Windows XP 64 boot problem after install

[tfboy]

I'm a bit confused with this one.

Had some spare time and considering my XP install needed cleaning (aka reformat and reinstall), I thought I'd give the 64bit version a go.

Hardware is MSI K8N SLI Platinum. Got all the drivers for 64 bit windows off MSI's website. Created my floppy disc with the SATA drivers on them (my main boot drive is a Raid 0 on the nvidia SATA) and installed 64 bit XP with no hassle.

Install finishes, machine reboots. before I even get to a Windows XP screen with the scrolly green squares at the bottom, the PC reboots.

Let it POST again, and once it tries to boot off the CD and then the HD, comes up with the "Windows didn't start normally" screen. OK, I ask it to boot normally, and an immediate reset again

Third time, get to that screen, select safe mode. I get a load of drivers that are listed, up to an acpi one, then the system reboots

I reverted to stock speeds, have the latest bios installed and can't think what else to try. A bit of a loss really.

Maybe I just have a dodgy burn on my install cd, but it's strange that it flew through the install without any major problems.

I've done some googling, and some people appear to have similar problems and they resolve the issue by using some other sata raid drivers (via ones I think), but I'm not even getting that far, and now that the nvidia drivers I do have specifically for 64 bit windows are WHQL certified, I thought they'd have been tried and tested, i.e. it ain't a SATA driver problem.

Any suggestions? I've reformatted and reinstalled it a second time, in case the first install went tits up somehow, but same thing.

So just reinstalled vanilla flavour XP for the moment

[tfboy]

Ooooooooooooooh

Looks like it could be an nvidia driver problem after all:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messagev...&enterthread=y

Hmm, do I reformat and give it another go?

[Dougal]

If I were you, I'd get a older card which works, install with that, get the new drivers, install them.

Shut down, new card in, restart

[tfboy]

If I were you, I'd get a older card which works, install with that, get the new drivers, install them.

Shut down, new card in, restart

Sorry mate, don't quite follow you there. What do you mean by "older card" ?

[Dougal]

Older card as in one which is "older" in "age" something like a "PCI graphics card"

[tfboy]

Ah OK. Although it's definately the nvidia on board SATA RAID that's the problem, nothing else. And I can't exactly swap that out for something else

It turned out that those WHQL drivers don't in fact work, and the asus drivers linked to on anandtech did

However, I have a DVB-S card and technotrend don't make any 64-bit drivers for it yet and the 32 bit ones don't work.

So after all that, it's back to 32bit XP for me

I also have a unattended xp install question, but will post in another thread

Ta

[Dougal]

Disable the nVidia RAID in your BIOS.

[tfboy]

Sorry I didn't make it clear, my partitions are on a pair of RAID 0 mirrored drives, so I need the nVidia RAID. Or don't I ???

[aBuLhAgaG]

have you tried using the silicon image raid controller, although AFAIK it doesn't support sata II extensions

[tfboy]

I don't have the SI controller. My mobo is the MSI SLI Platinum, not the diamond which has the extra 2 SATA ports.

The only SATA ports on mine are the nvidia raid ones

[arthurleung]

Thats why I never use RAID as boot drive, its just too troublesome
Why not run software RAID0. Set the first 10GB as boot volume and all other space RAID0 with other drives