Trouble installing XP on new SATA Hdd

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raider4123

New Member
Hey everyone,

I bought a new internal SATA hdd the other day and I am trying to make a fresh installation of XP on it. I deleted my partition of Windows from my other hdd. When I try to install Windows on the new one, the system does not recognize the hdd. I have seen on other threads where people said some mobos do not have the drivers installed needed to recognize an SATA hdd and I think that is the trouble with mine. I first tried to fix this by creating a bootable floppy with the SATA drivers on it provided by the mobo manufacturer. This did not work because the system kept looking for a TxtSetup.oem file it could never find. I then tried to slipstream SP1 into my Windows installation disk, which worked, but now I am greeted with a "NTLDR is missing, Please type Cntrl, Alt, Delete to Restart" message when trying to boot to the CDROM. I have already checked to boot order in the BIOS and Boot to CDROM is first. I am thinking that I need to slipstream the SATA drivers into the Windows installation disk, but if the system cannot find the TxtSetup.oem file I will just run into the same error I had before when trying to load drivers from the floppy. Can someone please help me out?
 
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The driver floppy isn't booted up from since you are booting with the XP installation disk. One tip used here on the last Asus 939 build was to first boot from the motherboard cd and use the option to format the floppy then with the Asus tool instead of the right click option in Windows. Then create the driver disk on another system with the board's software disk there.

That will prevent errors like that or one driver can't be found. Then you simply press the F6 or other assigned F key to see the XP installer copy and load all drivers in order to detect the drive. Newer boards are far more sata orientated and generally no longer see a driver disk needed since the sata controllers are updated on the boards themselves. Vista comes with it's own set of generic sata drivers seen in the new version.
 
I already deleted my other Windows partition so I cannot format a floppy on my PC, I had to do it on another. Are you saying I should try to create another floppy with the sata drivers on it? I have done it twice and gone through the process you describe both times. The frist time I got the drivers from the manufacturer's disc and the second time I got the drivers from the manufacturer's website. Both times I got the same files and both times I got the error saying "Could not find TxtSetup.oem file" when tring to load drivers in the Windows installation setup.
 
The problem I ran into here was seen when doing everything either when booting from the software disk or while in Windows. I kept running into drivers can't be found or one driver couldn't be loaded. The disk was finally correct when taking the two step approach here. 1)format the floppy while booted with the software disk 2)use the create driver disk option while in Windows.

I got nowhere when downloading the drivers directly since those are meant as an update once Windows is up and running not to get Windows on there. This is why you will probably have to create see the utility put the drivers on the disk for you while using it on a different machine.

The last option is the Abit support site's knowledge base to see what they have on this. Of course that turned into a fruitless venture there finding nothing in the little amount of common faqs. The model is also in the discontinued catagory as well if the same as seen in your sig. http://www.uabit.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=32&Itemid=48&page=1&model=310

The manual for that model can be downloaded in pdf format from http://www.uabit.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=32&Itemid=48&page=6&model=310

The floppy is formatted with the utility here while booting up with the board's cd not the XP cd. For some reason using their own format utility instead of being in Windows saw results. Yet the option to create the floppy outside of Windows saw one driver error. You probably are running into the same type of problem there where toying around like that will finally see results.
 
Ok I see what you were saying now. A few questions though. Are you saying that I should boot up another pc with Abit's mobo cd and then use their create driver disk utility? If that is the case, do you know where I would find the utility? I actually looked for that utility, but never saw it on the disc before.
 
On Asus disks you see the options for installing drivers/softwares and a second for utilities or browsing the disk. This would be found under utilities. While trying the different combos first doing it all while booting with the disk I got the one driver error message the same as when trying it in Windows or with a download. Experimentation seems to be the key word for some boards.

With the newer boards and making sure the sata controllers are enabled in the bios, pointing out the need to review the manual, the bios will display the information on what drives are installed on the AM2 and newer AMD boards out. The same is seen with the Intel boards there too, The older boards needed to have drivers loaded for the same information to be seen by the XP and older versions's installers to see and present those options.
 
Ok, I have verified that the sata controllers are enabled in the bios. I tried to boot from the manufacturer's utility disk, but I still got the "NTLDR is missing" error. I am assuming since the sata controllers are enabled and the mobo still does not recognize the sata drive, I am definitely going to have to install the drivers somehow?
 
With the optical drive set as the first boot device you should be seeing "Press any key to boot from the CD...." on the screen where you do just that press any key immediately to avoid the system's immediate attempt to then boot from the hard drive where no OS is on it yet. Here I never even set the cd rom option but press the F8 key or assigned F key for bringing up the boot device menu.

With Asus boards you would boot from the board's software disk since those are bootable for preping the system as well as installing the software/drivers packs and using the utilities provided. The manual only shows the installation of the main sata driver after Windows is already installed. That is a Windows specific driver not the dos type you need to see loaded by the installer.
 
When trying to boot from CD either by going through the boot order or using F8, I am still getting the "NTLDR is missing" error and the disk cannot be booted. I know there are several ways this error can be thrown, but I am not sure what to do to fix it. Do you know anything about this?
 
That one is odd since you should the first installation screen appear when booting from the XP cd with the press F6 option for loading RAID/Sata drivers. Even without a driver disk the XP installer should be seen there unless the optical drive is the real problem. The only time the ntldr missing error is seen is when a previous volume was already created on a drive and that file gets corrupted or removed somehow.

One good article on that with some external links for the various causes should be reviewed at http://pcsupport.about.com/od/findbyerrormessage/a/ntldrmissingxp.htm If the lens on the optical drive is blurred and needs cleaning or is no longer working the bios defaults to the first HD in the order which is a non bootable device for the moment.
 
I had the same problem.

I have tryed everything and couldnt install XP on SATA
so I had to install XP on my old ATA Hard Disk.
My motherboard is new, dont remember the name, because i have stopped trying couple of months ago.
but it is ASUS and has 2 ethernet, wireless build in so on.

I had ASUS insstallation CD with SATA drivers but didnt help.

I was wondering if raider 4123 could solve the problem
 
When the F6 option fails that points at a VIA chipset over nForce, Intel, or AMD there. Instead of the F6 option you wait until the screen after and use the press S for special devices option in order to choose the Sata/RAID controller like Promise. There you choose from a list of controllers to see XP then decide to install itself.

Not all board cds are bootable. That was one thing tried here when problems came up trying to get a working driver disk with the disk utility to use with the F6 option. That was something some board disks will see for an option. Lately when the F6 option kept failing for seeing XP go on a Sata 1 drive where that disk was also unbootable the thing that came to mind was trying the same thing there to see if the press S option will work.
 
The first to know is the model of the Asus board there on the original retail box or on the cover of the manual. That will have the section on installing sata drives. Another question here is the make and model drive.

If you ended up with a Sata 1 drive that will see a molex as well as sata power connector on the rear along with a jumper for the old style drive. Since those came out the newer models did away with those two items to see the sata data and power type connections only.

In case someone doubts that some sata drives have jumpers on them, http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc...3RleHQ9anVtcGVyIHNldHRpbmdz&p_li=&p_topview=1

The default setting or removing jumper entirely keeps all modes enabled on those.
 
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