Author Topic: Motherboard and XP Puzzle (Read 328 times)

Airscrew · « **on:** August 18, 2003, 07:29:18 PM »

Guys, got a good one...

My mom has a system that was built by my brother-in-law and his friends about a year ago. She has been having some performance issues with regards to the hard drive and video. (no details on the issues, I cant replicate them when I go check it out and she is to vague, "It aint workin right, fix it") Although I did replicate the video problem, when starting Return to Castle Wolfenstein her system locksup.

Anyway, after trying to upgrade the video drivers, (that didnt work) I decided that to fix the problem by replacing the video card. That didnt help either. I've figure that maybe I could fix all these problems by upgrading her from Win98 to XP.

Heres the problem,.When I run the XP disk..I get a blocking issue for Unsupported hardware, Highpoint HPT366 Ultra DMA controller. the best is yet to come.
I did a few hours of research on the net for the Highpoint HPT366 controller and so far what I can tell this is a common problem for ABit Be6 Motherboards, problem is her board is an Intel D845EBG2L, and a search of the net and Intel's site found no reference for HPT366 controller.
I checked with brotherinlaw they didnt install any controller cards, just mb, processer, cd-rom. They reused her hard drive from her last computer.

At this point I'm guessing that this must be an old driver maybe from the way in the past. Do you get a blocking issue from XP detecting phyical hardware or could it be detecting a driver.

Unless someone has a better idea, I think its time to reformat the drive and load XP fresh instead of upgrade 98.

Airscrew · « **Reply #1 on:** August 18, 2003, 08:06:15 PM »

Well I guess I might have figured this out after all.

As I was typing this I kept thinking that the Abit Be6 sounded familiar, so I checked with my dad and he keeps reciepts for everything (he probably still has a copy of bill from the hospital when I was born)

Sure enough, 2-3 years ago I built her a computer using an Abit Be6 motherboard and the hard drive I installed for her is the same one she is using in the new pc that my brother-in-law built so it appears that there is left over configuration from the old pc still on the hard drive.

Gawd I hate reformating.........

bloom25 · « **Reply #2 on:** August 23, 2003, 12:34:54 PM »

Actually this is a simple one:

When installing Windows 2000 or XP you need to have drivers for extra IDE and/or raid controllers on a floppy disk. You hit F6 during the start of the installation process when prompted to install them. (It will say "press F6 if you need to install third party IDE drivers" or similar.)

Here's the drivers for this controller:

http://www.highpoint-tech.com/366drivers.htm

bloom25 · « **Reply #3 on:** August 23, 2003, 12:37:38 PM »

It looks like this controller was discontinued. Abit has Win2k drivers here: http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/biosdriver.php?categories=1&model=117

They might work for XP as well.

AKIron · « **Reply #4 on:** August 24, 2003, 11:57:55 PM »

I may be mistaken but it seems that all motherboards with the highpoint controller use it as an additional controller for RAID. Do you have four ide connectors on the motherboard? If so, try the other ide controller by using the other pair of ide connectors.

Airscrew · « **Reply #5 on:** August 26, 2003, 07:51:13 PM »

Thanks for the input guys but I pretty much solved the problem

When I brother in law put togther the pc for her, he told her to reformat the hard drive and load W2k. Of course she didnt do it so all the registry information from the old computer I built a couple of years ago was still there including the entries for the Abit Be6 motherboard that was used.

I reformated the hard drive and loaded W2k and then upgraded to XP, all is good. Still have an issue with the video drivers but I think I'm just going to copy mine and try them on her system.

She has a 64mg Nvidia video card and it just wont work properly, I pulled and replaced it with a 64mg Hercules Prophet card but the monitor wont work. Guessing I need to upgrade her drivers for the AGP ports and load some basic vga drivers which at this point are non-existant for some reason.

AKIron · « **Reply #6 on:** August 26, 2003, 10:04:44 PM »

FYI, you can boot from an xp upgrade cd and do a clean install without installing any other os first. Just put in the old os cd when it asks for it.