Win XP won't install... pls help!

[Steven_LP]

Hiya... just got a new board today to use up some spare components I have laying around, and put together a spare pc for the wife (that way I get the main one all to myself!)

Heres the spec:

Asrock 939 dual-sata2
Athlon 64 3000+
2 x 518 DDR400 (generic sticks)
Radeon 9800 pro
80gb Maxtor sata HD

The mboard posts OK, I select boot from CD to do the Win XP installation, the message 'setup is inspecting the ...' comes up, and then..... nothing!

Tried googling the problem, and visiting the asrock website (no forums! no help!) but can't seem to find the solution to the problem. Tried swapping the HD and the CD drive, the sata ports on the MB... bios is the latest so no updating needed... any ideas anybody?

[ultim8um]

Question 1 - Is the SATA native to the chipset on that board? e.g. if its part of the onboard chipset as in nforce etc then you shouldn't need the sata drivers...
Question 2 - Could you plug the SATA drive into your other PC (don't assign a drive letter just partition and format it) and dump all the install files for windows on to it?
Question 3 - What are the temps like on the heatsink? Is it warm to the touch or hot / cold?

GL

[Steven_LP]

yes, sata is native to the board, I'm not installing any drivers for sata. Ther board 'sees' the HD in the bios, so I'm assuming there no problem with the actual HD?

CPU temp is 33c according to the Bios

how do i dump the install files for win on to the HD on a PC? i checked the installation cd in my other pc (just to eliminate it as one of the possible problems) and it worked ok...

[Agent]

Ran memtest on it ?

[Steven_LP]

no, but swapped the sticks around with the ones in my other pc and had same problem... maybe i should run the test anyway

[Slothy]

try running it with only a single stick of memory at a time, in case you've got a bad stick? How reliable is the PSU? I second the suggestion of memtest, get the bootable CD version and run it overnight?

[Curly]

Have a look over here on OCWorkbench in the ASrock forum..... some good information there that should get you sorted.

hth, Curly

[atrull]

motherboard bios up to date ? I couldn't install windows on my mobo until I had updated it to the most recent one - hell knows why

[Steven_LP]

tried running it with a single stick and had the same problem... psu is a tagan TG480 (which I dont think should have any problems in running this system), had a look at the OCW forum this afternoon, but couldn't find anything re xp install problem (tons of other probs but not mine!)... maybe you did Curly? I'll have another look anyway...

[Curly]

maybe you did Curly? I'll have another look anyway...

To be honest I didn't check on there, I just recommened the forum as a starting point to post your problem as quite a few people use the motherboard on there and could have come accross this problem before.

Curly

[scrandman]

Are you using one of the SATA I ports, and not the SATA II port (tends to be a bit problematic IIRC)

[MD]

have you tried a slipstreamed disc with XP and XP SP2 on it? I had a really wierd problem last week and that seemed too resolve it, I tried two motherboards and two different HDD's before I had to resort to slipstreaming XP and XPSp2

[Steven_LP]

running memtest as we speak... it's definately not the Sata 2 port... its taking ages to go through all the posts about this mboard on the OCW forum! and no search option... (at least not one I can find)..

Matt: How can I get a slipstreamed disc of XP?

Thanks for all your help guys... I really hope I can sort this out... I'll keep you posted.

[Curly]

its taking ages to go through all the posts about this mboard on the OCW forum! and no search option... (at least not one I can find)..

just checked on the OCW forums and the search function is in the same place as on here as they use the same forum software, click on search and then advance search and select the ASRock forums.....should do it.

just a thought, are you registered on there? search could be a registered uses only option. You could always post on the forum and await replies.

Curly

[ultim8um]

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/...m/711001799731

You might find that post rather interesting as the guy has had the same problems as you are experiencing...

[Steven_LP]

run memtest on all my memory sticks and they all come up with no errors...

thanks ultim8um, I noticed that thread while I was searching for a solution to my problem, but his was a memory problem and no help to me!

any other suggestions? otherwise the board is going back!!