SATA and installing Windows
 

Hey folks,
I've managed to create another new problem with my marvelous machine. I recently installed a Maxtor DiamondMax 9 SATA drive on my machine, and am trying to perform a clean install of XP on it. However, during the install process, without fail, I get a BSOD. This happens at the point "Setup is now starting Windows". I am able to load the 3rd party SATA driver without issue, but I'm not sure if its the right one or if this is causing the problem. The specs are as follows:
MSI 865G Neo2 MotherBoard
1GB of Corsair TwinX Memory (4 sticks of 256)
P4 3Ghz
Pioneer DVD-106s
HP 300i DVD-R
Gainward GeForceFX5900 Ultra

If anyone has any ideas, I would gratefully appreciate it. Thanks in advance!

Jimmy The Hutt

I've got a similar setup (Asus P4P800 mobo, same chipset; and a WD Raptor SATA harddisk). I did not have to use any SATA driver at all. The SATA driver is usually reserved for "external" SATA mobo configurations (PCI cards and such), if I'm not mistaken...

Perhaps your bios isn't set up properly? Or the harddisk/mobo combo isn't working out. It is even possible one of the components is defective.

None of the components turned out to be defective as it turned out. I always seem to find the odd solutions. Here is what I did to make it work: I pulled half of the memory, installed windows with NO issue, and put the memory back in.

No, I have no idea why it worked.

Thanks for those suggestions though, I appreciate the help!

Veritas en Lux!
Jimmy The Hutt

Your solution would indicate a memory issue (duh!). Perhaps you should run a memory test to see if it's all okay?

I have never heard of the NEO2 doing that before, y'see...

Once I'm in Windows, I've been running a memory test using Sandra2003. So far its come up aces. I'm not sure why the installer had such a problem with that particular channel, but hey, it worked, so I'm not complaining :). I'm pretty sure that one of the two sticks I pulled is going to fail on me soon, but until then it's humming along like a champ. I stumbled across the memory trick on another board, in reference to the same situation with the ASUS P4C800 MB. The issue sounded similar enough to me that I figured I'd give it a try.

Veritas en Lux!
Jimmy The Hutt