XP Setup Hell... SATA/ATA

[Dennis]

My epic adventure in XP reinstalling continues!

Part 1: http://tinyurl.com/etxpd
Part 2: http://tinyurl.com/zlwwa

But we'll skip to the current chapter:

I'm reinstalling WinXP.... I'm at the WinXP setup screen where you pick
which partition to create/format/install on..... I notice BOTH my S-ATA
drive and my IDE drive show up as:

"Disk 0 at Id 0 on Bus 0 at atapi [MBR]"

.......they both show as the same 0/0/0 address... is this normal? Is
this a clue to all my problems? Shouldnt the S-ATA and IDE drives show
up as different disks or ID's or buses?

ps - its an ASUS A8N mb (asus haters feel free to flame.... but be
specific, ever had problems like these?)

 

[Dennis]

Part 4:

I unplugged the IDE drive and made it install on the SATA C: drive....
formatted it too... no problem.... so now Im at the "Who will use this
computer?" screen.... I enter Dennis (same as the last few
installs).... it says "Names must not be equal to "DENNIS",
"Administrator", or "Guest".....

WTF.... how/why is it remembering my last install!?!?! This is some
crazy stuff.... C was formatted clean.... D had NO windows files on
it... trust me, there was no windows directory or hidden files in D:\
(and I even manually deleted boot.ini and ntdetect [see part 2])....

I sense great evil here....

To be continued.....

 

[Dennis]

Part 5...

I'm at the disk management screen.... I sense the evil is strongest
here...



Disk Management shows me:

(D Partition Basic 37.55 GB (Boot)
(C Partition Basic 195.32 GB (System)
(E CD PLAYER

.....again it has flip flopped partitions around... but in the most
confusing way yet.....

Windows and boot.ini and ntdetect ntldr and all the right files have
decided to locate themselves on the 200gb (195gb) partition.... Despite
me specifically selecting the 37gb (50gb) one for the XP install....
for about the 6th time today XP has installed on the wrong
partition.... and I dont even have the IDE plugged in... this is purely
one drive with two primary partitions....

If I go to either drive in Disk Management, C or D, and hit "Change
Drive Letter" it says "cannot modify the drive letter of your system
volume"..... it considers them both system volumes...

....the more this epic adventure continues the more I start to suspect
the SATA HD controller.... i think this sata drive is screwy..... but I
dunno.... any thoughts?

tia

 

[Dennis]

Part 6... the last episode....


No matter what I do XP will not install on the proper partition.... I
can endlessly select the 50gig partition and it installs on the 200
gig.... time and time again....

Normally I'd format this SOB at this point... but I dont want to
lose/backup the 200gig drive which is almost full.... And I'm not
convinced it is guilty.....

I'm going to sleep... I give up!

Any comments are appreciated...

Stay tuned tommorow for Part 7 : Dennis strikes back!

 

[John]

Part 5...

I'm at the disk management screen.... I sense the evil is strongest
here...



Disk Management shows me:

(D Partition Basic 37.55 GB (Boot)
(C Partition Basic 195.32 GB (System)
(E CD PLAYER

....again it has flip flopped partitions around... but in the most
confusing way yet.....

Windows and boot.ini and ntdetect ntldr and all the right files have
decided to locate themselves on the 200gb (195gb) partition.... Despite
me specifically selecting the 37gb (50gb) one for the XP install....
for about the 6th time today XP has installed on the wrong
partition.... and I dont even have the IDE plugged in... this is purely
one drive with two primary partitions....

If I go to either drive in Disk Management, C or D, and hit "Change
Drive Letter" it says "cannot modify the drive letter of your system
volume"..... it considers them both system volumes...

No, once XP is installed it is prevented from change its own drive
letter (unlike previous NT OS's) and for good reason. Third party apps
and sometimes even M$ itself hard code drive letter assignments in the
registry. Yea, I know there is that environment variable but some coders
are lazy.

For what its worth ... M$ in its infinite wisdom (with the release of XP
I believe) calls the bootstrap partition (where boot.ini lives) the
'system' partition and the XP operating system partition the 'boot'
partition. ...LOL...

Which one of your partitions is the *active* partition? As that is where
boot.ini and its two accomplices want to take up residence.

It might be a good idea to use a 3rd party app like Partition Magic to
find out exactly which partitions are which on your drive. You may find
that they are not what you think they are as far as physical location on
the drive; and at the least to get things straight in your own mind to
plan an avenue of attack for your next install.

Mixing SATA and PATA during an XP install can take a toll on your nerves
as you found out, but that really is a MB/BIOS/SATA driver issue. XP
just uses the info that is reported to it by either the BIOS directly or
a SATA driver that has situated itself to mediate with the BIOS.

John

 

[Rod Speed]

Part 4:

I unplugged the IDE drive and made it install on the SATA C: drive....
formatted it too... no problem.... so now Im at the "Who will use this
computer?" screen.... I enter Dennis (same as the last few
installs).... it says "Names must not be equal to "DENNIS",
"Administrator", or "Guest".....

WTF.... how/why is it remembering my last install!?!?! This is some
crazy stuff.... C was formatted clean.... D had NO windows files on
it... trust me, there was no windows directory or hidden files in D:\
(and I even manually deleted boot.ini and ntdetect [see part 2])....

I sense great evil here....

Yeah, something weird going on.

One obvious possibility is that while you think you
formatted properly, you didnt actually manage to
do that. Did you do the quick or the full format ?

I'd personally wipe the drive with something like clearhdd
http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDiskDrive/utilities/clearhdd.htm
to guarantee that its been erased. If it still wont accept DENNIS,
I'd get some garlic and put a stake thru its heart at midnight.

These sorts of problems are ALWAYS resolvable with
a bit of care to confirm that you are doing what you
think you are doing when the result makes no sense.

 

[Rod Speed]

Part 6... the last episode....

No matter what I do XP will not install on the proper partition....
I can endlessly select the 50gig partition and it installs on
the 200 gig.... time and time again....

You've got it in one hell of a mess, time to wipe it and start over.

Normally I'd format this SOB at this point... but I dont
want to lose/backup the 200gig drive which is almost full....

That would be the simplest approach to clean up the mess.

And I'm not convinced it is guilty.....

Bet a wipe would fix it.

I'm going to sleep... I give up!

 

[Rod Speed]

Part 5...

I'm at the disk management screen....
I sense the evil is strongest here...

Disk Management shows me:

(D Partition Basic 37.55 GB (Boot)
(C Partition Basic 195.32 GB (System)
(E CD PLAYER

So you clearly didnt actually format what you thought was the
partition that should be formatted. Thats why it refused to let
you use DENNIS again, you've got two installs on that drive.

Thats also the reason for the letter change, thats
what XP does when you install another install of
XP on a drive thats already got one on it.

....again it has flip flopped partitions around...
but in the most confusing way yet.....

Windows and boot.ini and ntdetect ntldr and all the right files have
decided to locate themselves on the 200gb (195gb) partition....
Despite me specifically selecting the 37gb (50gb) one for the XP
install.... for about the 6th time today XP has installed on the wrong
partition.... and I dont even have the IDE plugged in...
this is purely one drive with two primary partitions....

Just wipe the drive with something like clearhdd and start over.

If I go to either drive in Disk Management, C or D, and hit
"Change Drive Letter" it says "cannot modify the drive letter of
your system volume"..... it considers them both system volumes...

Because you have two installs on that physical drive.

...the more this epic adventure continues the more I start to suspect
the SATA HD controller.... i think this sata drive is screwy.....

No drive fault should produce that result.

but I dunno.... any thoughts?

Just wipe the drive and start over.

 

[Andy]

Part 5...

I'm at the disk management screen.... I sense the evil is strongest
here...



Disk Management shows me:

(D Partition Basic 37.55 GB (Boot)
(C Partition Basic 195.32 GB (System)
(E CD PLAYER

....again it has flip flopped partitions around... but in the most
confusing way yet.....

Windows and boot.ini and ntdetect ntldr and all the right files have
decided to locate themselves on the 200gb (195gb) partition.... Despite
me specifically selecting the 37gb (50gb) one for the XP install....
for about the 6th time today XP has installed on the wrong
partition.... and I dont even have the IDE plugged in... this is purely
one drive with two primary partitions....

If you want to avoid this kind of problem, put only one primary
partition on the disk drive. It's obvious that the 200 GB partition is
the active primary partition, which is the reason Windows setup makes
it the system drive and assigns C to it.

 

[Dennis]

Trust me I've done quick formats and full formats.... multiple
times....and watched it... it was definately formating something, and
not the 200 gig portion (the data is still on it)....

So if its not formating the 200gig portion what is it doing for 10+ min
when I tell it to format?

Yeah I will have to find a way to backup the 200gig and wipe the entire
drive if I dont have any luck today. I am going to unplug everything
and plug it all back in to eliminate the possibility of a lose cord or
something stupid like that. Wish me luck...

 

[John Weiss]

Yeah I will have to find a way to backup the 200gig and wipe the entire
drive if I dont have any luck today. I am going to unplug everything
and plug it all back in to eliminate the possibility of a lose cord or
something stupid like that.

At the MINIMUM, repartition as well as reformat the HD. You don't want a
partition inadvertently marked "active" from a previous installation.

 

[Bioboffin]

Part 4:

I unplugged the IDE drive and made it install on the SATA C: drive....
formatted it too... no problem.... so now Im at the "Who will use this
computer?" screen.... I enter Dennis (same as the last few
installs).... it says "Names must not be equal to "DENNIS",
"Administrator", or "Guest".....

WTF.... how/why is it remembering my last install!?!?! This is some
crazy stuff.... C was formatted clean.... D had NO windows files on
it... trust me, there was no windows directory or hidden files in D:\
(and I even manually deleted boot.ini and ntdetect [see part 2])....

I sense great evil here....

To be continued.....

I'm guessing that you called the computer "Dennis" maybe? You can't have
the same name for the computer and for one of the user names.