Windows Installation Fatal Error

[Weng]

Hey guys I recently had a problem with getting the Serial ATA drivers installed onto my raid 0 raptors and it turned out to be that my floppy drive was fried, lol cost me 35 quid to find that out from a local computer shop even though I suggested to him that it could not be my floppy drive, as he was getting the same problem as me !

Well the problem I have now is that when the guy was getting the Serial ATA drivers installed he was using Windows XP Pro SP1, once we figured out it was the floppy drive and replaced it the Serial ATA drives were installed with no problem and once installed, windows continue with its setup!

The guy said well this seems to be installing nicely, which it was, now I’ll find safe place to stop the installation and you can continue with the installing windows later at home. Well at the time I was like yeah no problem and out of daftness asked how much would it be just for him to just let windows continue to install, the guy turn and said another £35 , looking at him and expecting him to be joking but he wasn’t, so I kindly told thanks but no thanks (kind of wishing I did now)!

So then I decided while he was waiting to stop the OS installing I’ll go and get him some money! When I came back the comp was waiting and he said to when I come to install my OS software that was different version from his(just the normal Windows XP Pro) that I would need to remove what had already been installed or I would get some problems with the OS clashing, which I thought fair enough!

He then told me that when I put my version of windows in and after it had started up, that it would ask me on what partition I would want to install windows and that it would then show me what was currently installed, and that it would also give me the option to delete what was currently installed!

While when I did put my version of windows in, this wasn’t the case ! lol not sure how to explain this but what comes up on the screen is the standard windows installation screen and its up to the part just b4 you actually install windows and that it’ll take approximately 39mins to complete the installation!

What happens when I did put my version of XP Pro in is it comes up with the message that I needed to put the Windows XP Pro SP1 cd rom into the drive and that’s it missing the “asms” file, it gave me the option to select the pathway to get to the file either from the dvd drive or the floppy drive, and when I clicked ok I just got a fatal error and when clicked ok on the error message it just restarted!

Well I didn’t know what to so I decide to download myself the version of XP Pro with SP1 and when I put that in and let it start up all I’m getting now is the Fatal Error message from b4!

LoL so there you go I have no idea what to do now and you guys are my last hope, lol I have been on building this computer since Monday!

When the problem with the Serial ATA drivers came about I thought it was my hard drives so I went off and brought another hard drive on the Thursday, lol when I tired to install them on that hard drive got the same problem!

And that’s when I took it to that computer shop and paid the guy there my lovely cash so I could tell him what was wrong with my comp! LoL I would just take it back to there (have i learnt nothing) 2mo but guess what, the guy who owns the shop has gone away for the week and its closed!

My luck just couldn’t get any better, so if anyone out there could help me I would be deeply grateful, LoL all I want to do is play UT on my new computer a dream that is fading by the day……

[Jiff Lemon]

Sounds like when your booting up its booting up from the HDD and continuing the existing install.

Change it to boot from CD, put your xp cd in, and you will get the option to boot from cd, then to flatten the partition. Do make sure your have the serial ATA drivers to hand though (when it starts to install, you'll see an option for press f6 if you need to install 3rd party drivers)

[Weng]

Hey Jiff Lemon thanks for trying to help, I’m not sure what you mean about changing it to boot from the CD and how to do this, could you explain for me

[Lee H]

In the bios you need to change the boot sequence from C,A,whatever to CD-ROM,C,A and then press any key when the windows disc asks you too.

What specification is the system you are running as there is a bug with some athlon XP setups with a 133 FSB which needs dropping to 100 Mhz for windows to install correctly.

[Weng]

System Spec is
Athlon 64 3500
ASUS A8V Deluxe
Two 74GB Western Digital Raptor 10K
NEC 3500 16X Dual Layer DVD

I have tired changing the boot sequence and it just continue with the os installation but I’m not sure by what you mean by C,A.......? LoL sorry if I’m being a pest with this

[Weng]

lol ok i'm sorry i'm just not with it 2day, i did try changing the boot sequence to d,c,a but it just did the same thing, tried to continue with the os installing and then came up with the fatal error message

[Weng]

so can anyone help

[Jiff Lemon]

You need to change the boot sequence so that the first device it tries to boot from is the CD drive.

Whats happening is that the install is starting from the C: drive (the half installed setup).
You need it to start from the CD drive so you can start the install all over again.

[0iD]

In the Boot Menu in the Bios (see Section 4.6 of the manual, page 4.34 on kids ). In 'Boot Device Priority', as the Jiffster has said, set the 1st boot device as your CD/DVD Rom, 2nd as your hard drive/raid array.

[Weng]

hey guys, yeah i've already done this and still it tries to carry on with the os set up

[Jiff Lemon]

Sounds like your CD could be a bit flaky - Is the Windows CD a genuine one? You're not getting a press any key to boot from CD rom prompt?

[Weng]

no its not a genuine windows but neither was the guys in the shop and i'm getting no prompt that says press any key to boot from the cd rom

[Weng]

i have a blank maxtor 160Gb hard drive i'm going 2 try and set windows up on that to see if it is my dvd writer or anything else

[Weng]

what will happen if i delete the array and after i've tried this other hard drive remake it, will it knack up even more what has been done?

[Steve]

The problem is, the windows CD IS booting, but it's designed to detect if an install is in progress (after the first reboot at least) and not show the "press any key" prompt, passing booting over the hard drive.

I guess that's the problem you have.

I reckon you'll have to format the drives somehow. www.bootdisk.com - maybe go the easy-ish route and use WinXP boot floppies (funny, given the floppy troubles you say you were having )

[Weng]

lol thanks i'll give that a try then