New PC bad ACPI

[Elbarto]

Glos i need your help on this one. I got the individual pieces for a new pc and assembled it perfectly. Now when i go to install windows XP it keeps on giving me a problem with ACPI. When i setup the bios to load from the cd rom first it goes into setup but then when asked to hit enter to start installing xp the pc just reboots. Sometimes it give me an error saying that the pc might need to have its bios upgraded but its the latest bios for the pc.Another suggestion it made was to hit the F7 key at text mode to disable acpi to install the drivers for that run, but ive no idea when the text mode is.

The motherboard is a Microstar 915p Combo 2
RAM is twinmos 1024mb chips
Hard Drive is a Western Digital 250gb 16mb cache.

I hope the above will make some sort of sense to you as ive typed in a rush as ive work in 25mins. I should be back on later after and if youve anyother questions about components that i havent provided ill supply them then.

I read somewhere that you can disable the ACPI in the Bios and that that should make it work but ive no idea how to do it and if it will work.
Can you help me??

[MarcusMel]

Try going into the BIOS set up and disable power management.

[GlosRFC]

It's not a problem that I'm familiar with but Marcus has the right idea. I do know that ACPI is a newish standard for power management that allows you to control the settings from directly within the OS. Previously, you had to change all of the power management setup by going into the BIOS and altering it there. Not only a messy solution but fraught with the inherent dangers of non-competent users messing up their system but also requiring at least two reboots.

Not every motherboard supports ACPI - I notice that your 915P chipset doesn't include ACPI whereas the ICH6 chipset is ACPI 2.0 compliant. http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_detail.php?UID=677
That might be where the problem lies. You don't say if you're installing XP Professional or Home. XP Professional should automatically check for compliance but Home probably doesn't. So the first thing I'd do is email the motherboard manufacturer and check if your board is compliant. If not, then you will have to use the older APM power management system or, as Marcus suggests, disable power management through the BIOS. Should you want to migrate to ACPI in the future, then you'll have to do a complete reinstallation of Windows.
If it is compliant, then installing with XP Pro might help.

These MS articles might also be useful:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/216573/EN-US/
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;246236
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/197055/EN-US/

The bit about editing the Txtsetup.sif file could provide a solution.

Hope that's useful. If I think of anything else I'll post it here.

[Elbarto]

Right so thanks lads ill have a quick go at trying a few of these things.

I tried using both XP Professional and XP Home, professional would reboot when i tried to install and home would just conk out and give an error with a method to try and solve the problem, but made no sense as i was trying to install windows and not a driver, my dad just found something about PCI Express being only compatible with XP SP2 so ill have to shove the old graphics card into the new pc disable the acpi, try and install windows update to sp2 and then change graphics card.

Some might say why didnt i just get one from Dell, well i didnt fancy handing out an extra 1000 or so just for someone to put it together, ok i wouldnt have any problems but i enjoy the challenge its presenting and i will know the various pitfalls for next time

[Elbarto]

I should have also said earlier that the hard drive is a SATA2 drive, if that makes any difference

[Elbarto]

Bah humbug. It picks up the SATA drive in the BIOS but has it down as an IDE one and has it as the 4th Primary drive while the DVD writer is Primary Slave. Then when we try installing XP Professional it says it cant find it but can find the IDE DVD writer. We seem to have side stepped the ACPI problem (for now famous last words on my behalf) but now the problem is it will only recognise either the DVD writer or the SATA drive but wont acknowledge both, like the stubborn horse who likes the handler but bucks off the jockey

[Elbarto]

Wahey im like Cristiano Ronaldo side stepping one problem (defender) but meeting another. Side stepped the ACPI problem, side stepped the computers grumpiness of deciding to only recognise one of either the SATA hard drive or the Dvd drive, since getting past that problem, to the point where it recognises both drives at the same time, but like to have both of them as slaves instead of hard drive as master and dvd as slave, now next problem is the grumpy pc decides it only wants to recognise 130 of my 250gb hard drive.

Anyways im starting to waffle on a bit now, but i hope someone is getting a good giggle out of my plight, im still having fun 14hours into putting the pc together, getting through one problem and meeting another, i love these situations.

[Win2Win]

You should always have a DVD/CD on Master.

Have you updated the M/b BIOS?

I always get RAID boards, my new one has 8X SATA, and 3X IDE, I never run a DVD/CD drive on the same cable as a drive, as it slows the drive down to the DVD/CD speed.

[Elbarto]

Updating the M/B bios was what the pc suggested but on closer inspection the bios is the most up to date version.
I think ive turned the corner though, i got up this morning and decided to try and get the pc to recognise the drives one by one. So after a few minutes of tinkering got it to recognise the hard drive as primary master and another few minutes tinkering got the dvd as secondary master. Also put in a floppy drive to update the driver for the hard drive so it will recognise the full 250gb.
Good thing about the new parts is i cant run the dvd and hard drive on the same cable as one of them is SATA and the other is normal ide.

Thanks for all the help from everyone. Ill keep ye posted

[Win2Win]

Always worth having a PCI SATA Adapter, you can get them from Aria for £7, allows 2 X RAID SATA

[Elbarto]

Anyone know for definite if you can use a SATA2 hard drive with a SATA1 connector

[Win2Win]

They should all be backward compatable, but it will only operate at the SATA1 level

[Elbarto]

Right so thanks they only problem im having now is when i go to install XP Pro it tells me it will only recognise 137gb of the hard drive but i can update that later to the 250gb, but when it goes to to the formatting before installation the computer reboots. I think it may be my pci express graphics card because pci express isnt compatible with XP SP1 so ill have to change them around and see

[Elbarto]

Wahey finally got everything working and im in the process of putting the final touches of installing xp pro.
Solved the rebooting problem by removing a gig of the ram, dont ask me why that let it work but it did.
Id just like to thank EVERYBODY for their contribution throughout this long stressfull (well stressfull on my part) 5 days or so, and im off now to play some footie manager with 10 leagues

[Win2Win]

Id just like to thank EVERYBODYHave you won an Oscar? :doh