Some weird problems, questions with XP Pro and Intel AHCI

[noobatm]

Hi,
I have had a bad month. I lost a couple WD HD’s dues to age for bad blocks etc and then when rebuilding the XP Pro system back up had used a less than 1 year old WD 1TB drive. I tested the drive with WD Diag and ran the quick test and all was fine. I decided to install an SSD in the build after I installed the OS so I used this method:

4 down vote accepted


After arriving home, and without doing any backup at all XD, I finally got the job done.

It took no more than 10 minutes. My method is based on this blog post so its author is the one that deserves most credit. Also I have to mention Bob which quickly posted this link as a comment (my apologies Bob, yes it worked). Still I’d like to post the steps I followed since there are some differences and it may be helpful for some other people.

I’ve a Gigabyte board and it comes with a Utility DVD that contains, among other things, the AHCI drivers. Here is my installation explained:

(This step is only for Gigabyte MB owners. You can get the drivers somewhere else and go to #3) Go to \BootDrv folder and copy the file MSM32.exe to a USB drive or a hard drive partition. This is the correct file for 32bit OS (Windows XP). According to the motherboard manual, it is also the one to choose for Windows Vista 32bit. In case you have a 64bit OS, copy MSM64.exe instead. There’s another one named MSM2k.exe, I suppose it is the driver for Windows 2k, but I’m guessing here.

In the folder where you copied that file, double click on it and it will open a command-line prompt asking for confirmation to extract the files. Type "yes" and then enter. Several files will be extracted at that folder. these are the actual drivers. We’ll need these files to tell the Device Manager where to search for the drivers. Open the Device Manager and expand the "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" node. In my case, there were listed the regular IDE channels, and a couple of generic Intel ICH10 SATA controllers. These were the generic drivers installed by Windows, and I can tell you for sure that these don’t work (tested enabling AHCI in BIOS and trying to load the OS resulted in beeps and reboots).

Select one of the SATA controllers -> Right click over it -> update driver -> Install from a list or specific location (Advanced) -> check the "don’t search" radio button and click next -> click on "Use disc" -> click on "browse" button and select the folder with the drivers from wherever you have copied them. If you have the drivers in a CD or DVD, make sure it doesn’t contain an AUTORUN.INF file at the root folder, because the file picker dialog is looking for .INF files and it won’t let you browse to subfolders.

Now the list with drivers is populated with at least a new option. Here I selected the correct one for my chipset (ICH10R). Windows shows a warning message. Click yes.

The driver is installed and Windows ask for a reboot, BUT don’t reboot yet. Instead, select the remaining SATA Controller in Device Manager and repeat #3 and #4.

After the second driver install, Windows does not ask for a reboot. BUT now it is time for rebooting. Be ready to enter BIOS as soon as the computer starts.

Change in BIOS (in my case, under "Integrated peripherals" -> "SATA RAID/AHCI Mode") from IDE mode to AHCI. This can vary depending on your system and BIOS, and maybe you even need to select RAID if no AHCI option is available. There are better questions on this site where this topic is better explained, so I won’t delve into it. In my case, there was a second option, just after the IDE/AHCI one, named "SATA port0-3 native mode". It was disabled, I enabled it. The explanation for this option in my motherboard manual is that DISABLED allows the SATA controllers to operate in legacy IDE mode, and that it should be selected for OSes that do not support native mode (like Windows 9X/ME). Windows XP supports native mode so I enabled it. I guess more modern OSes will also support it. Save BIOS and continue with the boot.

Windows is loaded correctly. It starts recognising the existent drives in the new AHCI mode, and showing yellow bubbles. After that, it asks for a second reboot. Select OK to reboot.

Windows is loaded again and this time everything should be ready.

Everything seemed to go fine. But when I checked my drives again as I was paranoid, my 1TB WD Black drive passes the SMART test but fails the quick test with the error:
Quick Test::Read Verify Sector EXT error!

So I get another drive and it fails the same way and try yet another and same fail. I try new cables and swap cables from drives and SATA ports that are working normally and still no joy. Now I noticed the SSD and the 2TB drive show up as IDE in WD Diag and the drive that is failing the test shows up as SATA. That seems odd. When I boot the pc with the Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R (version 1.0) the notice shows the AHCI controller listing all 3 of the drives. The disk management shows everything is fine too. I can test the drive with the error message using a few other HD testers ( Sea Tools For Windows and WinDFT) and it passes all tests.

My questions for now:
On Win XP Pro using AHCI drivers like I installed (Intel(R) ICH10R will this cause weird issues like I described?

Will a reinstall of Win XP Pro with a nLite disk and the drivers for AHCI fix any of this?

Is the WD Diag app a piece of junk?

Thanks!

[Fernando]

@ noobatm:
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!

At first step you should give us some informations regarding your system. Is your mainboard a Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R with an Intel ICH10R Southbridge?
Furthermore I would like to know why you don’t want to do a fresh install of the OS in AHCI mode onto the new SSD.
Last request: Please give us the link to the original text you have quoted.

Regards
Fernando

[noobatm]

Hi Fernando,
Here is the info on the website:
http://superuser.com/questions/427340/ho…ut-reinstalling

Yes, the mainboard has Intel P45 and ICH10R chipset. I have had so many problems with hard drives all at once (bad luck) on this pc. First I started getting some bad block warnings when trying to run defrag so I would run CHKDSK to repair. Then the drive became unmountable due to too many bad blocks. I saved the data and started to rebuild the pc with one of the other drives that was in it. It appeared to be fine but after I installed my backups it started to act up. It too was ready to fail and it started acting really slow and had bad blocks so I ran CHKDSK and it took forever and the drive was pretty well wore out. These drives were over 4 years old and on 24 hours a day. So after a few days of trouble and lots of time I decided to install a spare SSD. That is when I realized the floppy drive on the pc was not working. So I formatted the drive in a Win7 pc etc and got Win XP to install. Then I needed to switch to AHCI mode and knew I read it could be done with a hack, but most of that was for Win7. I found that site with the link below and it seemed to do the trick as my ATTO scores went up after the change and the pc does in fact show the drives at startup under the AHCI boot screen. I put a new 2TB (max size allowed Win XP) WD Black in and started putting all my data back yet again with the plan to ISO the OS and have a quicker fix in the future if necessary. The I also heard about nLite and slipstreaming the drivers for install etc but had never done it before. But, I think I have fixed the problem or at least the problem I was worried about with the WD 1TB Black Hard Drive. I started using the WD Diag utility to test my drives as I was sick of working on my old pc by now. That is when I noticed the 2TB passed the SMART test along with all the other drives, and also the Quick Test. But the 1TB drive would fail the Quick Test with the following error message:

18-Quick Test Read Verify Sector EXT Error

So I didn’t feel I could trust that drive. I swapped cables and port and tried every trick in the book and always fail with that error. I called WD and they sent me out a Recertified Drive. It failed with the same error. They sent me another Recertified Drive and it also failed with the same error. I bought another 2TB drive and put it in the pc last night and it works fine and passes the test using the same cable and port the other drive was connected to. I put the 1TB in an external USB enclosure and it passes the test! Weird. But I think I am good to go. I am still going to try to make a nLite disk and test it on another pc (as I have many old spares) so I can be prepared. I use my XP Pro pc for importand older programs that I run like VB6 etc.
Thanks,
noobatm

[Fernando]

@ noobatm:
Thanks for your additional informations.

This is what I recommend to do:

1. Let nLite create a bootable XP CD with integrated 32bit Intel AHCI driver v11.2.0.1006 WHQL according to >this< guide. When you get the TEXTMODE driver popup, just check the option “Intel(R) ICH10R SATA AHCI Controller”.
2. Enter the BIOS and set the Intel SATA Controller to “AHCI” mode.
3. Unplug all HDDs.
4. Boot off the prepared XP CD and install the OS onto the SSD.
5. Once the OS is up and running fine, reconnect the HDDs you want to use.

[noobatm]

@Fernando

@ noobatm:
Thanks for your additional informations.

This is what I recommend to do:

1. Let nLite create a bootable XP CD with integrated 32bit Intel AHCI driver v11.2.0.1006 WHQL according to >this< guide. When you get the TEXTMODE driver popup, just check the option "Intel(R) ICH10R SATA AHCI Controller".
2. Enter the BIOS and set the Intel SATA Controller to "AHCI" mode.
3. Unplug all HDDs.
4. Boot off the prepared XP CD and install the OS onto the SSD.
5. Once the OS is up and running fine, reconnect the HDDs you want to use.

Thanks for the info. So basically I would lose my current OS on the SSD and have a fresh install then, correct? I will need to backup some stuff first. I will work on this during the week as I have to work on the vehicle today. I will check back. I appreciate the help.
noobatm

added: What besides SP3 would be good to add to the nLite for this operation?

[Fernando]

@noobatm

What besides SP3 would be good to add to the nLite for this operation?

I recommend to integrate nothing else than the SP3 and the Intel AHCI driver. All the other drivers can be installed once the OS is up and running.

[noobatm]

Thanks Fernando, Will work on this tomorrow or the next day… I will report back.
noobatm

[noobatm]

Ok, so I made the nLite image and installed the OS again and it worked fine, I think. The only difference I see from my old install (before the SSD) is in the device manager there is only one record of the controller where before it showed 2 SATA controllers under:

IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers

It used to show a 2 port and a 4 port Serial ATA controller and now there is just one.

noobatm

[Fernando]

@ noobatm:

Thanks for the feedback.
I am glad, that everything works fine now.

[noobatm]

Thanks for the guide. It sure takes a long time to get things back to normal when doing a million updates and then getting all my important stuff back up and running. I always take a screenshot of my desktop to help me remember all the stuff I used to have. Now with the SSD I will have an easier time of iso backups so hopefully I will be set for a while. I was thinking I could turn this pc into a NAS box to back up all my other pc’s but I really need to use it.
noobatm