MDK Posted November 16, 2005 Posted November 16, 2005 I've tried everything and i cant get this thing to install windows. The farthest i can get is to the first install reboot, and then it gives the message "cannot detect/boot hard drive" or "disk boot failure. I have tried raid, non raid, 1 drive, 2 drives, a whole bunch of different IDE cables, and nothign seems to work. I have the SATA ports disabled. The drives came from my previous system which was a Lanparty Pro875B (intel478 for you amd only people). I really dont know what to try next. Anyone have any suggestions? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nero.Jacinth Posted November 16, 2005 Posted November 16, 2005 Are the hard drives formatted? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
F6Hawk Posted November 16, 2005 Posted November 16, 2005 Under advanced CMOS, check your HDD boot priority. Make the correct disk be #1. This is particularly true if you are running SATAs on both controllers; the default boot is the SiI3114 controller for some reason, and I had to force mine to boot off the nF4 one. Good luck! P.S. Jacinth, HDDs don't need to be formatted when installing Windows. That is taken care of in the first part of the install, and I think he is getting past that part. It sounds to me like his HDD is just not being recognized as the boot drive. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nero.Jacinth Posted November 16, 2005 Posted November 16, 2005 Hmm, thanks for the info F6Hawk :nod: , I didn't realize that when I wrote it. I said it because I had a problem when I first set up my comp with the hard drives because they had been formatted in an extremely old computer. Good luck MDK though, sorry I can't help. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDK Posted November 16, 2005 Posted November 16, 2005 yeah windows gets passed the formatting phase just fine. These are PATA drives, not SATA. I ran out of money and HDD's didnt make the list of things to upgrade. It knows it should boot from these drives, but fails to detect them in some cases and wont boot in others. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
h0db Posted November 16, 2005 Posted November 16, 2005 How are the drives jumpered? Some have posted that the DFI NF4 boards like the PATA drives to be jumpered "Master" regardless of whether they are using the connnector at the end of the cable or the middle. Try it that way, and if it doesn't work, keep it cabled at the end connector and jumper it for "cable select." Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smoken Joe Posted November 16, 2005 Posted November 16, 2005 If ATA make very sure you have the jumpers right the WD can be irritatingly picky. hit esc on boot to select the drive to boot from. Is the drive showing up on boot properly? There are soe good diagnostics on the ISO disk for this kind of thing thoug it is most likly somthing simple. I like to format my drives with a new install. Dont forget to try and take one stick of memory out that often solvse some memory problems it that is the cse you can also increase HD delay to 2sec that can help sometimes. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
F6Hawk Posted November 16, 2005 Posted November 16, 2005 Even if they are PATA, I think you still ahve to set the boot priority in the BIOS. Give it a whirl, see waht is set as #1. If it ISN'T the HDD you want to boot from, make it so, hit F10, and you should be GTG!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDK Posted November 16, 2005 Posted November 16, 2005 I had the drives on cable select, because the Pro875B had a dedicated PATA raid controller so I had enough channels to give each drive its own port. I now have them set in a slave/master config. With the NF4 Raid enabled, The "boot first" sets to NVIDIA STRIPE etc etc, with NF4 raid off, the hdds dont get detected on post. Right now I'm trying to install in a raid config, since that seems to be the most stable. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDK Posted November 16, 2005 Posted November 16, 2005 Ok now with RAID enabled, the Windows installer sees 2 drives, even though it should only see 1 due to raid. Now what? Edit: It bluescreened when I tried to install it on raid with it detecting 2 disks. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smoken Joe Posted November 16, 2005 Posted November 16, 2005 Ok now with RAID enabled, the Windows installer sees 2 drives, even though it should only see 1 due to raid. Now what? Edit: It bluescreened when I tried to install it on raid with it detecting 2 disks. After boot up you need to hit f10 and select the drives and place it in raid 0. Angry has a link to the how ot in his sig or he did. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDK Posted November 16, 2005 Posted November 16, 2005 Ok I think I'll recap since no one seems to be comprehending my posts. The drives are PATA. The jumpers are set, the cables are good. All sata devices are disabled. When I try: RAID disabled: Windows does its initial dump of the installation files onto the disk, reboots, then fails to detect hard drive, or bluescreens with a hard drive related error. RAID enabled: Windows installer reads the drivers from the floppy on startup, but then when it goes to install the drivers, wont read the floppy. If i continiue anyway, after first reboot it will not boot from the drives/cannot find the drives. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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