Help with SATA and installing Windows XP Pro (unmountable_boot_volume)

jimbodan · September 12th, 2006, 06:35 PM

I've been having a very tough time trying to build a new computer for work, the specs are:

GA-M55SLI-S4 Motherboard
2 - 500 gig Diamond Max Mastor SATA HD's
AMD 64x2 4600+ Dual Core Processor
GeForce 7300 GS 256 MB PCI-E Vid card
2- 1gig sticks of Corsair XMS 2 Pro Series RAM
Memorex -DVD Drive

I'm trying to build this from scratch, everything is brand new.

The troubles started from the beginning, we originally bought some cheap OCZ ram and the system wouldn't boot up with both sticks of ram in, but would boot with just 1 stick in, so we took them back and got Corsair. We had the same problem, but the system would still boot with just 1 stick in.

Now I can't get the system to load Windows XP Pro. I go through the install process and everything looks fine until the system restarts at the last step and tries to load windows. At first I was getting the blue screen with an "Unmountable_Boot_Volume" error. I went through the normal troubleshooting process...Ran Chkdsk /r and fixboot. Still had the same problem. I'm making sure to load the SATA drivers during windows setup, I've tried the drivers on the motherboard disc as well as downloading the latest from Gigabyte's website.

I've tried formatting the drive through windows and through Maxtor's utility, as well as re-trying the windows setup process many many times and nothing has worked, I still keep getting a blue screen at the same point in the setup (although now it doesn't specifically say Unmountable_Boot_Volume). I've only been trying the install with one of the HD's (I tried them both seperately and both give me the same error).

Does anyone have any advice on what I should try next? Only things I can think of is possibly the HD's are bad? The motherboard is bad? or maybe the board isn't set right in the bios for either the ram or the sata drives? I'm pretty much stumped at this point, so any help is greatly appreciated.

Arenal · September 12th, 2006, 06:48 PM

Hmm i've never heard of that error :\ only thing I can think of would be to try different master/slave cords. That's what I did when my OS wouldn't load after first restart and it worked like a charm, the other cords were old though.

jimbodan · September 12th, 2006, 07:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arenal

Hmm i've never heard of that error :\ only thing I can think of would be to try different master/slave cords. That's what I did when my OS wouldn't load after first restart and it worked like a charm, the other cords were old though.

Would master/slave be an issue though with just one sata drive hooked up?

Currently my board has slots for 4 sata drives in 2 groups of 2, sataII0 and sataII1 are one group and sataII 2 and SataII 3 are the second group. I currently have the HD in the Sata0 slot on the motherboard

cmptrgydv · September 12th, 2006, 07:18 PM

Are you using the sata drives in a raid set, or are you loading xp on just 1 sata?

jimbodan · September 12th, 2006, 07:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmptrgydv

Are you using the sata drives in a raid set, or are you loading xp on just 1 sata?

Just trying to load xp on 1 drive, figured I'd deal with the other drive once I got windows up. I don't plan to use the drives in a raid set.

cmptrgydv · September 12th, 2006, 07:25 PM

Do you have the raid disabled in the bios, when you start the computer, does it ask to push F10
Or something to enter raid set up,

And when you load XP does it list the sata drives as option for install

jimbodan · September 12th, 2006, 07:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmptrgydv

Do you have the raid disabled in the bios, when you start the computer, does it ask to push F10
Or something to enter raid set up,

And when you load XP does it list the sata drives as option for install

I'm pretty sure raid is disabled, I don't see any startup messages for it and I never set up raid. Yeah, I only have 1 drive hooked up and during windows install it shows up just fine, let's me format it and start the windows install on it.

cmptrgydv · September 12th, 2006, 07:40 PM

The only thing then that I can think of is, in the bios it should have an option to boot from sata or IDE,
Make sure it set to boot from sata,

cmptrgydv · September 12th, 2006, 08:06 PM

Are you always pressing F6 to load the drivers?

jimbodan · September 12th, 2006, 08:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmptrgydv

Are you always pressing F6 to load the drivers?

Yep, tried both drivers on the motherboard disc and latest from their website.

I'm looking around in the bios and I don't see anything to specifically boot from either ide or sata. I did double check and Sata is enabled.