[Nugrl]

Hello all,
I am encountering a problem with trying to dual boot vista home premium with xp pro. The machine came with vista home prem. installed on it, it has a 500 gig hd, so I partitioned that drive and now I am trying to install xp pro on that partition I created, but its not working. It goes thru acting like it going to install xp, but then when it gets ready to actually install windows, I get a blue screen of death and it says something like my hard drive may be corrupt? any ideas what could be going on? The C: drive has been and still is running fine, so I am confused. I used the DISKPART program that comes in vista to partition the drive. maybe I shouldn't have done that? I followed this step by step instructions on this page apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting[uvista[/u]and_xp] and got as far as where it says " Now, Install windows XP" and thats where I had my problem. I put the xp cd in like it said to, rebooted, booted off the cd, it acted like it was going to install xp, without a problem, but no such luck. right after it says its going to install windows, I get the blue screen. I am thinking I need to do something else to that partition I created? I am just not sure??? I have never done a dual boot thing before, and so now I am stuck....
the system is a Gateway GT5628 with an Intel Q6600 Quad-core running 3 Gig of ram with a 500 gig hd.


Sorry about question posting more than once. It acted like it wasn't posting the first two. So I tried a third time and now all three are there..... go figure.....

[rgreen4]

Hello Nugrl - Welcome to the PC World forum. From what you have posted, you have stumbled onto a glitch between the retail XP discs (even through SP2c) and as a result, as strange as it may seem there may be nothing wrong with your machine. You may have an SATA controller that is newer than the stock XP drivers included on the CD. To verify this, please read through this document|d-1670] that discusses it. While this document was primarily aimed at notebooks, it also applies to desktops.

Checking the Gateway website gives a lot of details about the machine, but does not state which controller chip is used. To determine what specific controller is on your machine, please download the program Belarc Advisor. This is a small program that reads all the installed devices in your PC and places a report in a window of your default browser. It is very informative and is used by many of us. It saves a great deal of time. It can be downloaded from [this Belarc site. What you are looking for is a reference to Intel conroller 82801 and the words Raid or ACHI. You might be able to go into the BIOS setup and modify it.

To enter the BIOS setup, when the machine is first booting, you will get a logo screen and below that a series of keys that you can press to access various features before the machine starts. One should have the word "STARTUP" beside a key, either "Delete", "F1", "F10" or something like that. Depress that key and hold until you see the words "Entering Setup".

I am not familiar with the Gateway BIOS, but you should have several pages. They may be accessed by menu choices across the top (HP does this) and you will just have to browse through them looking for something that refers to Raid/ACHI Controller. If it says "Enabled" and is not grayed out, you can change to "Disabled", some BIOS options toggle through "Raid", "ACHI" and "Disabled".

If you can't find it, post back, and we will see if we can work through this.

[Nugrl]

Hello rgreen4
Thank you for your quick response in this matter. I do already have Belarc installed on this system. I have used that program for many years, and yes, it is very informative. Here is what I found under "Bus Adapters" Intel® ICH8R/ICH9R SATA RAID Controller
ITE IT8211 ATA/ATAPI Controller

I am not sure if that is what you wanted me to look for or not. I have not gone into the bios yet, but will do so shortly. I will post back my findings. A question though,... by disabling the RAID or ACHI controller, will that have any effect on how the system will function? just curious, because this is a new system that was bought for my son at christmas, and I am just trying to be careful with it for now, til I make sure the system itself is running fine. It seems to be, just a few minor glitches here and there, but for the most part it is a pretty good computer. What prompted me to partition this C: drive in the first place is that my son has the Final Fantasy VII game that he wants to play again, and it will not run on Vista, but will run on XP. So that is why I did this in to begin with. I didnt' want to format the drive and just put XP on it, but would rather try dual booting first. Formatting and installing only XP on it will be my last resort. Because I was also concerned with doing that, that I may still run into the same problem like I am now with trying to install XP on the new partition. And by the sounds of it, it just may not have let me install XP anyway, so I want to try this first. I will get back to you on what I find in the bios.

[rgreen4]

It's a good thing you didn't try to reformat and install XP, you would have blue screened and had no way to go back without the recovery discs.
I was thinking that Belarc would have given the 82801 number followed by several alpha identifiers, but the ICH8R/ICH9R is enough to tell me that it is the same controller that is in my HP Media Center (Fall, 2006). This is the one that came with XP MCE, but I was unable to reinstall XP on it without using the recovery DVD.
The impact of turning off the AHCI is that you will not be able to utilize the full benefit of SATA drives, ie native command queing and hot plugging. Here is a link to a Wikipeida Article on the topic. I have not noticed any speed problems with this disabled on my multi-boot machine.
I inquired on the Gateway site, and apparently the GT5628 was only available with Vista. It is not what I call a transition model (one that originally shipped with XP and then later with Vista). These are easier, because you can find XP and Vista drivers for those machines.
One thing I will point out about my multi-booting installations is that each OS is installed on its own HD. I remove or disconnect the other HD's when doing the install, and that way one install does not interfere with another. One reference I have seen on installing XP as the second OS with Vista being the primary, is that the XP install overwrites the Vista Boot record and that must be repaired with the Vista install disc. Separating the OS's on two physical drives avoids this. Boot selection can be made at the time of booting when the boot options come up. Usually <F12> triggers the boot menu where you select the boot device. On my one machine there are about 8-10 choices, and Hard Drives is one option which bring up the list of hard drives to select from (I have 3 bootable HD's in that machine). If you purchase a second HD, it does not have to be as large as the primary drive, in fact I use 80GB as the secondary usually, as it's the smallest available.

[Nugrl]

here is everything that is says under the Bus Adapters in Belarc:
Intel® ICH8R/ICH9R SATA RAID Controller
ITE IT8211 ATA/ATAPI Controller
Microsoft iSCSI Initiator
Intel® ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2934
Intel® ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2935
Intel® ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2936
Intel® ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2937
Intel® ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2938
Intel® ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2939
Intel® ICH9 Family USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 293A
Intel® ICH9 Family USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 293C
Ok, I also took a look in the bios and heres what I found.
Under Drive Configuration tab:
ATA/IDE Mode <Native>
Configure SATA as S.M.A.R.T. <RAID> <Enabled>
Detected SATA Device ST3500630AS
Hard disk Pre delay <2>
so is this where I should change that <Enabled> to <Disable> ? and is that the only thing I need to change. do I need to do anything with the <RAID> ?
just wanted to make sure before I go in there and make any changes.
I do believe that it explains how to go in and fix the boot loader for vista in that apcmag.com article on dual booting vista and xp. I will have to check it again to make sure.


Ok, I am back. I went back into the bios and changed the <Enabled> to <Disable> and left the <RAID> alone, put the XP cd in, rebooted, and still the same thing....... a blue screen, saying to check for viruses or a corrupt hd. so now what do you suggest? I did go back into the bios again and changed the disabled back to enabled and got back online to see if you had any other ideas. ??? Hey, you know what else I just remembered. When you go to install XP, right at the very beginning of the install, is asks you if you need to install a SCSI or RAID driver , hit F2. Is there anyway to install a driver for the RAID, to allow XP to install? I should have just hit F2 to see what it is looking for, but I didn't. I let it continue with attempting to install, only to be disappointed again. Oh and where it says <RAID> in the bios, the choices I am given there is IDE, RAID, and AHCI. Should I change <RAID> to one of the other ones?

[rgreen4]

The item that I find interesting is the "Configure SATA as S.M.A.R.T. <Raid> <Enabled>. On my HP BIOS it is slightly different, togling between <Raid>, <AHCI> and <IDE>. In the IDE postion, it emulates IDE connection for the SATA drives. On my Gigabyte board in my newer self built machine it toggles between <Raid>, <AHCI> and <Disabled>.
Here is the screen of the Phoenix BIOS on my HP Media Center desktop XP will not install with this setting:


Here the screen from my aftermarket Gigabyte board with Award BIOS - XP installed fine with this setting:


Message was edited by: rgreen4 to add screen shots.

[Nugrl]

well what do you suggest now? I tried like I said before to switch it from enable to disable, but left the thing alone, and that didn't work. so I went back into the bios and set it back to . I am still open for suggestions. Should I try changing the thing to another setting? IDE or AHCI and then disable it? or should I try installing that RAID driver it ask you for at the beginning of the installation of XP? Just for the record, I did try running the Final Fantasy VII game in a different compatiblity mode on Vista, but that didn't work either, so thats why I am now trying to install XP Pro on another partition, and was just going to install the game on it. nothing is simple........

[smax013]

Nugrl said:

well what do you suggest now? I tried like I said before to switch it from enable to disable, but left the thing alone, and that didn't work. so I went back into the bios and set it back to . I am still open for suggestions. Should I try changing the thing to another setting? IDE or AHCI and then disable it? or should I try installing that RAID driver it ask you for at the beginning of the installation of XP? Just for the record, I did try running the Final Fantasy VII game in a different compatiblity mode on Vista, but that didn't work either, so thats why I am now trying to install XP Pro on another partition, and was just going to install the game on it. nothing is simple........

Try setting the setting to IDE. I believe this will do it. AHCI will definitely not work without the driver. I am pretty sure that in RAID mode, it also enables the AHCI mode...thus, you need to have the drivers for the RAID/AHCI mode on a floppy disk to install during the Windoze XP install.

Operating in IDE mode should not hurt anything...unless you have a RAID array setup on the computer and have been using it in Vista.

[rgreen4]

Nugrl - I agree with Smax and in fact that is what I was trying to say. Set it for IDE if you can. At that point, I don't think enabled or disabled matters. You have a singe drive so Raid is not in play (requires 2+ drives).

[Nugrl]

Yes, you are correct. There is only one hd in this system, but it is now broken down into 3 partitions. I do however have an external 300 gig hd on this system also. It came with a 2nd small partition on the C:, that says Recovery , and it is only about 10 gig. The partition I created is about 136 gig. Heres a question for you pertaining to using that DISKPART that is built into Vista. When I created that partition it gave me no option that I saw to specify the size that I wanted that partition. I just typed SHRINK like it said to, and this is the size it created. Is there somewhere in there that I could have specified the size I wanted? I really didn't need this partition to be this big just to install XP Pro, and put this game on for my son. Ok, back to the IDE vs. RAID. So in other words, the RAID setting is only going to benefit me if I have 2 hd's in there, correct? So by changing the setting to IDE, than there should be no affect on the system? or is it going to take away from the speed of the SATA drive? Do you need to know anymore specs on this system. Just let me know.

BTW how do you post screenshots on here?

[smax013]

Nugrl said:

Ok, back to the IDE vs. RAID. So in other words, the RAID setting is only going to benefit me if I have 2 hd's in there, correct? So by changing the setting to IDE, than there should be no affect on the system? or is it going to take away from the speed of the SATA drive?

RAID would only benefit you if you had more than one internal drive AND you wanted to actually run those multiple drives in a RAID array. If you don't know what a RAID array is, then this webpage should help you some. Changing that setting should not effect the speed of your drive. My new computer build is set in a similar mode due to the fact that the Intel ICH9R chipset requires a driver to be installed when installing Windoze XP otherwise it will BSOD you when you "turn on" its functionality.

Nugrl said:

BTW how do you post screenshots on here?

See if this document helps: [d-1144]

[Nugrl]

Has anyone here ever used Paragon Partition Manager, to partition your drives? I got that program, because like I said, it gave me no option, at least what I saw in DISKPART to choose the size of the partition I was creating. So I was thinking that perhaps I could reduce the size of the 136 gig partition that DISKPART created by using Partition Manager. I also have Partition Magic, but it does not work on Vista. I am trying to get a screenshot in here of my drives in Partition Manager, but I can not get the actual image to display in this post. I followed the instructions on the page on how to upload an image, but the only thing that comes up when I paste the url in here is the url itself and not the image. Is that what its supposed to do? I want the actual image to come up like rgreen4 did.

[rgreen4]

Hey Nugrl - first you can get an active screen shot two ways. When looking at the screen image you want, you can use CtrlPrint Screen to copy the screen image to the clipboard and then open an application like paint or even word and then click on paste and it will paste the image into that app. With paint you can then edit the image. Or, you can use the new snipping tool in Vista to "snip" a portion of the image. From the start button, you click on accessories and then on snipping tool. When it starts, it turns the entire screen frosty (the first time it happens is a little disconcerting - you wonder what you have done), but then you use the curser (a cursor not an arrow) to select the section you want to capture and then click ok and then you have to give it a name. The default is capture.jpg and puts it in your usernamephotographs folder.

On the partitions - the small 10GB partition is your recovery partition. DO NOT CHANGE IT. Especially if you have not burned a copy or recovery discs. Opening Disc Manager should have given you a graphic representation of the partitions, and you should have been able to change the amount you shrank the existing Vista operating partition. I think what happened is that it by default split the active partion in half and when you clicked ok that what it did.

The disk manager in Vista is a good tool and I have used it extensively. I am sitting however, in front of a Windows 2000 machine at work, so I do not want to try that by memory. If you can wait until I get home this evening, I will walk you through it.

[smax013]

Nugrl said:

Has anyone here ever used Paragon Partition Manager, to partition your drives? I got that program, because like I said, it gave me no option, at least what I saw in DISKPART to choose the size of the partition I was creating. So I was thinking that perhaps I could reduce the size of the 136 gig partition that DISKPART created by using Partition Manager. I also have Partition Magic, but it does not work on Vista. I am trying to get a screenshot in here of my drives in Partition Manager, but I can not get the actual image to display in this post. I followed the instructions on the page on how to upload an image, but the only thing that comes up when I paste the url in here is the url itself and not the image. Is that what its supposed to do? I want the actual image to come up like rgreen4 did.

I believe the person at PCWorld building the Dream PC has been using PAragon Partition Manager...you might want to read through his blogs: [p-1481] I use Partition Magic, but as you noted it does not work in Vista. It should not matter, however. Supposely, Disk Management in Vista can supposedly do non-destructive partitioning now. If so, you should not need any other partition software.



As to posting a screen image, if you have managed to get a screenshot and saved it as a JPG file (see [~22087]'s recent post if you haven't figured that out), when typing your post, there should be a little greenish square, like this:

!http://forums.pcworld.com/legacyimages/
1!

Clink on it. You should get a window that opens that looks like this (minus the previously uploaded image that is shown in mine):



Click on the "Upload Images" link. It should open up a dialog box that will allow you to find the image you created with the screen capture. Find it, select it, and hit the open button in the dialog box. You should return the window like the one above and your image should now be show/listed there. You should then be able to hit the Insert button and it should be inserted into your post. Just be careful to not use huge images in terms of MB wise.

[Nugrl]

ok, here is a question I just thought of. If I go back into the bios and change that <RAID> to <IDE>, how is this SATA drive going to function properly? Since it is a SATA drive, not an IDE. Or am I misunderstanding something here?


Why do I not have this "Snip It" tool on my computer, under Accessories? Am I looking in the wrong place for it?

[smax013]

Nugrl said:

ok, here is a question I just thought of. If I go back into the bios and change that <RAID> to <IDE>, how is this SATA drive going to function properly? Since it is a SATA drive, not an IDE. Or am I misunderstanding something here?

I don't know the details, but it will function. It some how running in some "simulated" IDE mode, even though your drive is not an IDE drive. Just give it a try. From the Wikipedia document that ~22087] linked to in a previous post:


"When attempting to install Microsoft Windows XP or a previous version on an AHCI-enabled system will cause the setup to fail with the error message "set up could not detect hard disk drive...". This problem can only be corrected by either using a [floppy disk with the appropriate drivers, by slipstreaming the appropriate drivers into the Windows XP installation CD or by turning on IDE emulation in the BIOS settings if available. "



And here this is from a section on the Wikipedia document for SATA:



"The standard interface for SATA controllers is Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI), which allows advanced features of SATA such as hot plug and Native Command Queuing (NCQ). If AHCI is not enabled by the motherboard and chipset, SATA controllers typically operate in "IDE emulation" mode which does not allow features of devices to be accessed that are not supported by the ATA/IDE standard. Windows device drivers that are labeled as SATA are usually running in IDE emulation mode unless they explicitly state that they are AHCI. While the drivers included with Windows XP do not support AHCI, AHCI has been implemented by proprietary device drivers.^[1]^ Windows Vista and the current versions of Mac OS X and Linux [1] have native support for AHCI."

[rgreen4]

The drive is still physically and electrically an SATA drive, it is emulated by the BIOS to the OS as an IDE drive.

Click on Start -> All Programs -> Accessories and look in the listing for a snipping tool, the icon looks like a pair of sissors. I may not have the application name 100% correct (again I am currently on a W2K machine). In a few hours I will be at home and on my Vista machine.

It is possible, but unlikely that it does not appear on Gateways. If so, it would be unfortunate, for it is very handy.

[Nugrl]

ok, gotcha. Now back to this Snip It tool. I don't have it on here. Why not? and also, do either one of you think I should resize that 136 gig partition before installing XP Pro on it?

[rgreen4]

Yes, but wait until I get to my Vista machine and go through the steps again, or until Smax gets the chance to.

The reason is, that I think the new partition has to be deleted, then the Vista operating partion expanded, and then contracted again. If I remember correctly, if you just shrink the current XP volume, it will leave an unallocated space, with the XP volume between the new unallocated space and the Vista Operating volume which means that the Vista operating volume cannot be expanded. Kind of like a City cannot annex an area if another City is blocking it. A volume can only be expanded to an unallocated volume adjacent to it.

[Nugrl]

Ok, I think I understand. Its just I didn't think I needed that much space for XP Pro, seeing as how the main reason I am even putting it on here it to install this game for my son. I suppose I will use XP on here though. Just for the simple fact that I am a little more familiar with it, and not Vista. But I am getting better at Vista. slow... but sure..... Thanks to all the help I get!!! ;)