GA P35C DS3R - fresh install. Please help me before I break this board in half!

[sc_gator]

Vista was running doggedly slow the other day so I decided to try to dual boot with Win XP and so I tried to install from CD - for some reason it corrupted the Vista install and so now it's like starting from scratch but I can't get any OS to load now.

After several attempts to recover here's where I'm at;

Removed all HDDs except 1 and put it in Orange slot (Shows as master 1 I believe) Removed all RAM except 1 DIMM of DDR2

With Vista:
Tried to install Vista with the "preinstall" drivers from the Gigabyte website (both intel & gigabyte drivers are on a flash drive) - I get to the load drivers screen and it only allows me to pick the Intel driver (which is fine as I'm using the orange slots) but after it loads the driver it shows no hard drive.

I've tried this with ACHI enabled and disabled and also both Native and Legacy IDE modes. Nothing will allow the HDD to show up.

I also tried with the purple slots and load the gigabyte driver - no hd shows up.

Then I tried with XP Pro:

Disabled ACHI, set Legacy IDE on and tried to install -the HD is found and I did a full NTFS format. XP runs through setup and then says it will reboot. PC reboots and then just sits there with a flashing cursor trying to boot from HD - after several seconds it reboots and does it again. If I press F12 for boot menu and manually choose the hard drive it does the same, just sits with a flashing cursor after running through what looks like the PCI stuff on screen.

I tried Vista again after this.

Same set up - disabled ACHI and Legacy IDE. I get to the "Load drivers" part and no drive shows up. Funny part is if I press "browse" I can browse the "C" drive and the previous XP Install so it's absolutely seeing the drive in there I just can't install the OS to it. I load the drivers from the flash drive and still nothing.

Any help is appreciated as I'm at my wits end!

[profJim]

Re: GA P35C DS3R - fresh install. Please help me before I break this board in half!

Can you try a Vista repair using your origninal AHCI settings?
I'm pretty sure that with AHCI enabled, you can't use Legacy IDE mode.
With AHCI disabled, you should be able to use either Legacy or Native modes.

[sc_gator]

Re: GA P35C DS3R - fresh install. Please help me before I break this board in half!

I tried to do a repair and when it popped up asking me what drive I wanted to repair the selection was blank. I tried to load drivers from USB stick and neither the intel or gigabyte drivers resulted in any drive showing in the window.

With ACHI disabled and Legacy mode enabled no drive shows up when Vista gets to the point where I would load a drive. I tried "load drivers" and browse and at that point I can even click on the C drive that is the hard drive to browse it but the dang OS won't see it. I can navigate the folders from the previous XP install attempt but nothing ever shows in the drive window.

I'm stumped and have even tried threatening my motherboard with destruction. :)

[profJim]

Re: GA P35C DS3R - fresh install. Please help me before I break this board in half!

Don't get mad, get even!
If someone else can't help you sooner, wait for Lsdme to answer your question.
Good things come to those who wait. ;)

[sc_gator]

Re: GA P35C DS3R - fresh install. Please help me before I break this board in half!

LOL - okay so I won't break it quite yet. :)

Thanks for the suggestions!

[profJim]

Re: GA P35C DS3R - fresh install. Please help me before I break this board in half!

I like your "quite yet" qualifier

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA P35C DS3R - fresh install. Please help me before I break this board in half!

So Vista is installed still correct, nor formatted off?

Sounds like it since you mentioned at once point you could browse the drive and see files, hopefully this was in the Vista OS as that will be easiest for you to fix without having to format the drive.

Please connect your OS Disk to the First Yellow Intel Port (SATAII_0), and put your CD/DVD drive on the Last Intel Yellow port (SATAII_5)

Then set the following in the BIOS

Integrated Peripherals

Intel Controller (Yellow Ports)
SATA RAID/AHCI Mode (Intel ICH10R Southbridge) ............. AHCI
SATA Port0-3 Native Mode ................................... Enabled (or Disabled, both will work)

Gigabyte/J.Micron Controller (Purple Ports)
Onboard SATA/IDE Device (GIGABYTE SATA2 Chip) ............. Enabled/disabled doesn't matter because we are not using this now at all.
Onboard SATA/IDE Ctrl Mode (GIGABYTE SATA2 Chip) ........... IDE

Then go into Advanced BIOS settings pages, and in the top setting click enter to enter the Hard Disk Boot Priority section, once in there move your OS hard drive to the top of this list using the PgUp/PgDn keys (Or may be +/-).

Then in the integrated Peripherals BIOS page set the 1, 2, 3 boot order to HDD first, CD Second, and disable/remove floppy from the last if it's there (While you are at this also disable/remove Floppy A from the Standard CMOS page at the bottom)

Once done insert your Vista install DVD and reboot. Once the machine starts hit F12 multiple times as you would with Del to enter the BIOS, this will bring up the boot menu, choose your CD/DVD drive by name or CD/DVD if that is the only option.

Once the installer is going try the vista repair once more, DO NOT LOAD ANY DRIVERS (Ever), and do not have any USB devices connected except mouse or KB. If the disk or OS is not found then you will need to rebuild the BCD Store, this is how you do that, then once done try booting windows normally, if that fails try the startup repair once more and it should work once you rebuild the BCD Store.

Use method 2 here to rebuild the BCD Store
Error message when you start Windows Vista: "The Windows Boot Configuration Data file is missing required information"

Actually, what brand is your CD/DVD drive, you may have problems with AHCI mode with certain brands, thus you may need to do this in IDE mode and then change to AHCI later. But try as mentioned above first anyway