Why did no one tell me that windows xp service pack one does not support S-ATA hard drives? I have spent three fucking days nearly trying to do a clean install on a system with service pack one iso and it fucking bluescreening at every time.

I check ram, cpu, fan, hard drive, cables, burned the iso about ten times over using about 4 different pieces of software, tried booting from floppy, the lot.

Unreal.

___________________
Nothing lasts, nothing lasts, everything is changing into something else. Nothing is wrong, nothing is wrong, everything is on track...

You know, William Blake said... uh, nothing is lost. Nothing is lost and I... I really believe that, we only move on...

Does SATA only support unserviced XP? Would explain why I bluescreen upon boot when using a SP3 XP disc.

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There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Well after nearly crying and giving up on what was a simple "sure I'll fix your pc" for a friend thinking a simple clean install of XP (getting rid of shit vista) would solve all my woes I chanced upon some info that ATA drives were only supported post service pack 2.

I managed to get hold of a Service Pack 3 .iso through a student vendor for free due to some student package deal thing and it is currently working beautifully. Meanwhile the Vista and sp1 discs are essentially coasters.

PC's are a fucking mine field literally Googling the error code gave countless issues and nothing was working.

Was actually ready to go and buy a new hard disk as a last resort.

___________________
Nothing lasts, nothing lasts, everything is changing into something else. Nothing is wrong, nothing is wrong, everything is on track...

You know, William Blake said... uh, nothing is lost. Nothing is lost and I... I really believe that, we only move on...

Well fuck, then. I have SP2 and SP3 XP discs (official ones from MSDN, even!) and this PC still will not boot to the XP install prompt upon startup without bluescreening, even with a new HDD. I'm sure it's some array issue like IDE or AHCI, but delving into the BIOS has been a last resort for some time. Apparently, you should only partition to multiple OSs with the oldest one first, so I am at a bit of an impasse if I want to load my testing beater with XP, Vista, and 7. But I will try- thanks for suggesting it may be a drive configuration issue, I will actually try messing with the setup.

___________________
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Try a linux live cd/usb. If you can boot that up and stay afloat for 10 minutes, there's little chance of faulty hardware.

___________________
BA-DUM-TSS

quote:

ALFI - BOHICA - DJ MIX (Stream+Dropbox)

Booting is not the issue though, I want true versions of OSs across my partitions. VMware is a valuable option, but authentic hardware-derived images are more valuable since it's a 32-bit machine, and many of our users are using 32-bit applications of ours that we distribute without testing... because who uses x32?

___________________
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

quote:

Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On Well fuck, then. I have SP2 and SP3 XP discs (official ones from MSDN, even!) and this PC still will not boot to the XP install prompt upon startup without bluescreening, even with a new HDD. I'm sure it's some array issue like IDE or AHCI, but delving into the BIOS has been a last resort for some time. Apparently, you should only partition to multiple OSs with the oldest one first, so I am at a bit of an impasse if I want to load my testing beater with XP, Vista, and 7. But I will try- thanks for suggesting it may be a drive configuration issue, I will actually try messing with the setup.

Have you gone into BIOS and checked your hard disk set up?

In config you need to change the Hard Drive to Sata by default I think.

It is damn frustrating though so I wish you the best of luck with it.

___________________
Nothing lasts, nothing lasts, everything is changing into something else. Nothing is wrong, nothing is wrong, everything is on track...

You know, William Blake said... uh, nothing is lost. Nothing is lost and I... I really believe that, we only move on...

I've not yet tinkered with the HDD setup... this is a machine that's had its array reduced to just one drive though, so SATA is probably causing redundancies all throughout. No wonder it's performing like a piece of shit, even though it's really quite a beast. Will try this next week, thanks again for the tip-off.

___________________
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

quote:

Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On Booting is not the issue though, I want true versions of OSs across my partitions. VMware is a valuable option, but authentic hardware-derived images are more valuable since it's a 32-bit machine, and many of our users are using 32-bit applications of ours that we distribute without testing... because who uses x32?

blerp gotcha! when in the boot process to xp install is it bluescreening? during driver loading or at some other stage? http://www.theeldergeek.com/xp_pro_...l_-_graphic.htm
there are screen caps from each stage.
also i think you can press f6 while booting to load drivers manually (on a floppy yo). IF changing BIOS won't work, that is.

___________________
BA-DUM-TSS

quote:

ALFI - BOHICA - DJ MIX (Stream+Dropbox)

Yeah, that is what I will try. Before it gets to loading RAID drivers - which are obviously unnecessary since I only have one HDD on it now - I will have changed the BIOS configuration. Hoping it works, because this has been an extreme (minor) annoyance for a week now, trying to set this machine up, in the back of my mind. No floppy drive even present in this machine because it's (pshaw) too elite! Oh, Dell Precision, how you vex me.

___________________
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.