the one with 512mb cache
I can't remember if that's the xl or xt tho, altho it probably doesn't
matter) The hard drive on IDE is partioned into 2 partittions.
(C and H). I am running Windows XP Professional. Computer
Management/Disk Management it listing the IDE drive as Device 0
Which is correct I assume, my boot.ini file says (also correctly so, I
assume), and my bios settings are correct also I assume, as
it is correctly showing the IDE drive as the FIRST hardrive out
of the list of 5.
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional"
/fastdetect
The motherboard is using bios 1016. (tho I have used earlier
versions also, no diff) I am using the Nforce 4 chipset drivers
version 6.86 (altho I started out with the 6.70's).I am using the IDE
disk as boot, cause it does actually benchmark much faster
than any of my Sata drives, even the 10k rpm Raptor I was using.
(Because of the 16mb cache the IDE drive has I assume)
(Something like 80mbs compared to 62 mbs tranfer rate if I
remember) The Bios is basically set to defaults, except the
RAM timings which I set to manual (to get the 400mhz clock
speed in lieu of the 333mhz it defaults to on auto) The rest of
all those ram timing settings I have left alone, cause I have no
idea what they are. All I know is I have 4gb of Patriot Ram, with
a 400mhz speed.
Okay, so that's everything I have. Now here's my question/problem.
The system always boots fine, pretty fast in fact, considering how
much crap I have auto starting at bootup, And it seems to
run pretty well. Due to certain issues, most notably frequently
getting errors on the C drive (daily) requiring booting from the windows
cd and doing a chkdsk /r (which takes forever on these 500gb
harddrives) I had wanted to just do a repair install of windows to see
if that would help. The problem is, when I boot from the windows cd,
it says it cannot find any previous instalations of windows to repair,
and wants to proceed imediately to installing windows fresh.
But, if I were to pick the C partion to do the install, THEN
it comes up and says "There's already Windows installed on
this partition" ... so go figure. The previous setup screen says
there is no windows on here then the next one says there is.
I've asked on here, because asking on the Windows XP groups
have got me nowhere, I guess cause there is no one on there
that understands the Nforce chipset mother boards. Most noteably
how they argue with me and tell me "YOU MUST press F6 and
install Sata drivers BEFORE installing windows". I can't get them
to understand a: I have NO floppy drive and b: How is it then
that the windows install cd "sees and identifies all the sata drives
without me pressing F6?" (the most common comment was
Sata drivers have NOTHING to do with the motherboard, bios
or chipset)
Sorry this is so long winded, but I just wanted to explain what I
had ....Is there anyway I can get this Windows to acknowledge
"my previous installation"
Thank you.

I couldn't explain properly why this happens but it has something to do
with he way the controllers and their attached devices get enumerated.
The short of it is, I had the same issue with an ASUS NF2 board. The OS
was installed on an IDE drive however a non-RAID SATA drive was also in
the system. The only way I could do a repair install was to disable
the SATA controller in the BIOS because Windows would always default to
it, just as you're experiencing now (F6 is for a RAID setup). It seems
Windows is only willing to do a repair install on the drive it thinks
should find itself and on. Unfortunately, that isn't always the drive
you want, nor will it let you choose. You have to beat it into
submission by allowing it only one option. Hope that helps a little.
If Paul comes along, I know he can explain this very well!
Rob C.

[ChipMonk]

Post by m***@fuse.net
I have an Asus A8N SLI Deluxe motherboard, 4 gigs of Ram,
(only 2.75gb avail tho) 5 internal harddrives (1 IDE and 4 Sata)
and an ATI Radeon x1800 Video card. (the one with 512mb cache
I can't remember if that's the xl or xt tho, altho it probably doesn't
matter) The hard drive on IDE is partioned into 2 partittions.
(C and H). I am running Windows XP Professional. Computer
Management/Disk Management it listing the IDE drive as Device 0
Which is correct I assume, my boot.ini file says (also correctly so, I
assume), and my bios settings are correct also I assume, as
it is correctly showing the IDE drive as the FIRST hardrive out
of the list of 5.
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional"
/fastdetect
The motherboard is using bios 1016. (tho I have used earlier
versions also, no diff) I am using the Nforce 4 chipset drivers
version 6.86 (altho I started out with the 6.70's).I am using the IDE
disk as boot, cause it does actually benchmark much faster
than any of my Sata drives, even the 10k rpm Raptor I was using.
(Because of the 16mb cache the IDE drive has I assume)
(Something like 80mbs compared to 62 mbs tranfer rate if I
remember) The Bios is basically set to defaults, except the
RAM timings which I set to manual (to get the 400mhz clock
speed in lieu of the 333mhz it defaults to on auto) The rest of
all those ram timing settings I have left alone, cause I have no
idea what they are. All I know is I have 4gb of Patriot Ram, with
a 400mhz speed.
Okay, so that's everything I have. Now here's my question/problem.
The system always boots fine, pretty fast in fact, considering how
much crap I have auto starting at bootup, And it seems to
run pretty well. Due to certain issues, most notably frequently
getting errors on the C drive (daily) requiring booting from the windows
cd and doing a chkdsk /r (which takes forever on these 500gb
harddrives) I had wanted to just do a repair install of windows to see
if that would help. The problem is, when I boot from the windows cd,
it says it cannot find any previous instalations of windows to repair,
and wants to proceed imediately to installing windows fresh.
But, if I were to pick the C partion to do the install, THEN
it comes up and says "There's already Windows installed on
this partition" ... so go figure. The previous setup screen says
there is no windows on here then the next one says there is.
I've asked on here, because asking on the Windows XP groups
have got me nowhere, I guess cause there is no one on there
that understands the Nforce chipset mother boards. Most noteably
how they argue with me and tell me "YOU MUST press F6 and
install Sata drivers BEFORE installing windows". I can't get them
to understand a: I have NO floppy drive and b: How is it then
that the windows install cd "sees and identifies all the sata drives
without me pressing F6?" (the most common comment was
Sata drivers have NOTHING to do with the motherboard, bios
or chipset)
Sorry this is so long winded, but I just wanted to explain what I
had ....Is there anyway I can get this Windows to acknowledge
"my previous installation"
Thank you.

I suggest the first thing you do is reset the RAM timings back to 333
and see if this sorts it. 400 is OK for 2GB RAM but the system can't
handle that speed with 4GB.
ChipMonk

[m***@fuse.net]

Post by ChipMonk
I suggest the first thing you do is reset the RAM timings back to 333
and see if this sorts it. 400 is OK for 2GB RAM but the system can't
handle that speed with 4GB.
ChipMonk

I had already tried that (in desperation) It made no difference. But
actually, I would love to know what all those other ram timings (all the 2T
and 3T ones) should be for this Patriot Ram.

[Andy]

Post by m***@fuse.net
I have an Asus A8N SLI Deluxe motherboard, 4 gigs of Ram,
(only 2.75gb avail tho) 5 internal harddrives (1 IDE and 4 Sata)
and an ATI Radeon x1800 Video card. (the one with 512mb cache
I can't remember if that's the xl or xt tho, altho it probably doesn't
matter) The hard drive on IDE is partioned into 2 partittions.
(C and H). I am running Windows XP Professional. Computer
Management/Disk Management it listing the IDE drive as Device 0
Which is correct I assume, my boot.ini file says (also correctly so, I
assume), and my bios settings are correct also I assume, as
it is correctly showing the IDE drive as the FIRST hardrive out
of the list of 5.
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional"
/fastdetect

If the motherboard Bios is working correctly, the rdisk() numbers
correspond to the order of the drives in the Boot menu/Hard Disk
Drives bios setting. In other words, if you set the bios to boot from
one of the SATA drives, then install Windows XP, that drive would
become rdisk(0).

Once Windows XP is running, it no longer has access to the Bios, so in
Disk Management, it orders the drives by the interfaces they're
connected to: IDE drives, then SATA drives, then ?.

Post by m***@fuse.net
The motherboard is using bios 1016. (tho I have used earlier
versions also, no diff) I am using the Nforce 4 chipset drivers
version 6.86 (altho I started out with the 6.70's).I am using the IDE
disk as boot, cause it does actually benchmark much faster
than any of my Sata drives, even the 10k rpm Raptor I was using.
(Because of the 16mb cache the IDE drive has I assume)
(Something like 80mbs compared to 62 mbs tranfer rate if I
remember) The Bios is basically set to defaults, except the
RAM timings which I set to manual (to get the 400mhz clock
speed in lieu of the 333mhz it defaults to on auto) The rest of
all those ram timing settings I have left alone, cause I have no
idea what they are. All I know is I have 4gb of Patriot Ram, with
a 400mhz speed.

What physical disk drive does Disk Management says contains the
Windows system partition?

Post by m***@fuse.net
Okay, so that's everything I have. Now here's my question/problem.
The system always boots fine, pretty fast in fact, considering how
much crap I have auto starting at bootup, And it seems to
run pretty well. Due to certain issues, most notably frequently
getting errors on the C drive (daily) requiring booting from the windows
cd and doing a chkdsk /r (which takes forever on these 500gb
harddrives) I had wanted to just do a repair install of windows to see
if that would help. The problem is, when I boot from the windows cd,

When you boot from the XP CD, do you see the "Press any key to boot
from the CD" prompt?
Or does the computer just immediately starts running Windows setup?

Post by m***@fuse.net
it says it cannot find any previous instalations of windows to repair,

If Windows setup does not detect existing Windows installations, that
means that the disk drive it sees as the bootable drive does not
contain the Windows XP system partition (no boot.ini).

If the IDE drive is supposed to be that drive, then one thing you can
do is disable in BIOS setup the SATA ports 1, 2, 3, and 4 (page 4-25
in the manual). This will make only the IDE drive visible, and if
Windows setup does not see existing Windows installations, then the
IDE drive does not contain the system partition.

Post by m***@fuse.net
and wants to proceed imediately to installing windows fresh.
But, if I were to pick the C partion to do the install, THEN
it comes up and says "There's already Windows installed on
this partition" ... so go figure.

At this point setup sees the Windows folder in the partition.

Windows setup usually assigns C: to the system partition, so if setup
did not detect any Windows installation, that partition should not
contain boot.ini.

Post by m***@fuse.net
The previous setup screen says
there is no windows on here then the next one says there is.
I've asked on here, because asking on the Windows XP groups
have got me nowhere, I guess cause there is no one on there
that understands the Nforce chipset mother boards. Most noteably
how they argue with me and tell me "YOU MUST press F6 and
install Sata drivers BEFORE installing windows". I can't get them
to understand a: I have NO floppy drive and b: How is it then
that the windows install cd "sees and identifies all the sata drives
without me pressing F6?" (the most common comment was
Sata drivers have NOTHING to do with the motherboard, bios
or chipset)
Sorry this is so long winded, but I just wanted to explain what I
had ....Is there anyway I can get this Windows to acknowledge
"my previous installation"
Thank you.

[m***@fuse.net]

Post by Andy
What physical disk drive does Disk Management says contains the
Windows system partition?

It says "Disk 0" ..... one other thing I just noticed, it says "SYSTEM"
in the status column, where it once used to say "BOOT" .... I don't know
if that means anything or not, but it is a difference. I don't know if it
means
anything, but while it is listed as DISK 0 in Disk Management, I also
use Acronis True Image, and it lists it as disk 5 (when I boot the Acronis
cd, and not run True Image from within Windows where then True Image
calls it Disk 0)

Post by Andy
When you boot from the XP CD, do you see the "Press any key to boot
from the CD" prompt?
Or does the computer just immediately starts running Windows setup?

It gives me the "Press any key.." prompt, as per normal.

Post by Andy
Windows setup usually assigns C: to the system partition, so if setup
did not detect any Windows installation, that partition should not
contain boot.ini.

My boot.ini resided on the C: drive, and NOT in the /Windows folder
(where is normal I assume) so I moved it. Didn't matter apparently.
I'm still curious why the disk management says just System, and not
BOOT like it once used to. I don't even know if it matters.

Thanks for your reply.

[Wookie]

Two things to check that I have had similar problems with before on NF2 and
a NF4 boards ... look at the capacitors on the MB for failing capacitors ..
the leaking ones will have some discoloration or stuff coming out of them.

Secondly is the PSU .. PSU can and do fail with age. The PSU will then
output a weaker or fluctuating output giving you HD and other problems.
BTW, the most demand of a PSU is at boot up.

Post by m***@fuse.net

Post by Andy
What physical disk drive does Disk Management says contains the
Windows system partition?

It says "Disk 0" ..... one other thing I just noticed, it says "SYSTEM"
in the status column, where it once used to say "BOOT" .... I don't know
if that means anything or not, but it is a difference. I don't know if it
means
anything, but while it is listed as DISK 0 in Disk Management, I also
use Acronis True Image, and it lists it as disk 5 (when I boot the Acronis
cd, and not run True Image from within Windows where then True Image
calls it Disk 0)

Post by Andy
When you boot from the XP CD, do you see the "Press any key to boot
from the CD" prompt?
Or does the computer just immediately starts running Windows setup?

It gives me the "Press any key.." prompt, as per normal.

Post by Andy
Windows setup usually assigns C: to the system partition, so if setup
did not detect any Windows installation, that partition should not
contain boot.ini.

My boot.ini resided on the C: drive, and NOT in the /Windows folder
(where is normal I assume) so I moved it. Didn't matter apparently.
I'm still curious why the disk management says just System, and not
BOOT like it once used to. I don't even know if it matters.
Thanks for your reply.

[Rob]

Post by m***@fuse.net

Post by Andy
What physical disk drive does Disk Management says contains the
Windows system partition?

It says "Disk 0" ..... one other thing I just noticed, it says "SYSTEM"
in the status column, where it once used to say "BOOT" .... I don't know
if that means anything or not, but it is a difference. I don't know if it
means
anything, but while it is listed as DISK 0 in Disk Management, I also
use Acronis True Image, and it lists it as disk 5 (when I boot the Acronis
cd, and not run True Image from within Windows where then True Image
calls it Disk 0)

Post by Andy
When you boot from the XP CD, do you see the "Press any key to boot
from the CD" prompt?
Or does the computer just immediately starts running Windows setup?

It gives me the "Press any key.." prompt, as per normal.

Post by Andy
Windows setup usually assigns C: to the system partition, so if setup
did not detect any Windows installation, that partition should not
contain boot.ini.

My boot.ini resided on the C: drive, and NOT in the /Windows folder
(where is normal I assume) so I moved it. Didn't matter apparently.
I'm still curious why the disk management says just System, and not
BOOT like it once used to. I don't even know if it matters.
Thanks for your reply.

As long as it says System, you'll be OK. Don't know why it said Boot
before. As far as Acronis, it's like Windows, it doesn't look back at
the BIOS to see how you've set up your choices. Once you set the BIOS
to boot from the CD, the program running from the CD re-enumerates the
drives as it sees fit. The info in Disk Management is only useful/valid
if the copy of Windows on the HD is booted into at power up! As far as
your Memory settings, you could try sending the Patriot Part # along
with your board specs to ***@patriotmem.com Maybe they could shed
some light on the best settings. If the memory settings are bad that
could cause errors. You could run a few passes of Memtest86+ and then
Prime95, which are both available free on the Web. That could help
isolate the problem somewhat.
Rob C.

[m***@fuse.net]

Post by Rob
As long as it says System, you'll be OK

Thanks Rob, for the info. That does shed some light on
things for me. I will email patriot, and ask if they can provide
me the optimal settings for this ram. While I am generally
happy with this system, that ram is/was supposed to be
totally kickass in performance ... but, any benchmarking I have
done has been only 'so - so' and according to Everest Ultimate,
while I score closer to the top of the list, but frequently lower than a
a few Athlon systems that may have dual core cpu's, but sometimes
lesser than mine. (a 3800+ or a 4000+) in the memory read and
memory write tests, and forget about competing with Pentium
systems. They are always at the top of the comparison
charts, they all seem to blow this rig out of the water.

I have been running Memtest, and thus far this machine has
passed all tests. (as long as I don't enable those two bios
settings for H/W and S/W Memory remapping for over 4 gb)

[m***@fuse.net]

Post by Rob
As far as
your Memory settings, you could try sending the Patriot Part # along

Hey Rob, I went to Patriots web site, and it just so happens
the RAM they showed in the example of how your bios should
be set, is the RAM I have. According to their pic (screen shot)
my settings were WAY off. So I set all my timings in the
BIOS to reflect how they showed it, and BAM, this cmputer
wouldn't even boot. (Blue screens out the wazooo)

Go figure.

[Rob]

Post by m***@fuse.net

Post by Rob
As far as
your Memory settings, you could try sending the Patriot Part # along

Hey Rob, I went to Patriots web site, and it just so happens
the RAM they showed in the example of how your bios should
be set, is the RAM I have. According to their pic (screen shot)
my settings were WAY off. So I set all my timings in the
BIOS to reflect how they showed it, and BAM, this cmputer
wouldn't even boot. (Blue screens out the wazooo)
Go figure.

If I'm looking at the same page as you, I'd figure those settings
wouldn't work too well. The Part # shown isn't listed in their
configurator as a fit for your A8N SLI Dlx and those settings seem
mighty tight for most applications. I'd first off set the timing to 2T
and the CAS Latency to 2.5, the rest I'd set to Auto for now. If you
want you could tweak and test the others for optimum, error free ops
later using Memtest

[Andy]

Post by m***@fuse.net

Post by Andy
What physical disk drive does Disk Management says contains the
Windows system partition?

It says "Disk 0" ..... one other thing I just noticed, it says "SYSTEM"
in the status column, where it once used to say "BOOT" .... I don't know
if that means anything or not, but it is a difference. I don't know if it
means
anything, but while it is listed as DISK 0 in Disk Management, I also
use Acronis True Image, and it lists it as disk 5 (when I boot the Acronis
cd, and not run True Image from within Windows where then True Image
calls it Disk 0)

Post by Andy
When you boot from the XP CD, do you see the "Press any key to boot
from the CD" prompt?
Or does the computer just immediately starts running Windows setup?

It gives me the "Press any key.." prompt, as per normal.

Post by Andy
Windows setup usually assigns C: to the system partition, so if setup
did not detect any Windows installation, that partition should not
contain boot.ini.

My boot.ini resided on the C: drive, and NOT in the /Windows folder
(where is normal I assume) so I moved it. Didn't matter apparently.
I'm still curious why the disk management says just System, and not
BOOT like it once used to. I don't even know if it matters.

Boot.ini belongs in the root directory of the Windows System
partition.
If a partition is identified as Boot, that means there is another
partition elsewhere that is identified as the System partition. If the
partition is identified as System and no partition is identified as
Boot, that means the System and Boot partitions are one and the same.

The Boot partition can be made to also be System if the following is
true:
1. It's a primary partition that is made active and has a boot sector
that will execute ntldr.
2. Files ntldr, ntdetect.com, and boot.ini (suitably modified if
necessary) from the old system partition are copied to it.
3. The bios is set to boot from the partition.

Post by m***@fuse.net
Thanks for your reply.

[m***@fuse.net]

Post by Andy
If a partition is identified as Boot, that means there is another
partition elsewhere that is identified as the System partition

Thank you for that further explaination .......that does answer
some questions for me. I am still puzzled why the windows install
cd cannont find a "previous" installation to repair ... even tho this
system seems to boot (and run) just fine. Apparently this ASUS
bios controls and does a lot more, than one would think. Even
tho everyone argues with me, this system does NOT require
loading of Sata drvers during install of windows .... my Asus K8V
did, but not this A8N-SLI (Deluxe). Whether it gets them
from the motherboard, bios, or chipset I don't know, but
apparently it does get them. I know because I've reinstalled
Windows several times on this computer in the 2 years I've had
it, and not once did I ever "Press F6...." during the install like I
had to with the K8V board and this last install (NOV 2007)
was the first time I've used the IDE drive. All the other installs
were on SATA.

[Bill Baka]

Post by Andy

Post by m***@fuse.net
I have an Asus A8N SLI Deluxe motherboard, 4 gigs of Ram,
(only 2.75gb avail tho) 5 internal harddrives (1 IDE and 4 Sata)
and an ATI Radeon x1800 Video card. (the one with 512mb cache
I can't remember if that's the xl or xt tho, altho it probably doesn't
matter) The hard drive on IDE is partioned into 2 partittions.
(C and H). I am running Windows XP Professional. Computer
Management/Disk Management it listing the IDE drive as Device 0
Which is correct I assume, my boot.ini file says (also correctly so, I
assume), and my bios settings are correct also I assume, as
it is correctly showing the IDE drive as the FIRST hardrive out
of the list of 5.
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional"
/fastdetect

If the motherboard Bios is working correctly, the rdisk() numbers
correspond to the order of the drives in the Boot menu/Hard Disk
Drives bios setting. In other words, if you set the bios to boot from
one of the SATA drives, then install Windows XP, that drive would
become rdisk(0).

I haven't seen that, yet.

Post by Andy
Once Windows XP is running, it no longer has access to the Bios, so in
Disk Management, it orders the drives by the interfaces they're
connected to: IDE drives, then SATA drives, then ?.

I have a K8N with an AMD Sempron 2800+, 2GB of DDR2700 (333MHz), 1 IDE
DVD+/-RW, 2 IDE 500GB WD's, 1 250GB WD, 1 SATA 120GB WD, and 1 SATA
500GB WD. My video is a meager 64MB TNT AGP and I use a server level
firewall NIC (3Com 3CR990) for minimal CPU loading.
When I have pulled up Disk Management it always shows the disks in
proper order. Both my motherboard and my XP (home) have trouble with the
SATA drives. I can install XP on the first virgin drive in IDE0 and it
will call that first partition c:.
Now move it to IDE1 slave and boot from it and it will still call itself C:.
I have found that it is best to make a FAT16 partition of about 1.5GB as
a primary partition so that is can be read by just about anything out
there then make an extended partition out of the rest and make 2 200GB
NTFS partitions. That way if one dies, just boot from the other and
recover the files you need. Backing up to a DVD+/-RW makes sense too.
Use 2 sets in case one dies or gets scratched. Extra drives are only
about $110 from Newegg.com so there is little excuse for not getting a few.

Post by Andy

Post by m***@fuse.net
The motherboard is using bios 1016. (tho I have used earlier
versions also, no diff) I am using the Nforce 4 chipset drivers
version 6.86 (altho I started out with the 6.70's).I am using the IDE
disk as boot, cause it does actually benchmark much faster
than any of my Sata drives, even the 10k rpm Raptor I was using.
(Because of the 16mb cache the IDE drive has I assume)
(Something like 80mbs compared to 62 mbs tranfer rate if I
remember) The Bios is basically set to defaults, except the
RAM timings which I set to manual (to get the 400mhz clock
speed in lieu of the 333mhz it defaults to on auto) The rest of
all those ram timing settings I have left alone, cause I have no
idea what they are. All I know is I have 4gb of Patriot Ram, with
a 400mhz speed.

What physical disk drive does Disk Management says contains the
Windows system partition?

That really shouldn't matter as long as there is a boot.ini to get
things going.

Post by Andy

Post by m***@fuse.net
Okay, so that's everything I have. Now here's my question/problem.
The system always boots fine, pretty fast in fact, considering how
much crap I have auto starting at bootup, And it seems to
run pretty well. Due to certain issues, most notably frequently
getting errors on the C drive (daily) requiring booting from the windows
cd and doing a chkdsk /r (which takes forever on these 500gb
harddrives) I had wanted to just do a repair install of windows to see
if that would help. The problem is, when I boot from the windows cd,

When you boot from the XP CD, do you see the "Press any key to boot
from the CD" prompt?
Or does the computer just immediately starts running Windows setup?

That can be controlled by the 'boot' menu in the bios. I haven't tried
to use a SATA as the boot since it never shows up. Hitting 'F8' during
boot should bring up a boot selection menu. Then you can select anything
to boot from, maybe even a 4GB USB memory stick.

Post by Andy

Post by m***@fuse.net
it says it cannot find any previous instalations of windows to repair,

If Windows setup does not detect existing Windows installations, that
means that the disk drive it sees as the bootable drive does not
contain the Windows XP system partition (no boot.ini).
If the IDE drive is supposed to be that drive, then one thing you can
do is disable in BIOS setup the SATA ports 1, 2, 3, and 4 (page 4-25
in the manual). This will make only the IDE drive visible, and if
Windows setup does not see existing Windows installations, then the
IDE drive does not contain the system partition.

Post by m***@fuse.net
and wants to proceed imediately to installing windows fresh.
But, if I were to pick the C partion to do the install, THEN
it comes up and says "There's already Windows installed on
this partition" ... so go figure.

At this point setup sees the Windows folder in the partition.
Windows setup usually assigns C: to the system partition, so if setup
did not detect any Windows installation, that partition should not
contain boot.ini.

It will try to make it C: but I have gone out as far as g: and mixed it
with Linux (changes the MBR to ignore boot.ini), then found out that
Windows kills linux's GRUB boot manager. If all other letters were used
than Windows would install as Z: if there were room on any drive.

Post by Andy

Post by m***@fuse.net
The previous setup screen says
there is no windows on here then the next one says there is.
I've asked on here, because asking on the Windows XP groups
have got me nowhere, I guess cause there is no one on there
that understands the Nforce chipset mother boards. Most noteably
how they argue with me and tell me "YOU MUST press F6 and
install Sata drivers BEFORE installing windows". I can't get them
to understand a: I have NO floppy drive and b: How is it then
that the windows install cd "sees and identifies all the sata drives
without me pressing F6?" (the most common comment was
Sata drivers have NOTHING to do with the motherboard, bios
or chipset)
Sorry this is so long winded, but I just wanted to explain what I
had ....Is there anyway I can get this Windows to acknowledge
"my previous installation"
Thank you.

The utilities disk that comes with the MB should have utilities for all
the stuff that you may or may not want in your BIOS or on your hard
drive. I have found useful utilities on all my MB CD's though.
Good luck.