I Hate Vista

Ignore last post it failed.  I have solved it now though. I slipstreamed this file

 

R176216.exe into windows and it finally worked.  I was attempting to include the wrong file before.

Another update I keep getting BSOD. Not sure if theres a hardware fault or xp upgrade incapability problem. Consider this topic unsolved. Also my C: drive is now I: drive.

 

 I did not debug before using seagate disk wizard to wipe the HDD.  Could this be the reason for the odd behaviour and bsod's 

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@Maturecheese wrote:
Thanks Boyd.  I am already in the process of using DBAN to wipe the drive.  I can't remember but I may have left my mini sd in the card reader when installing my slipstreamed XP and that may have caused it.  It apears that there are no xp drivers for the X-FI sound card that was fitted so I have removed that so as to lessen the chances of hardware conflict.  I will try again tomorrow with R176216.exe on my mini sd.  I have a question about drivers on Nvidia's site but I'll start a new thread for that one.

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Hello Maturecheese, You have really had problems with trying to install XP on your Dell system. Just so I can be brought up to date, are you just doing one OS on the hard drive, but want to have a second partition for another purpose? Since you stated there are no XP drivers for your sound card, I would remove it right now, just to get XP installed and then work on that issue later. Some have also had to disconnect the card reader as well because XP sees it as another drive. I seem to remember I saw that there may be XP drivers for that however. I have not followed you attempts lately, since I stopped coming to the Dell Forums, but installing XP on your system should not be all that difficult. Many have done it. Since the slipstream seems not to be working, and all else fails because of the SATA drivers, and that seems to be the issue confronting you now, you could just acquire a floppy drive, you may already have one, and just connect it temperorily outside the case laying on the table. All you need is a floppy ribbon cable, and the power cable from the power supply, go into the BIOS and make sure the floppy is enabled, save the BIOS settings, insert the floppy with the Pre-OS install drivers that you have or get from Dell, reboot the system and when you see the Press F6 for drivers, do it, and the install process will continue. No need to ground the floppy. At some point XP will want to reboot and advise you to remove the floppy disk from the drive. Do it and reboot. If you are successful with the OS install, shut the system down, unplug the power cord from the tower, remove the cables connected to the floppy from the system, reboot and disable the floppy in the BIOS and your system should work. As far as the Nvidia drivers, go to nvidia.com and download the latest drivers for your video card and OS. Keep us posted. Hope this helps.

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@Maturecheese wrote:

Another update I keep getting BSOD. Not sure if theres a hardware fault or xp upgrade incapability problem. Consider this topic unsolved. Also my C: drive is now I: drive.

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Hello Maturecheese, I promised myself I would not get involved with other's issues any longer since I have be ridiculed by others, not you, about my advise on istalling OS on Dell or any other systems. The reason the OS is being seen as something other than the C: drive is because you have a second partition on the hard drive. Windows XP sees this and installs to this partition, which is what you may want but want it to be seen as C: The system will boot to this partition, as you have been able to do, so how is the information valid from MS, that a Windows version will only boot to a C: partition. This is untrue, as you have seen. I have encountered this problem when using 2 or more hard drives. The install goes as expected but when you boot into Windows, you see the boot drive as some other letter than C: so the "C:" only boot drive theory is debunked. After learning this, I always disconnect every drive except the one I want the OS to be installed on and that solves this issue. Now since you have partitioned you single hard drive into a second partition, you cannot disconnect the drive. The only way I have found around this would be to erase all the data on the first partition because the Windows OS wants to boot from the first partition of the hard drive. I don't know how your system is configured, or if you still have Vista installed. We just don't have enough information to be able to give any more advise without more information. Hope this helps.

 

If all else fails I will do that as I have floppy drives hanging around but I,ll try the card reader once more.  I am trying to install xp on one partition using the whole drive.  If I want more than one partition I can do that later from within windows.  I removed sound card yesterday. Hopefully I will post possitive news tomorrow as DBAN wont be done until around 2-3 this morning.

That sounds great. Just remember that XP will see the card reader as another hard drive, and maybe show up with several drive numbers or partition sizes, so when you select which drive you want to install XP on, make sure it is the 750 GB hard drive. If XP installs and then shows up as any other drive number than C:, you cannot change this from within Windows. As far as I know another install would be required, however I am not certain about this. I have had this scenario occur so that is why I disconnect all the other drives before hand. Keep us posted.

The problem I have with using a floppy is that the file I mentioned earlier(R176216.exe) for sata drivers is too big for a floppy. Im sure it can be trimmed down to the minimum needed to fit on a floppy but I would need to know exactly what files to put on and I don't . Asking chris M appears to be a waste of time as its probably against Dell policy.

 

I think when R176216.exe unzipped its  IDE/Winxp/sata_ide  the files in this folder. It could be IDE/Winxp/sataraid.

 

It would be nice if someone could confirm which folder to use, Please:smileyhappy: 

Hello Maturecheese, I see your delima. However, There may be a solution. You may try this. Your system seems to be Nvida chipset. I checked the R176216 driver under the XPS 630. I believe this is your system model and it showed the chipset driver above. It is something like 16 MB or so. I downloaded this file and extracted it but canceled when it showed it to be installing. I then went into this folder. C:\dell\drivers\R175118\IDE\WinXP\sata_ide and you will find the drivers. Notice the folder changed from R276216 to R175118. There are actually 7 files in the folder. You may or may not need all of these but since they total only 499.12 bytes (size on disk) I would copy them all to a floppy. They should fit on a floppy disk. If you need, I can list the names of these files. Keep me posted.

Boyd thanks for your help.  I have given up.  First of all I couldn't get a floppy to work, then I noticed two pins missing on the FDD interface and thought this was unusual so I rang Dell.  3/4 of a hour later they decide to send an engineer out the next day, promising me they would ring between 9and 11 to arrange a time.  At 9:10am the engineer turns up out of the blue with a replacement m/b only for it to turn out that the fdd interface is supposed to have two pins missing. Tech support are an Indian JOKE.

 

Anyway got the floppy working by enabling it in the bios,  got XP loaded only for it to start blue screening ,looping and occasionly loading the desktop for a second or two. 

 

All this could be sorted if Dell had the decency to send me a resources and drivers cd for xp but when I asked they told me more or less to get lost.

 

they have succeeded in loosing another customer because If this is the after sales service the provide they can take a run and jump.  I WILL NEVER BUY ANOTHER DELL PC! 

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@Maturecheese wrote:

Anyway got the floppy working by enabling it in the bios, got XP loaded only for it to start blue screening, looping and occasionly loading the desktop for a second or two. 

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I understand your frustration. There has to be something else going on here. Did you use an original copy of XP and not a download or slipstreamed version? Were you able to actually get XP to load and get to the desktop? If you are not experiencing some hardware issue, XP should install with the floppy F6 procedure normally. You then should be able to update all the other drivers. Have you checked your memory because this acts just like a classic memory issue? You can download Memtest and put it on a floppy disk and boot to it and it will check the memory for errors. Don't rely on Dell's memory test. I never give up. I have been working on computers nearly 30 years now and have never had one I could not get to work as it should and so can you. Dealing with Dell though, is another matter. Dell has never helped me with an issue other than sending me parts that were needed under warranty and usually they were the wrong ones. I recall working on one system for 48 straight hours before I was successful, but in the end I prevailed and you can too. Try the Memtest and at least confirm the memory to be without errors or confirm it to be faulty. Keep us posted.

You got that right about paying through the nose from Dell. If Vista is operating as it should, then you almost centailnly don't have memory issues then. You might try downloading a new driver set since the first ones may be faulty. I have experienced this before. I know that others have accomplished what you want to, so it can be done. The trick is to find what is preventing this from working. I am still suspicuous of the XP install disk that you are using. I have experienced these kinds of issues with corrupted or damaged install disk. What comes to mind as I am typing is that I have had disk with smudges/finger prints on the read side of the disk. I now, always clean the disk before a fresh install. I just simply, very slightly, wet some toilet tissue and lightly wipe the disk and remove any smudges/finger prints. I then wipe it very lightly with an unwetted toilet tissue. This has worked many times for me. Just another thought. If Vista installs and works as it should, I wouldn't think you have a hardware issue. It seems to be more related to a software issue. I would concentrate in that area since Vista has no issues on you system. Keep in touch and please, don't give up. 

You obviously have a lot more patience than me:smileyhappy:  I don't think its a memory issue because I am currently setting Vista up again and the OS is up and running with no probs. When I've got a minute I'll try memtest just to be sure but I think its a driver and or Hardware issue  As for a driver disk from Dell I now think that they include all the drivers in the OS which means I should have paid through the nose and bought one from them.  A cd drivers disk would be no good as windows setup (F6) looks for a floppy.  Ill ask on the XP section as well just incase theres a bright spark on there.

Right heres the latest.  I have ruled out a faulty disk as I used my older XP Home sp1 and it installed ok to the same point, although Amazon are replacing it anyway now.

 

I insert the OS disk press F6 load up Nvidia Raid controller and Sata Controller and have no problems installing XP.  The trouble starts when I try to install other necessary drivers Like NIC  and the time before this Chipset drivers.  After doing this I get the BSOD and looping. Here is the BSOD from this time.

 

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL ( This is a generic message which could cover a load of things)

 

STOP: 0x000000D1 (0x000001AC,0x00000006,0x00000001,0xF74A84C0

 

nvgts.sys Address F74A84C0 base at F7496000,datestamp 472236eb 

 

I am installing the correct(according to Dell) drivers for XP.  the previous time I completely wiped the HDD before trying to install XP and this time I did an overnight Long format before trying to install XP.

 

I am wondering if my system might be incompatable with ATI 3870 HD cards running XP and maybe should have GT 8800 instead as "nvgts.sys" seems to be croping up regularly.

 

 By the way I have installed any drivers from the Dell Drivers disk which it turns out has XP drivers as well. I did this to rule out faulty online drivers or corrupted downloaded drivers.

 

I am pretty much at a dead end now as there does not appear to be a solution and Dell wont help. 

This appears that you have some issues with the video card drivers. Since you can now get Windows to install, I would download these ATI drivers afrom ATI and not Dell. Dell seems to lag behind others when it comes to drivers. These are tha latest for your card from ATI. Give these a try and see if you have any success.

 

http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?p=xp/radeonx-xp