unable to load win xp on sata hard drive. unmountable boot volume error screen!

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busa4

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i built this computer back in fall 07 and i am still getting the "unmountable boot volume" error when i try to do a fresh xp install on a sata hard drive. ive tried 2 motherboards and 2 sata hard drives and i still recieve the error. since i built the comp i have been using my old ide hard drive but its on its last leg and cant keep up with my gaming. i have a asus m2n-sli deluxe motherboard. i have the sata hard drive connected to the sata 1 terminal. i go through bios and switch the sata hard drive as the boot drive. restart bios after saving with xp cd rom in drive. system start loading xp files as if its working correctly. i select F6 for third party scsi or raid driver. install the drivers on the floppy. then it continues loading drivers until it says installing windows and the next screen i see is the error screen with "unmountable boot volume" and a bunch of other non-comprehensive jiberish.
 
i built this computer back in fall 07 and i am still getting the "unmountable boot volume" error when i try to do a fresh xp install on a sata hard drive. ive tried 2 motherboards and 2 sata hard drives and i still recieve the error. since i built the comp i have been using my old ide hard drive but its on its last leg and cant keep up with my gaming. i have a asus m2n-sli deluxe motherboard. i have the sata hard drive connected to the sata 1 terminal. i go through bios and switch the sata hard drive as the boot drive. restart bios after saving with xp cd rom in drive. system start loading xp files as if its working correctly. i select F6 for third party scsi or raid driver. install the drivers on the floppy. then it continues loading drivers until it says installing windows and the next screen i see is the error screen with "unmountable boot volume" and a bunch of other non-comprehensive jiberish.

had this before, i had to install vista instead and then "upgrade" to XP.
 
I am having a very similar problem with the comp in my signature....
What we did (my dad and i) is that we took out an old mobo and processor, and put in the 680i SLI mobo...nothing else, cept the graphics card changed. So as we go in for the first boot, it loads up to XP, quickly realizes that its got a different home, and shuts down. We expected this to happen, rite? Now as we put in our copy (we got this from my dads work, he works at IBM) of XP professional, it booted from the CD, formatted our disk, copied all the new files,then rebooted. Then, when we booted from the Hard Drive, we got an error screen saying "Disk Read Error- press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart...." so we did...same thing. We then updated the BIOS for the motherboard, it went fine and all...reinstalled XP, and same message. We weren't sure if it was a problem with the HDD, so we checked it...its a SATA 300 GB HDD with a 130 GB partition, ...can u help me:confused:
 
And that's why you people are getting lost! You are swapping boards and cpus out without simply trying the "press S for special devices" option seen on the next screen for choosing the closest matching chipset from the list there.

A friend borrowed an old ide drive when he couldn't get XP to go on a Sata I type seeing the disk detected error trying several floppies and repeat downloads of the drivers. When asked to look at it I found the driver floppy or driver set as the prblem while specifying the chipset immediately saw XP go onto the assumed bad drive with ease!

No board or cpu problem there. That copy of XP is still in use after a year's time!
 
With Vista you won't have to worry about a driver disk just to see a Sata drive put to use. With most newer boards the need to see a driver floppy for XP seems to have diminished as well.

That was a problem mainly seen with the older boards due to what was seen by the XP installer when reading the bios information. The Socket 939 model that needed the "press S" option and not simply a driver floppy saw a VIA chipset on that one while an older board here with an nForce 4 needed a floppy with extra drivers on that.

On a newer AM2 model board even XP now goes on without a hitch due to the support now seen for sata in general. The thing actually seen when Vista is installed is an NTFS primary. With a bare drive there's nothing not even the boot folder the Vista installer creates while lacking any partition.
 
I notice this error when loading the incorrect drivers, or when using a older version of XP PRO, one before SP2... A SP2 xp cd SHOULD load find on most systems. Then again, even on the newer systems that come with Vista, xp will sometimes run into issues detecting a SATA controller.
 
Here I originally had an XP/SP1 disk followed by an SP2 full install both run into a need for a driver disk until the present build saw an AM2 model board where XP simply went right on as usual without a need for additional support. The newer boards still support XP there while a look in the utilities when loading the software cd will show the option for creating a driver disk there as well as on the manufacturer's support site.

The one thing to remember is that the Windows installer for each version will still look for the first drive namely the first ide drive on a system before any sata is seen. If you want a sata seeing XP completely installed there including boot files and entries into the drive's mbr and ide drive first has to be unplugged! That is still seen with the Vista installer too.

The other thing to consider while having replaced board and cpu was mentioned earlier about a possible bad drive to start with. The other thing to look at is the S for special devices option since using the F6 option is simply not getting you anywhere.

You simply select the chipset that is the closest match to what is seen in the specifications for that model board during the installation to set a different type of installation mode apparently since suddenly the hard drive is then seen by the installer without extra drivers. I would give that a try to see if the drive suddenly is seen when making the next attempt.

A friend was bailed out when several attempts at creating driver disks with the board cd's tool and repeat downloads from the support site were pointless! The second installation screen not the first seeing the F6 option saw "press S for special devices" is what worked for seeing the XP installer finally start detecting the drive.
 
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