Installing XP on new PC. NTLDR help.

[carrick]

i need a little bit of help guys.

I've just built up my first pc. I'm running an AMDxp2500 on the asusa7n8x mobo, sony cdrom ata33 set to 2nd ide master, seagate barra serial ata harddrive connected to sata pri1, ati 96600pro and a floppy.

It powers up ok, goes thru POST ok. Only thing i changed in the bios was VGA adpator AGP(default was pci).

Then i formatted the harddrive using seagate's disc wizard. Basically it asks what OS you want to put on your system, I selected XP SP1, and away it went. the drive was formatted in NTFS?? with no partitions.

I get a prompt to reboot with xp cdrom and to set the bios to boot from cdrom before harddrive. So i set the boot devices as
1st floppy
2nd cdrom
3rd disabled

When i boot with the xp cdrom i get an error message telling me

NTLDR is missing

What is that??

If i disconnect the sata hd xp loads up the blue windows setup screen and stops at

setup is loading files

I guess it has nowhere to put them with the harddrive disconnected.

Any ideas? I'll try anything.

[marcus]

Do you have a floppy disk in the drive?

It needs NTLDR (NT Loader) to boot, if not, try changing the boot sequence to be CDRom first instead of Floppy, reboot with the XP CD rom in the drive.

[carrick]

ok, i changed the boot sequence in the bios to

1st cdrom
2nd floppy

I booted the pc up with xp in the cd, prompt tells me to press any key to boot from cd, windows setup starts to load files, then i get a

file setupdd.sys could not be loaded

error code 4

when the kernel debug is loading.

aahhhh

[marcus]

Have a look here -

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;330181&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

[Tom Salter]

install the system recovery console, restore the ntldr file from the CD. Done. (hopefully)

[carrick]

had a look a t that link marcus, can't think what would be incompatible.

i don't have any pci cards, the sounds onboard and the graphics is agp.

i'm using one stick of twinmoss 512MB ram so i can't test that.

Not to sure what the system recovery console is Boogaloo, can i download from somewhere and boot from disk??

[Valken]

boot into the recovery console then type:

fixboot <enter>
fixmbr <enter>

I've killed ntldr a few times trying to set up various OS loaders and that's always sorted my "ntldr is missing" woes.

It could be a problem with the partition table... maybe you should try deleting the partition using fdisk and let WinXP format it itself (I think it defaults to NTFS like Win2k) then reinstall.

[Tom Salter]

Not to sure what the system recovery console is Boogaloo, can i download from somewhere and boot from disk??

Right, If I remember correctly, install it from the Valueadd folder from the WindowsXP CD. 2 weeks away from work, can't remember anything, sorry

[Valken]

Can you boot into the recovery console from the CD with XP like you can 2k?

[carrick]

Cheers for the replies, still stumped.

boot into the recovery console then type:

fixboot <enter>
fixmbr <enter>

How do i go about this for winxp??

Right, If I remember correctly, install it from the Valueadd folder from the WindowsXP CD

How do i access the winxp cd then.

[Valken]

OK, I'm not 100% sure if this'll work for XP but try loading the install CD is poking about for a recovery option... if you can find the recovery console in there then start her up.

[choddo]

Change that graphics setting in the BIOS back. You don't need to do that, I bet it's confusing the installer

[Ciaran]

This is how I installed Xp on a SATA drive:

1st boot: CD
2nd boot: SATA
3rd boot: Disabled

Put in the XP cd and press any key when asked. Press F6 when the blue screen with "press F6 to install third party Raid or SCSI device" at the bottom. Insert your SATA driver disk when requested and install drivers.

Now it should boot to a menu where you can access the recovery console or start installing XP.

[carrick]

Had to leave the pc alone for a few days. It was starting to hurt my head.

Anyways,

This is how I installed Xp on a SATA drive:

1st boot: CD
2nd boot: SATA
3rd boot: Disabled

Put in the XP cd and press any key when asked. Press F6 when the blue screen with "press F6 to install third party Raid or SCSI device" at the bottom. Insert your SATA driver disk when requested and install drivers.

SATA isn't an option for me when selecting boot options so i just used scsi. Does this matter?? I also have HDD0, 1, 2 and 3.

ok, i can see where you have to press F6 during windows text setup to install the sata. Problem is i don't have a driver disk for my sata. It was bought from overclockers as OEM.

I've checked the seagate website, but the only thing i could find was the Disc Wizard. This is for formatting and partitioning the harddrive.

Got this from the MS knowledgebase

When you are installing Windows XP on a new computer or on a computer that has the latest SCSI or IDE controller technology, it may be necessary to use an OEM device driver to support, for example, a new mass storage controller, to continue with the installation.

Does anyone know where i could find the OEM device driver for my

Seagate SATA80GB HD
Model Number ST380013AS

Also got this this from the knowledgebase
[/quote]
If you require an updated OEM driver to support an existing controller that is natively supported by Windows but is not detected during setup, you must replace the Windows driver for the controller with the new OEM driver. You can find the Windows driver for the controller on one of the six Windows Setup boot disks or in the temporary installation folder ($WIN_NT$.~BT). This replacement allows Windows to use the updated OEM driver during text-mode setup, but you must copy the same updated OEM driver to the System32\Drivers folder of the final Windows installation before the installation continues into graphics-mode setup.

Note that if you choose to format the partition in the NTFS file system during setup, you cannot copy the newer OEM driver into the System32\Drivers folder after text-mode setup finishes. This is because the Windows Setup program formats the partition as NTFS before copying files. You can work around this limitation by installing Windows into a file allocation table (FAT) partition that is less than 2 GB in size or into a FAT32 partition that is less than 32 GB in size. Doing this allows access by using a startup disk from Microsoft Windows 98 or Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me). After Windows is installed, use the following command to convert the FAT or FAT32 partition to NTFS:
convert c: /fs:ntfs

[/quote]

Do i need to worry about this??

[choddo]

Not really, unless there's a driver for your SATA drive on the XP CD, which doesnt' work. Sounds more like you don't have one at all.