On Sun, 13 Apr 2008 22:46:12 -0500, Ralphw
<Ralphw.37u9i6@no-mx.forums.net> wrote:

>
>New to the forum and somewhat new to Vista. By way of some background,
>I've been building my own systems since Win 3.1 and 20 Meg hard drives
>so I have some experience.
>
>Here's the issue...
>
>I've been trying to install Vista Home Premium (clean install from
>Upgrade media) on my primary desktop for over a week with major issues.
>Most appear to be driver related on an nVidia board using nForce drivers
>for the SATA control. I installed using the default drivers that Vista
>loaded and had to deal with multiple hangs during installation. Finally
>got it installed only to have it hang during Win Update and blue screen,
>then fail to boot. Recovery was unsuccessful and so another reinstall
>was done. Next blue screen ended up with a "Corrupt or missing" error on
>ci.dll and absolutely no ability to reboot to Windows.
>
>Decided I'd had enough and went to reinstall XP. Now I have issues with
>the drives being accessible to either XP setup or Vista setup. Tried
>loading SATA drivers and nothing worked. No drives visible.
>
>I had managed to create an Acronis image after the last succesful Vista
>install and decided to try to restore the drive using the boot DVD.
>Acronis loads but when you use Drive Manager to view the drives the
>drives appear as follows in Acronis Drive Manager:
>
>Maxtor 500GB drive (new and formatted for install NTFS as 2 partitions
>equal size) set as Drives C: and D:
>
>In green (Unallocated) = Unallocated 80.4GB
>Yellow (Primary) =
>0x65 Netware 3.x+ 0 bytes
>811.6 GB 0x72 (unknown)
>259.4GB 0x74 (scramdisk)
>
>Seagate 320GB single partition formatted NTFS set as Drive E:
>
>In green (Unallocated) = Unallocated 3.136GB
>Yellow (Primary) =
>C: 914.5GB (FS NONE Partition 0x7 NTFS, HPFS)
>0x72 (unknown) 5KB
>867.2GB 0x43 (LinuxNAT/DR-DOS)

Looks like the partition tables are all messed up. This can happen
when 28-bit LBA limited software is used to modify existing
partition(s) on a large (> 137GB) drive.

Delete and repartition.

>
>I am at my wits end. I have not tried to reformat as I cannot access
>the drives from anything. I can see them in Acronis, but cannot use
>Drive Mgr to format. Win XP setup sees one partition at 136GB but will

Is this Windows XP incorporating SP1 or 2?

>not allow installation while Vista doesn't see any of the drives at all
>and asks for drivers. Tried the ref drivers for the board after all else
>failed but no luck and machine has no Floppy Drive for XP driver
>install.
>
>BIOS shows both drives on their correct SATA channels and reports them
>correctly. Machine was checked for any viruses prior to install and has
>been continously covered by AVG since new. Machine was rock solid 24/7
>on XP but needed an HD refresh so decided to try Vista.
>
>I'm sure Ive done something to cause this but I have no clue what, or
>how to recover. ANY help would be appreciated.
>
>System Specs are:
>DFI LanParty UT NF590 SLI M2R/G
>4GB (currently only 2GB installed) Corsair 6400 C4 (checks healthy)
>AMD Athlon X2 5000
>eVGA Geforce 8600GTS driving Gateway FPD2485W display
>700 watt PS SLI certified
>Onboard Realtek HD audio
>PS2 Mouse and keyboard
>No other devices installed or in use
>NO O/C, system runs very cool