Win XP installation on nForce2 SATA drive

[bartx]

Recently I've bought a few nForce 2 boards for 462 socket (Chaintech 7NJS and three Soltek 75FRN2 boards, some with SATA ports, some with IDE only). I wanted to install Win XP on 7NJS today and I failed hard doing this... I cannot get it working on SATA SSD... after few attemps I found out, that I have to create a RAID array with only 1 drive (FastTrak 376 controller, weirdest thing ever). Ok, now installer sees the drive (with controller drivers added using nLite), but after maybe 2-3 hours copying files during Win XP install, the whole installation is corrupted... I'm using an USB stick with XP.

Is there any confirmed and easy way to install XP on nForce 2 board, preferably on SSD? Maybe sort of IDE->SATA adapter. Looks like IDE is the way to go if you don't want to prepare million of CDs with XP installs. USB install doesn't seem to be working good too, I'm not sure if Soltek's board use it, on Chaintech it works.There are also IDE SSD drives on the market, but I'm not going to spend another ~50 euro on such drive only for testing purposes.

Thanks,

Bartek

 

[Tzk]

I've recently been using the cheap chinese IDE-Sata converters on NF2. However these sometime refuse to work with certain drives. Some of my ide sata drives worked flawlessly, some didn't run at all. I bought these: https://www.ebay.de/itm/IDE-to-SATA-ATA-100-133-Serial-HDD-CD-DVD-Converter-Adapter-Power-SATA-Cable/302694636100

If you intend to install XP on NF2 with sata controller your best option is usually to integrate the sata driver into your XP boot stick via nlite, as you've already pointed out. At least on my NF7 and A7N8X this worked for years. But yeah, it's quite annoying to install like this.

Are you absolutely sure that the system itself is 100% stable? NF2 hates some memory sticks like UTT and will corrupt your os, even during setting it up.

Edited October 13, 2019 by Tzk

[I.nfraR.ed]

Update the sillicon image Sil3112 to 4.4.02 (last available version). I've used it successfully many times on AN7 and always use USB flash drive as an install media.

Some boards can't boot from USB though and need some sort of a boot manager mod (I've recently replaced LAN option rom with plop manager on NF7-S).

You can update the bios by simply replacing existing RAID rom with the updated version using cbrom.

PS: Alternatively, you can give me your bios files and I will quickly mod them. That for the Soltek board, for the promise controller maybe search for a newer version as well.

4402.bin

Edited October 13, 2019 by I.nfraR.ed

[bartx]

1 minute ago, I.nfraR.ed said:

Update the sillicon image Sil3112 to 4.4.02 (last available version). I've used it successfully many times on AN7 and always use USB flash drive as an install media.

Some boards can't boot from USB though and need some sort of a boot manager mod (I've recently replaced LAN option rom with plop manager on NF7-S).

You can update the bios by simply replacing existing RAID rom with the updated version using cbrom.

4402.bin 48 kB · 0 downloads

Chaintech and Soltek boards use Promise PDC20376 controller, some versions of those boards doesn't have SATA controller at all.

[I.nfraR.ed]

Doh, thought most of the nForce2 boards use the SilliconImage.

Well, my idea still stands. By updating the SilliconImage rom it became much faster and definitely faster that tne IDE->SATA adaptors I use sometimes as well.

But if you couldn't manage it, then buy some of these cheap adaptors (very fragile, so get some spares).

AFAIK many of these controllers have problems with large drives, which sometimes is solved by updating the firmware in the bios.

Edited October 13, 2019 by I.nfraR.ed

[bartx]

Ok, I finally managed to get it working. Here is the working solution for Promise PDC20376 controller. I used 60GB Kingston SSDNow 300 SSD.

1. Connect the drive to the SATA port, double check the connection, because SATA connector on board is loose (!), not permamently attached.

2. Press Ctrl-F during boot and create 1 drive RAID array.

3. Integrate Promise PDC20376 / FastTrak 376 driver to Windows XP using nLite.

4. Create USB stick with Windows XP install using WinToFlash Lite.

5. Boot from USB choose 1st option (1st, text mode setup), in my case copying files took about 3 hours from USB stick.

6. After reboot choose other option (2nd, GUI mode setup), choosing first one again will result in error.

7. Be happy from your working Windows XP installation.

 

 

[TASOS]

It's been too many years since i last used a Soltek "golden flame" ... but i have a faint memory of being able to use a floppy drive during installation of winxp for a sata drive.

Maybe i'm wrong though.

 

 

[Guest Wasmachineman_NL]

I also highly recommend deleting unneeded stuff with nLite, like MSN Messenger and all that.

Edited November 25, 2019 by Wasmachineman_NL