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ChandlerL

44 Posts

154169

February 18th, 2007 19:00

Vista Installation solution for RAID setup/dual-boot that get worker_thread BSOD

The following instructions should solve the issue users have been having with installing Vista on Dell systems that use a RAID bios that, by default, is turned on.
 
Firstly, we know that going into your BIOS settings and changing the RAID BIOS parameter to Autodetect enables you to install Vista without any special instructions-- So if you're willing to give up a RAID array or willing to do a clean Vista install that wipes your old XP install then you're good to go.
 
However the above "solution" doesn't help those that wish to dual boot XP/Vista (probably a very good idea for now) and want to keep their entire XP install with all settings and files and/or are using an enabled RAID setup and wish to continue using that functionality (turning that functionality off would be tantamount to erasing your hard drives). See DELL shipped these RAID supporting computers with the RAID setting defaulted to ON even if your HD setup is not using it. So the default Windows XP installs shipped on these Dells REQUIRE this setting to remain on. If you turn it off, you will no longer be able to boot up your XP install without getting the same BSOD we see in Vista forcing you to do a clean install only. So how do we keep our RAID setups and/or install Vista in a dual-boot XP/Vista configuration?
 
These instructions are meant to solve the issue that people have been having with the "WORKER_THREAD_RETURNED_AT_BAD_IRQL" BSOD. Keyword: Worker Thread Returned at Bad IRQL (Keyword placed here to facilitate people that are searching the forums for this solution)
 
#1-- Forget the DELL drivers-- they don't work-- at least they certainly didn't for me and they're also out of date.
 
#2-- From Windows XP, go to Intel's site and download the latest (6.2.1.1002) Intel Storage Manager exe for Vista. Run it but don't hit the NEXT button through the prompts-- you don't want to install it-- the good news is that if you do install it into your Windows XP install by accident the Vista driver release does work with Windows XP as well so you won't have an unbootable XP install. *whew* Either way the reason why I want you to hold off its installation is because we need to pull drivers from it that you can only get to from the a temporary folder that is created when you run the Intel setup. (there is another way that uses flags but we'll skip that idea for now)
 
 
 
#3- Go into your Windows\temp ($windir$\temp) directory and look for the IIF folder-- this is a temporary folder created by the Intel Storage Manager setup. Dig into that folder looking for the Driver or Driver64 folder (it's inside the WINALL folder). The correct folder will have the "iaStor.sys" file within it along with a few others such as "iaahci.cat" and "iastor.inf" Take the contents of that folder and write it to the root directory of a floppy disk, USB key, or CD. Don't write the folder "Driver" or "Driver64" to your media-- just the contents (I'm trying to keep things simple). The 32bit drivers are in "Driver" folder and the 64bit drivers are in the "Driver64" folder.
 
#4- Cancel the Intel Storage Manager for Vista installation since you got what you needed from it.
 
#5- Now try and install Vista again-- run the install from Windows XP and do a clean install-- if you wish to setup a dual boot and have a partition ready be sure to select that destination. While you're going through the install, look for the Load Driver icon (it's quite small) and click it. Be sure the USB key, floppy disk, or CD is inserted/connected to your system and browse to it. Then select OK. It will take the Vista install a long time to find it (god knows why). You should eventually see the Intel RAID driver pop up as an option. Select it and click OK or NEXT (I believe NEXT is the available button).
 
#6- Vista install should then copy the drivers and continue with the installation.
 
#7- Keep the USB key, CD, or Floppy Disk inserted/connected throughout the installation-- the Vista install may need to reinstall the driver again and will look for it later in the installation-- without it you may BSOD again so don't eject the media or disconnect your USB key until Vista is running properly.
 
#8- Vista should now install for your system with RAID capability allowing you a successful installation whether dual boot or clean and no more WORKER_THREAD BSOD.
 
I hope this helps everyone who's been having major issues-- as a medium-business DELL customer, I am troubled that DELL hasn't posted these instructions for users of its higher end systems that have this issue (such as the Dimension 9200, XPS 410, 700, etc.) It took a number of install retries along with a measure of sharing everyone's frustration for me to realize that I needed to look outside of Dell's support site to find what is needed to remedy the issue.
 
I also took the time to erase my newly working Vista install and doing this over again using my instructions to make sure they worked. Not exactly a controlled experiment but good enough for now.
 
Regards,
 
Chandler


Message Edited by ChandlerL on 02-19-2007 12:48 PM

proimage1

82 Posts

February 22nd, 2007 23:00

@ChandlerL wrote:
Yes, I did see that you still had issues which is unfortunate.
I have the same systems as you (at least in model #) and have been successful on 10 out of 40 so far.
Let me ask you.. What driver did it make available to you when you used the "Load Driver" option during the install. What was the name?




Hi Chandler - here are the names of the drivers that were in the temp folder and the ones that I hit during the install for ( load drivers ) I had these on a floppy - and it did come up with install RAID driver or something to that effect - where I hit NEXT:

DFF3CO - DFF6AF - DFF7A2 - DFF91 - DFFE9C ( all of these had .temp after the file name

NOTE: One thing that I think may be the culprit -- a couple of weeks ago during the first install when I crashed big time and had to reformat the C: drive and completely re-install XP -- and I mean it was a mess - I even had trouble getting the install of XP - Dell had to assist me doing that and they almost gave up - at any rate - we did finally get XP back - however - before this happened - during bootup -- I distinctly remember it having: Controlled by RAID BIOS 0 ( zero ) -- BUT NOW: during bootup - it does not have the 0 ( zero ) it just has controlled by RAID BIOS -- and it for sure looks different than it did before the crash and re-install of XP -- I'm wondering if that has some kind of effect and why this fix with the drivers update is not letting the install complete -- Dell on request did send me the driver re-install pak cd for XP - I haven't explored it or done anything with it - because the tech guy at Dell did manage to get it installed and downloaded drivers after the install - BUT he also had to put in some doss fixes before we could install it again -- and the thing is - I'm not sure if you remember my original post - but the first time I ever tried to install Vista - as a dual boot -- on my other external drive - it installed perfect - and I had XP and Vista running perfectly -- XP on my C: drive and Vista on the other internal D: drive - that is until I went and messed it up when I tried to expand the partition for Vista to have more space -- once I did that is when everything went south ! Dell did not want to do anything once that happened and basically told me I was on my own - BECAUSE the Vista I was installing was NOT their express upgrade to HOME BASIC - which I have no desire to put on the machine - neither upgrade or home basic.
I have often thought since all of that happened that IF I had the RAID BIOS exactly the way it was when shipped 6 weeks ago - I could install Vista Home Premium as a new clean install back on the other drive cleanly re-formatted just as I did the one time -- but try as I have - from that point on - I get the same BSOD - ( Worker Thread Error ) right at the 27% expanding of files )

Hey - I've got an idea - why don't you zip down here to Florida and load it up for me -- just kidding - but if you have any other ideas or spot something in what I've said here - it wouldn't be beyond me to give it another try.

Thanks in advance
Tom

Message Edited by proimage1 on 02-22-2007 07:11 PM

Message Edited by proimage1 on 02-22-2007 07:13 PM

kuhnesito

140 Posts

February 23rd, 2007 02:00

scott, chandler, you guys are awesome help, thanks.
 
unfortunaly I think the problem for this is simply the good old raid drivers.
 
I have gone countless times to the "Ctrl N" raid utility when i start my machine, deleted the arrais, start from scratch, build it again, clean install my OS...
 
and really that will all be to install a os who's video drivers dont allow me to turn off 3d hardware acceleration (anybody knows why?)
 
wouldnt I be better off waiting on my copy of win vista ultimate until dell releases the drivers?
 
btw, the win vista ultimate I bought was not from dell, I am entitled to an upgrade from dell which is home premium but i wanted to install ultimate and I bought it. is this a problem with dell? do they not like that you are instaling another OS that isnt the one you registered with them? does it affect the warante in some way?

ChandlerL

44 Posts

February 23rd, 2007 16:00

Quote:
DFF3CO - DFF6AF - DFF7A2 - DFF91 - DFFE9C ( all of these had .temp after the file name>
 
Yep that's your issue. You crashed on install because you haven't loaded your RAID Drivers yet. You may not have extracted the drivers properly or you didn't browse to them, you just clicked NEXT or OK and had Vista search for them. Browse to your floppy and try it. You should have seen something like:
"Intel ICH8 Storage Manager.... blahblah.."
 
 

proimage1

82 Posts

February 23rd, 2007 17:00

@ChandlerL wrote:
Quote:

DFF3CO - DFF6AF - DFF7A2 - DFF91 - DFFE9C ( all of these had .temp after the file name>
Yep that's your issue. You crashed on install because you haven't loaded your RAID Drivers yet. You may not have extracted the drivers properly or you didn't browse to them, you just clicked NEXT or OK and had Vista search for them. Browse to your floppy and try it. You should have seen something like:
"Intel ICH8 Storage Manager.... blahblah.."




Hey Chandler - thanks again - I did have these on the floppy and did navigate to the floppy - clicked on load drivers - it did at least attempt to load from the floppy -- and yes, it did say something to the effect of Intel ICH8 Storage Manager -- so I guess my question is - do these drivers I have noted look like the correct ones ?
Anyway - the push for Vista continues.
Regards
Tom

kuhnesito

140 Posts

February 23rd, 2007 18:00

I guess I am better off waiting for dell to release the raid drivers right?

ChinchX

1 Rookie

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28 Posts

February 25th, 2007 14:00

when looking at that page.. isn't that the exact same file as the windows xp drivers? if when you extract it, it says WINALL.. that would back up the idea that they are just the same driver for all those operating systems?

essentially it would be the same thing as just copying the drivers from the c:\program files\intel\intel matrix storage manager\driver after you've already installed the matrix manager? .. which i tried

i could be wrong though, just an observation.

edit: this is confirmed.. the downloaded file for both vista and xp.. are exact same file (did md5 check).. so this is really just going the long way around.. and this would explain why the 'vista' driver works fine in XP..

Message Edited by ChinchX on 02-25-2007 11:20 AM

Schell77

4 Posts

February 26th, 2007 02:00

Probably true, especially if you're using an XPS-410.
 
You see, the Intel RAID controller that comes with the XPS 410 has a known problem with Vista drivers. See this TechNet Forum thread. Even if you've overcome the blue screen issue on an upgrade from WinXP, or if your XPS 410 came with Vista, or you did a clean install, you are subject to the following:
  • NTFS file corruption, most readily detectible by running chkdsk C: /f at every bootup. Soon, you'll start noticing problems. Otherwise you'll eventually start noticing weird failures, then applications and perhaps the OS itself will start to fail as the file corruption affects key executables
  • Event ID 9 Errors in the System log with source iaStorV and Description The device, \Device\Ide\iaStor0, did not respond within the timeout period.

This problem has been chronic for me on my XPS-410 that came with RAID0 and Vista Home Premium, and it hasn't been fixed by numerous rebuilds with various firmware and driver versions. See the aforementioned thread for more details. It appears we're basically stuck waiting for Intel to provide updated drivers to Dell.

In lieu of returning my XPS-410 to Dell and demanding a refund for selling me an instabile configuration, I might try installing WinXP Pro to tide me over for a while, in hopes that Dell and Intel can overcome the problem quickly. I asked Customer Care to send me a reinstallation CD, but that'll take over a week they tell me. The problem is how to load the RAID drivers at the F6 prompt when my system did not come with a floppy drive. Anyone have any success at getting USB key floppy emulation to work with WinXP setup on the XPS 410?

scott784

388 Posts

February 26th, 2007 02:00

Chandler,
I have not actually used the downloaded files that you described.  (I am the guy that cut off my raid in BIOS and started everything all over from scratch to force Vista on my machine).  However, I do want to use raid in the future so this information is important when I get ready to crash my machine (again).
 
For the record, when I followed your instructions, I extracted the following files and put them on a CD.  Are the files listed below the correct ones?  It seems there may be some ongoing confusion here and I wanted to try to help clear it up if possible.  The files I have listed at the bottom of this post are the ones I extracted following your specific instructions.  For the record, I have pasted the gist of your instructions (most important part) and my comment below that before listing the files. 
Here it goes.
 
Chandler writes:
Go into your Windows\temp ($windir$\temp) directory and look for the IIF folder-- this is a temporary folder created by the Intel Storage Manager setup. Dig into that folder looking for the Driver or Driver64 folder (it's inside the WINALL folder). The correct folder will have the "iaStor.sys" file within it along with a few others such as "iaahci.cat" and "iastor.inf" Take the contents of that folder and write it to the root directory of a floppy disk, USB key, or CD. Don't write the folder "Driver" or "Driver64" to your media-- just the contents (I'm trying to keep things simple). The 32bit drivers are in "Driver" folder and the 64bit drivers are in the "Driver64" folder.
 
Cancel the Intel Storage Manager for Vista installation since you got what you needed from it.
 
Scott writes:
Again, when I followed your instructions going to your link for the 32 bit Vista Intel Storage Manager driver, I extracted the following files:
 
iaahci.cat
iaahci.inf
iastor.cat
iastor.inf
iastor.sys
txtsetup.oem
 
(I have included the file extensions such at .cat although users may not see those extensions on the surface when you first download files before going to properties.)  I have burned all six of those files above to a CD in the hopes that when I get ready to set up raid, I can simply load my external CD and satisfy retail vista during setup.  If these are the correct files, is it necessary to navigate specifically to the iastor.sys file and click on that or will Vista just automatically read everything off external media and draw out what it needs from above???  Is seems the iastor.sys (system file) is the key file here.
 
Thank you for your feedback Chandler.
 



Message Edited by scott784 on 02-25-2007 10:51 PM

ChinchX

1 Rookie

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28 Posts

February 26th, 2007 03:00

wow, what a nightmare, schell.. i have heard anecdotal evidence of slow filesystem/raid volume corruption just as you have described, but not in that amount of detail, so thanks for the info. scary heh.. this is why i'm leery to even install vista on here, even if i manage to one day get through setup.. ;) it's like.. people are tricked into thinking it worked or they believe it is working.. but underneath it all the iastor.sys driver or whatever is causing corruption to their files eventually leading to degraded volumes and loss of data. greeeat.

to further your information, i have read that the error "The device, \Device\Ide\iaStor0, did not respond within the timeout period." has to do with the TLER (time-limited error recover) feature of some hard drives. i can't exactly recall if TLER is the problem or the solution, though. do you know?

as for your question about loading the drivers for XP (F6 method).. when i reinstalled the OS, i luckily had a spare floppy drive that i just kinda hooked up w/ the case open until after the install.. that one got me for a sec too.. cause we know that F6 will only read the A:/floppy drive for the drivers. i haven't tried USB key emulation of a floppy.. is that possible in the Dell BIOS? From all I recall, there was an option to boot from USB, but not actually emulate a floppy (though i could be completely wrong).. lemme know what you find, i'd be interested in the solution to that.

thanks for your post! valuable information. keep us up to date!

kuhnesito

140 Posts

February 26th, 2007 06:00

I guess since my xps 710 is nvidia based all this thread is no help for me at all! sorry for bother chandler and scott

scott784

388 Posts

February 26th, 2007 21:00

Thanks for the post Schell77. 
 
I guess the best advice for anyone is NOT to try a raid 0 or raid 1 configuration at this time until Intel gets their act together and fixes this problem.  However, I would like to know the answer to one question though.
 
If the previous files (the files outlined in my previous post from Chandler's solution) are burned to external media like a CD or floppy, is it at least possible to leave raid on in the BIOS on a Dell XPS 410 or similar and feed the drivers to Vista during setup when it asks for them off the external media?  In other words, leave the BIOS setting as "raid on" but DO NOT actually set up a raid array? 
 
There are people who might want to do that for various reasons and it would be useful to know if this is a viable alternative to simply turning raid off (or in my case to autodetect mode in the BIOS).
 


Message Edited by scott784 on 02-26-2007 07:33 PM

ChinchX

1 Rookie

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28 Posts

February 26th, 2007 22:00

did we come to the conclusion that even if you set it to 'autodetect' and let it detect raid (rather than explicitly saying raid=on).. does it still crash?

also what happens when you switch from RAID=on to autodetect? does it screw your raid? i know you all addressed these before but.. i just worked a 12 hour day and am kinda tired to read through everything again.. sorry for being lazy

and what about vice versa.. if you set it to autodetect.. can you setup raid or does it have to be ON to create a raid array in the first place?

i was just kinda thinking like.. you might could temporarily set it to autodetect to get through the setup then revert it to ON as you were saying.. but i'm not sure if you can just go ON->AUTODETECT->ON like that without destroying your data

scott784

388 Posts

February 26th, 2007 23:00

ChinchX,
When your operating system is installed, it is tied to the BIOS setting in place at the time of the install.  So for example, if you change your BIOS setting from raid on to autodetect and then install Win XP, you cannot switch the setting back to raid on.  If you did, your XP boot would NOT boot.  This goes for other operating systems as well.  So there really isn't any toggling back and forth so to speak unless you plan on crashing the hard drive and reinstalling windows after the BIOS reset.
 
When retail Vista was put on my XPS 410 several weeks ago, the only known way to force the installation was to reset the BIOS from raid on to raid autodetect.  This was NOT the desired solution but at the time, it was the only choice....and may still be the only choice unless those drivers that Chandler mentioned actually do work with "raid on" in the BIOS.  I have not tried them.
 
So again, the installation is basically "fixed" with one BIOS setting and you cannot toggle around.  Otherwise, your windows will not boot......that is until you reinstall the operating system again.  This part stinks, but it's just the way it is. 
 
As far as actually having a raid array in the "autodetect mode", to the best of my knowledge that is not possible.  If I am wrong, someone can correct me here but I don't think so.


Message Edited by scott784 on 02-26-2007 07:53 PM

ChinchX

1 Rookie

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28 Posts

February 27th, 2007 01:00

interestingly enough... if you install vista inside a virtual machine (vmware, virtual pc).. it installs without a hitch. i dunno, maybe the RAID setup is abstracted or something, but.. just found that interesting.

scott784

388 Posts

February 27th, 2007 03:00

Yep, that is interesting.

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