I need help with a Windows XP device driver / install problem.

September 14, 2006 7:08 AM

I need help with a Windows XP device driver / install problem.

Last night I foolishly tried to upgrade the RAID drivers on my XP SP2 desktop. The motherboard is an ECS Nforce 3 and I was updating the RAID drivers. After the driver install, the computer blue screened and rebooted. Upon reboot, it would boot all the way into Windows where startup apps (like IM clients) were loading, then Blue Screen again and instantly reboot. This became an endless loop.

I tried booting into last known good configuration and safe mode and pretty much every F8 option with no success.

I then attempted to reinstall XP to clear the issues. Setup proceeds to the point of device driver install where it hangs at "34 mintues to go" then blue screens again and instant reboots.

I can get into the recovery console and poke around the file system, but I don't know what to do.

Any suggestions are welcome.

posted by Argyle to computers & internet (5 comments total)

I've had similar problems before (although they weren't intrinsically RAID related). I think I ended up having to disconnect all hard drives (save primary) and reboot.
I'm assuming that all cables have been checked and there are no RAM problems.
posted by ktrey at 8:02 AM on September 14, 2006

Is the XP CD you're using up to SP2 level? If not you could trying one that is, or update yours.

Also, given that it gets so far before crashing, it could be that a RAID config program that the drivers installed is trying to load on start-up and causing the crash. In the console, you have a look for any .exe files with a very recent "created date" (i.e. around the time you installed the new drivers) and renaming or moving them and then trying to boot up again.

You could try reinstalling again and hitting F6 to install extra hard disk drivers and provide some known good ones (perhaps from the motherboard CD, you'll have to do this on floppy disk I think). As it could be crashing during install as it's trying to start using the new (bad) drivers again at that point.

I don't suppose you're quick enough to read what the STOP screen actually says are you?
posted by ed\26h at 8:10 AM on September 14, 2006

that's what i was going to suggest. can you disconnect the raid controller and install xp on a single drive, and then install the controller after xp has installed?
posted by lester's sock puppet at 8:10 AM on September 14, 2006

Thanks for the help.

Yes, I'm using a XP SP2 bootable disk.

Sounds like my best plan is to disconnect the second drive from the RAID and try that.

Next, it's time to start looking for the new config program and disable it.
posted by Argyle at 8:24 AM on September 14, 2006

This doesn't help right now, but I usually set the startup and recovery options to not automatically restart so that I have time to look at stop errors before the machine restarts. You can do this from My Computer/Properties.
posted by BrotherCaine at 9:31 AM on September 14, 2006