Hi all! New to this forum but I have quite a lot of experiences with computers.
Picked up an old custom-built PC from 2005 yesterday for myself (it was given to me to 'play with') and I need to reinstall it as I had to change the HDD as the one that was already in there was failing and making some rather odd noises, and it was an old version of XP which was still only on SP1.
This isn't the first time I have had to re-install this PC, I did it in May and I managed to get it going (with the old SP1 XP, but it was an RnR re-install and therefore unstable as hell) but I had to press F6 at the start of XP installation and then put in a floppy disk with the VIA VT8237 SATA RAID driver to install XP. It worked OK, but sadly I have now lost this floppy.
When I came round to re-installing XP on the machine, obviously it couldn't find any hard disks, so I had to go and find the VT8237 drivers. I was a bit worried I would have to travel 10 years into the past so I could find a floppy disk and a computer with a floppy drive, but luckily I found a box of new and sealed floppy disks way under my bed and I found an external USB floppy disk drive which works.
OK, here's the problem. I downloaded the driver (I downloaded lots of different ones hoping that at least ONE would work) and copied the files to the floppy the correct way. I pressed F6 when installing XP (this is XP Pro with SP3 slipstreamed using nLite) and it loaded my VIA driver for me, but it still says that setup could not find any hard disks? I tried several other floppies but still the same problem.
So I thought my replacement hard drive my also be faulty (it was a Maxtor after all), so I hooked up a 150GB WD HDD and still the same problem. There are 2 (I think?) SATA ports on the motherboard, so I changed the SATA cable's port but still the same problem. Then I thought my floppy disk drive may be faulty so I slipstreamed the drivers into the XP Pro SP3 CD using nLite and the same problem again. Maybe I still need to press F6 and insert the floppy? I don't know, but I am guessing because I have slipstreamed the drivers I don't need to?
In case it helps, here is the spec:
- Gigabyte K8VT800(PRO) Motherboard w/ VIA VT8237 SATA controller and VIA KT800 chipset
- AMD Athlon 64 3700+ 2.4GHz
- 1GB DDR RAM
- 150GB WD HDD (SATA)
- ATI Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition (256MB)
Right now I am thinking that maybe the hardware is either damaged or maybe something like the graphics card is conflicting with the installation process? I have installed XP on machines before and have had problems installing XP on machines with graphics card in them.
I hope you can see my problem, and if you know the solution please reply as I'd love to get the machine going again. I am happy to provide more information about the PC or the problem if you require me to do so.
Thanks
vistakid10
Picked up an old custom-built PC from 2005 yesterday for myself (it was given to me to 'play with') and I need to reinstall it as I had to change the HDD as the one that was already in there was failing and making some rather odd noises, and it was an old version of XP which was still only on SP1.
This isn't the first time I have had to re-install this PC, I did it in May and I managed to get it going (with the old SP1 XP, but it was an RnR re-install and therefore unstable as hell) but I had to press F6 at the start of XP installation and then put in a floppy disk with the VIA VT8237 SATA RAID driver to install XP. It worked OK, but sadly I have now lost this floppy.
When I came round to re-installing XP on the machine, obviously it couldn't find any hard disks, so I had to go and find the VT8237 drivers. I was a bit worried I would have to travel 10 years into the past so I could find a floppy disk and a computer with a floppy drive, but luckily I found a box of new and sealed floppy disks way under my bed and I found an external USB floppy disk drive which works.
OK, here's the problem. I downloaded the driver (I downloaded lots of different ones hoping that at least ONE would work) and copied the files to the floppy the correct way. I pressed F6 when installing XP (this is XP Pro with SP3 slipstreamed using nLite) and it loaded my VIA driver for me, but it still says that setup could not find any hard disks? I tried several other floppies but still the same problem.
So I thought my replacement hard drive my also be faulty (it was a Maxtor after all), so I hooked up a 150GB WD HDD and still the same problem. There are 2 (I think?) SATA ports on the motherboard, so I changed the SATA cable's port but still the same problem. Then I thought my floppy disk drive may be faulty so I slipstreamed the drivers into the XP Pro SP3 CD using nLite and the same problem again. Maybe I still need to press F6 and insert the floppy? I don't know, but I am guessing because I have slipstreamed the drivers I don't need to?
In case it helps, here is the spec:
- Gigabyte K8VT800(PRO) Motherboard w/ VIA VT8237 SATA controller and VIA KT800 chipset
- AMD Athlon 64 3700+ 2.4GHz
- 1GB DDR RAM
- 150GB WD HDD (SATA)
- ATI Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition (256MB)
Right now I am thinking that maybe the hardware is either damaged or maybe something like the graphics card is conflicting with the installation process? I have installed XP on machines before and have had problems installing XP on machines with graphics card in them.
I hope you can see my problem, and if you know the solution please reply as I'd love to get the machine going again. I am happy to provide more information about the PC or the problem if you require me to do so.
Thanks
vistakid10
