Question : Problem: Problem when booting win XP from WD Raptor SATA harddrive

Hi!

I bought Western Digital Raptor Serial ATA Harddrive and now I have some difficulties with it.

First I installed Windows XP into raptor and I used those silicon sata drivers and pressed F6 when I installed windows XP from bootable CD etc.

Now my problem is this:

I have 2 IDE drives (IBM 180GB and 60GB). I'm using Windows XP also in this bigger IBM-drive, because Raptor won't boot without it??? I mean that if I put raptor alone into my system without this bigger ibm then nothing happens. The only way I'm able to use windows from my Raptor is to use 180gb ibm as primary device and then I can choose raptors windows from this screen which gives me 2 different Windows XP operating systems. Other is raptor and other is 180GB ibm.

I've tried to change bios (Motherboard is ASUS A7N8X Deluxe) the way that 1st boot device is SCSI. When 1st device is SCSI system always stops to: "Verifying DMI pool data". It doesn't go foward from that part. I've updated my bios and everything but nothing helps. I've also tried to change those boot devices orders so that tere is eg. HDD 0 first then comes HDD 3, SCSI, but nothing helps.

I've also tried to change cables so that differend drives goes to different wires eg. IBM180GB to secondary slave etc.

And there is also this other little problem. Windows seems to be very unstable and I think it's because of my Ati All-in-wonder Radeon. First windows crashed all a time but after I installed SP1 it crashes "only" 3 times a day. It gives me a blue screen and boot's up it self. Internet explorer is also very unstable. Maybe my Ati doesn't like when there is actually 2 primary harddrives? It gives also this "System has recovered from serious error and it was caused by Ati all-in-wonder Radeon, after computer boots up. Ain't ati's drivers good or doesn't the Ati all-in-wonder like to be in Asus A7N8X mb...?

My Computer:

Athlon XP 3200+
Asus A7N8X Deluxe
256MB DDR (more is coming soon)
IBM 60GXP 60BG
IBM 180GXP 180GB
Western Digital Raptor 36GB 10000rpm
Sounblaster Audigy 2 platinum EX
ATI All-in-wonder Radeon
Plextor 24x10x40
Windows XP prof with SP1

How can I change my computer the way that it boots straight from WD raptor SATA-drive without having windows XP in 2 drives???

Thanks

-Ghettomaster-

Answer : Problem: Problem when booting win XP from WD Raptor SATA harddrive

When you loaded XP on the SATA drive was the other drive installed as well? If so then your problem is your boot.ini. It tells Windows how many installations and where they are, it is always on the first installed drive. You can fix this by connecting only the SATA drive and booting from the XP cd-rom. Choose the fast repair option rather than any install options. Also, SATA is NOT the same as SCSI. As far as your instability, you need to look at all of your addons. If I recall correctly this board has audio intergrated, remove the addon card or disable the system audio. Since the board is NForce2 (NVIDIA) based, maybe it doesn't like ATI?