I have just built this PC, and installed PART of Windows XP Home onto the hard drive (just finished formatting hard drive). But when it restarts to finish the installation, I get this:

Verifying DMI Pool data
Boot from CD:
NVIDIA Boot Agent
Copyright....
Copyright....

CLIENT MAC ADDRESS xx xx xx xx xx xx guid

does the DHCP.../

PXE-E53: No Boot filename received
PXE-M0F: Exiting NVIDIA Boot Agent
Disk Boot Failure, Insert system Disk and Press Enter

When I press enter, it just repeasts this over again. PLEASE I NEED HELP!!

The PC Specs:
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz
2GB Corsair 4x512MB DDR400 PC3200
eVGA nVidia GeForce 7800GT
Maxtor 250GB DiamondMax 10 Serial ATA150
Sony Dual Layer DWQ28A - OEM

OK, nvm. I fixed the DHCP problem. I just disabled PXE and Mac Lan on my BIOS. But now I have another problem. Since I installed WinXP Home. After reformatting the hard drive. It restarts the computer to start the installation right? But instead it boots to the CD drive. I want it to boot from the hard drive. I DID select my 1st boot device as my hard drive. But still nothing. It boots from the CD drive. So now the windows xp installation won't start, it just keep going to the win xp install screen [blue installation screen]

Here:
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sg_clean.asp

See, right after Step 8, it reboots, BUT supposed to start the GUI installation screen in Step 9. But instead it automatically boots from the CD drive and goes to Step 2. It doesn't even say "Press any key to boot from CD...", it says "Booting from CD/DVD". This is really p**sing me off and I really need to fix this PC ASAP. I would appreciate your help thanks. I'm never buying Gigabyte MOBOs again

The PC Specs:
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz
2GB Corsair 4x512MB DDR400 PC3200
eVGA nVidia GeForce 7800GT
Maxtor 250GB DiamondMax 10 Serial ATA150
Sony Dual Layer DWQ28A - OEM

YES!!!! I know what the problem is. Actually, this problem was happening when I used the 250GB Serial ATA hard drive from Maxtor. I used an old 20GB regular IDE hard drive and now WinXP Home is installing. The hard drive can't be broken because I formatted it perfectly. Maybe I have to do something with the BIOS? I don't know. Any help would be appreciated thanks.

OMFG!! YES!!! I fixed it. It now reads my SATA150 hard drive. I fixed it myself. I have no problems now I'm so happy

haha good to hear, im sorry no one responded!!

I'm having the exact same problem with my motherboard (identical to yours)

Sepcs-
mobo- Gigabyte GA-K8N Pro-SLI
processor- AMD 64 3700
Graphics- 7800GT
HDD- Maxtor 160Gb
Ram- OCZ 1GB dual channel kit

This problem is driving me nuts, any help would be appreciated. I'm at the position Faisal Rahman was at in his second post. I'd be very grateful if you could tell me how it was fixed!
cheers
Joe

For anyone who gets this GA-K8N Pro-SLI board and has the same problem, this is how you fix it.
NOTE: you must have a floppy drive on the computer you are building to install SATA Drivers.

Using another WORKING computer, with a FLOPPY drive, pull the drivers from the cd that comes with the Mother board. (I know a lot of people hate using the drivers that come with the Mother board, but this will make things easier, then you can upgrade later if you like).
-pop in a unused floppy
-locate the folder BootDRV from the CD
-Load Menu.exe
-(for the GA-K8N Pro-SLI we only have SATA_SB (yellow wire))
select Option G) nVIDIA series ATA (XP)
from then on the files should unzip onto your floppy.
This Floppy will be used when installing Windows XP, when it ask you to push F6 to install RAID Drivers.

To get your Motherboard to see your Hard Drive
My Hard Drive was a MAXTOR Diamond Max 10 300GB

-Go into BIOS
-Locate Integrated Peripherals
-Find the option IDE/SATA RAID Function
-Disable this if it is Enable.
-F10 Save and it should Reboot.

To Check for your Hard Drive
-Enter BIOS
-Locate Advanced BIOS Features
-Find the option Hard Disk Boot Priority
-Enter it and you should see your Hard Drive.
(then i also went to set the boot order to CD ROM, Hard Drive, Floppy just to be safe)
-F10 Save and Install Windows XP and Push F6 when they tell you to.

After Windows installed itself, i went back into the BIOS and changed the Boot order back to Hard Drive, CD ROM, and Floppy.

Hope This Helps

Have done exactly that and I still get the same problem! My SATA drive has a partition... could this be the problem?

It's supposed to have a partition. So that's not the problem. Every PC needs a partition in order to install an OS. Try deleting the partition and reformatting the whole hard drive. Then do that procedure I told you. It should work now.

I have had similar problems with an ESC mother board with NVIDIA RAID and SATA controllers. It appears to be a problem with the NVIDIA controller and Windows installation software.

To install WinXP you must disconnect all other hard drives on your computer, and install your SATA drive (or RAID drives) on the first available SATA hook up points (my computer these are IDE Channel 2 Master and IDE Channel 3 Master - for RAID).

You must prepare a floppy disk with all the RAID drivers (even if you are not going to use the RAID function).

Next make sure your BIOS is set up correctly for RAID to be Enabled or Disabled, if your are going to use RAID or not. Set up the boot sequence for Floppy, CD-ROM, and Hard Drive.

Put your WinXP install CD in your CD-ROM drive and turn on the computer. When prompted press F6 to notify Windows to ask for your RAID drivers.

When Windows prompts for a drive to install Windows on, you will only have one choice, and that drive will be listed as "C". Do the normal installation.

After Windows is installed, re-connect all other drives ATA and/or SATA. Re-start and make sure your BIOS now is setup to look at which ever HD you installed Windows on - First.

This worked for me, for both SATA drive and SATA RAID Windows installation.

Hello,
I am about to install the GA-K8N Pro SLI and had a question related to this topic. I currently have a RAID ) setup on another Gigabyte system and all I ever see discussed about installing a new mb is having to reinstall windows or format the hard drive(s).

Is it possible just to take your current RAID setup and install it on a new mb without having to do all of that? I have the new mb RAID drivers on a floppy, but I really do not want to have to do more than adjust the bios to get it to work.

Thanks for any help...

You can do no harm to your RAID drives by trying to install them in your new mb.

Thanks for the reply. I hope I don't have to do anything drastic. I would like to keep all of my installations and data as is, but am also seeing a lot of posts about how tricky the GA-K8N is when installing SATA RAID (or just plain SATA).

Thanks for the reply. I hope I don't have to do anything drastic. I would like to keep all of my installations and data as is, but am also seeing a lot of posts about how tricky the GA-K8N is when installing SATA RAID (or just plain SATA).<<<<<

yes, that's why I'm going with Asus next time.

I have used ASUS and ECS mother boards, and they are no easier to install RAID or SATA drives.

My last ECS board is a NFORCE4-A939, which uses an AMD 64 processor, PCI-Express graphic slot, NVIDIA RAID controller, and 4 SATA connects plus the normal 4 ATA. The installation manual has no information on setting up the RAID controller, nor information on making a floppy to be able to setup the RAID drivers when loading Windows.

Only by contacting ECS support directly (they only accept e-mails, no phone calls) did I discover that you must use another computer to make a RAID driver floppy disk, and that you have to have a floppy drive on your new computer inorder to install the RAID drivers.

And by trail and error I learn that no other ATA hard drives can be connected the computer when you are trying to load Windows to either a RAID setup or a SATA drive, when your mother board is equiped with the NVIDIA RAID controller.

I passed this information on to ECS support, but they did not seem interested in learning about the problems.

I have the same problem with ga-k8n pro-sli motherboard + 250 gig maxtor harddrive.
i have disabled ide-sata in bios.
And i have a floppy drive with the drivers ready.
My motherboard is recognising my harddrive.
But when i try to boot up something goes wrong.
I have boot order cd-rom/harddrive/floppy.
Then appears the instruction "Press any key to boot from cd/dvd"
I press a key and nothing happens.
The computer then tries to boot up from the harddisk and fails.
My keyboard and dvd drive are working fine as far as i know.
What am i doing wrong ???

From your message, it appears that you are trying to use a RAID configuration to install the operating system on, other wise you shouldn't need a floppy.

However, regardless, your DVD should recognize the setup disk and try to boot from it.

All of my problems occured AFTER the operating system CD started to work.

You may have a problem with the DVD drive. When you boot, I assume that the DVD drive is shown at an ATA location? If not, that is your problem.

If it is shown, then it may be a defective drive.

You stated that when you follow the instructions to "Press any key..." that nothing happens. Something does happen, your computer looks at the DVD drive and doesn't find anything, then goes to the next drive in line, and tries to boot from it. Therefore, it is not seeing the disk in the DVD.

One possible solution would be to install an old CD-ROM drive in your computer (almost any will do), reboot and see if it is recognized, then try to install your operation system from that CD-ROM drive.

I have a DVD and a CD-ROM drive in mine, and occassionally a CD can be read from one and not the other.

i don't know if you have found the answer.

My answer to this problem is to check the jumper of your hard drive. Make sure you use the correct settings.

Like if you have a CD to be a slave master disc (bootable) and use the separate cable from your HD, however on the HD, your jumper settings is "Master w/ Slave". Your Mainboard can't find the CD on IDE1, so it will show the error message "media test... disk failure.. hit enter...".

In this situation, you have to set it to "Single or Master", or you must use the same cable on IE1 for both HD and CD.

It should work fine after that.

Guys,

I have the same as the original problem and DESPERATELY need your help as have now been trying to fix it off-and-on for 2 weeks. I am trying to install WinXP on a 300GB PATA/UATA disk and the mobo does not recognize it.

Here is what is happening:
1. Installing WinXP fine
2. I can run XP (without installing the HDD drivers as suggested above) as long as I have the WinXP install CD in the CD-ROM.
3. When I take out the WinXP CD it says:
Boot from CD/DVD :
DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER
4. So, I set the BIOS to "Boot from disk"/
5. When I created the boot driver diskette with option H) nVidia PATA (XP) and used it during the install, the install complained that it could not find the .cat file
5. When I created the boot driver diskette with option ??) SCSI the install went fine but the mobo still could not recognize the disk.

Any suggestions? Anything else I can try?

I am not sure if I can help. I do not have enough information about your system. From your comments I am assuming that:

1. You have ONLY one hard drive connected to your MB,
2. Your HD is a SATA, and is connected to the first available SATA connection,
3. You can load WinXP onto your HD (WinXP completes the installation),
4. But after removing your WinXP CD, and reconfiguring the BIOS to boot from the HD, you get an error message stating that the computer cannot find the operating system when you try to restart your computer.

Is all of this correct?

If not, please elaborate.

Hi Dean,

Thx for the message. Here are the answers to your questions:

1. You have ONLY one hard drive connected to your MB,

Yes, one 300 Parallel (UATA) 300 GB drive.

2. Your HD is a SATA, and is connected to the first available SATA connection,

No, my drive is Parrallel and is connected to IDE2.

3. You can load WinXP onto your HD (WinXP completes the installation),

Yes, WinXP loads fine and the install completes.

4. But after removing your WinXP CD, and reconfiguring the BIOS to boot from the HD, you get an error message stating that the computer cannot find the operating system when you try to restart your computer.

Yes, you are correct, on reboot the system attempts to boot from the CD-ROM and asks me for a boot disk. Even though I have set DISK ONLY in the bios for the Boot from 1, Boot from 2 and Boot from 3 options. Because of that, I don't know why it even tries to boot from the CD-ROM.