Question : Problem: WinXP, Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe, Western Digital Raptor 74GB

Okay.  I've been having absoloutely ZERO luck installing XP Pro onto my machine.

Every time I load XP, it finds it perfectly during the text-portion of
the install.

I keep getting "error loading operating system" when the system
reboots itself to continue the install.  I've tried this with Original
XP disks.  SP1 disks.  And SP2 disks.  As well as slip-streamed disks.

Windows 2000-based OSes install.

I've tried the following:

Not loading any drivers by ignoring F6
Loading just the Mass Storage Controller Driver after hitting F6
Loading just the NVRaid Driver after hitting F6
Loading the MSC THEN the NVRAID drivers in that order after F6
Loading the NVRAID THEN the MSC drivers in that order after F6

NOTE: 2K installs ONLY if I F6 and select each of the drivers on the
driver floppy multiple times.  XP only allows you to select a driver
once.

My board came with BIOS 1002
I've tried BIOS 1003 and 1004 as well.

I've tried enabling S.M.A.R.T.

I've tried turning all the peripherals (LAN, sound, Firewire) off
duruing install.  The only card in the system is the PCI-E GeForce
5300 card.

The only drives hooked up are the Raptor drive and an IDE CD-ROM.

I'm NOT overclocking and I have sufficient cooling on the system.  The
system has adequate cooling.  My power supply complies with the middle
power spec (there's three, one for low-power consumption and a single
video card, one for medium consumption and dual video cards, and one for
a system stuffed full of components).



Any assistance on this issue would be SORELY appreciated.
Unfortunately, XP is necessary for several apps I need to run.
Otherwise I'd settle for Win2K.

Answer : Problem: WinXP, Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe, Western Digital Raptor 74GB

If that doesn't work -- Which I asume it might not since you've tried other BIOS versions -- Skim through this reading with a fellow that had the same issue.

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Storage/Q_20829132.html

Regards,
David McGraw