Installation Help

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en4rab
Posts: 18
Joined: Fri Feb 27, 2009 10:44
Product(s): Scaleo E

Re: Installation Help

Postby en4rab » Fri Feb 27, 2009 15:47

I am coming up against this missing HDD in windows setup problem too.
Whilst i dont have a (tested) solution yet i do see some light at the end of the tunnel.

I just bought one of the scaleo e carcasses from maplin and fitted a 1TB SATA Hitachi HDD.

I then tried to do a test install of XP on it just to make sure everything was working, I made a 4gig partition
Installed XP
and was amazed at how slowly the install CD booted, i think the bios is telling the dvd drive to only run at 1x speed or something, so it takes an age for the xp install to get going, the black screen will go away.

Then I installed XP, rebooted, installed sound drivers, then i noticed that my boot device was labeled H:
That wouldnt have been too much of a problem except the brain dead scaleo VFD display driver install goes nuts if your boot device isnt C:

So i did a stupid thing.
I edited the registry to make the boot device C: and rebooted, needless to say it hung on reboot, so i tried to reinstall and at that point I got the no drives found error.

At first i thought it was a problem with the ICH6 chipset negotiating the SATA speed so i put the drive in another machine and used hitachi's drive setting boot CD to set the speed to 1.5Gbit, that didnt fix the problem :(

Then after booting ubuntu fine and seeing the drive I had an idea.
Under ubuntu I ran 'sudo fdisk /dev/sda' and deleted the partition I had created so the drive didnt have any partitions on it at all, saved that and rebooted with the XP install CD

Huzzah the drive was now recognised in the xp install menu again.

Whilst this isnt a tested solution, the signs seem to indicated this has some sort of brain dead bios that wont let you install XP unless there are no partitions on the HDD you plan to install to, if the HDD has been used before it seems you must remove the previous partitions from it before you try to install.
en4rab

Update - well it did the first stage of installing and rebooted and booted into the rest of the install fine, I think my problem with misnamed drives was due to the extremely small test partition I made, I tried a 30GB partition this time and the signs are that it will be C: (thats what the xp partition bit named it) but the install is still going so i cant tell yet)

km_in_brighton
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Feb 27, 2009 19:14
Product(s): scaleo e

Re: Installation Help

Postby km_in_brighton » Fri Feb 27, 2009 21:27

thank god for this thread/forum i thought i was going mad!

i too have the maplin recommended hitachi 320 drive, spent i don;t know how many hours slipstreaming this that and the other (including sp3) into xp installation disks.

the only help i got from the maplin 50p/min tech help line was that there was a driver on the supplied disk. cobblers! and having to pay for the 'advice' as well. not only that, they play music while you wait and pay for it!

anyway after finding this thread i tried a mzxtor 300gb sata drive that i'd taken out of my sky hd box - (it being after shop hours and it's all i had) and lo and behold the xp installation program recognised it. i've now formatted the drive, and sitting here whilst the installation happily progresses.

no doubt i will get my £40 back for the drive but that won't compensate for the hours wasted.

anyway thanks to all the other posters here, saved me many extra hours that's for sure

nowhere man
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2009 12:00
Product(s): SCALEO E

Re: Installation Help

Postby nowhere man » Sat Feb 28, 2009 10:27

hello again good news, I got it to work abit of a long way round though, if you have these parts and software you can make it happen, first you will need a ide hard drive, hitachi 320gb sata 2 hard drive,a external dvd drive, windows vista, acronis MigrateEasy7.0 15 day trial,Hitachi Feature Tools and a second computer, first you need to sort out the hitachi sata hard drive plugin the HD to the second computer then use the hitachi tool to down grade the speed from 3.0gb/s to 1.5gb/s once done unplug and put this to one side,know goto the media center use the external dvd to load in vista onto ide hard drive, once loaded install the drivers from driver disk, install acronis, turn computer off plug in the sata HD turn on and make sure that the BIOS is set to the IDE HD first to boot, once booted use the acronis software to clone to new hard drive when done unplug IDE HD plugin your ide dvd drive close the case and enjoy, all works sound,front panel display, 1080p display, keyboard. NICE :-)

km_in_brighton
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Feb 27, 2009 19:14
Product(s): scaleo e

Re: Installation Help

Postby km_in_brighton » Sat Feb 28, 2009 13:19

help!

two problems

1) i've installed/re-installed a few times now. something i'm loading chews up the cpu (near 100%) for about a second every 5 seconds or so. whatever it is, doesn't appear as a process or task in the task manager. i think it's a driver off the supplied disk. anybody else experience this? it makes it pretty much unusable.

2) what/where is a driver for the sound card?

km_in_brighton
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Feb 27, 2009 19:14
Product(s): scaleo e

Re: Installation Help

Postby km_in_brighton » Sat Feb 28, 2009 15:20

found sound card driver that worked for me

http://www.softwarepatch.com/utilities/ ... ition.html

jimsey
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2009 0:24
Product(s): Scaleo-E

Re: Installation Help

Postby jimsey » Sat Feb 28, 2009 18:20

OK guys,

I was reccomended by Rob from res_computers that Samsung and Hitachi drives have problems with installation but work fine when windows is installed.

The SATA controller is an intel 82801 ICH6 with DeviceID 2651. That is important because 2652 is a proper SATA controller with ACHI, and 2651 is a SATA controller disguised as an IDE controller so it should work with the standard windows IDE driver (pciide.sys, pciidex.sys and atapi.sys).

I suspect the problem is a bug in pciide.sys when being used in text mode with this controller and samsung/hitachi drives (windows installation)

Anyway, I dug out an old 20GB Maxtor IDE drive and installed Windows XP on that without a hitch! I did it from an old USB memory stick so there was no need to buy a SATA dvd drive. If you would like some instructions for how to do this, take a look at this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vt_8p0VllY

Now Windows has booted perfectly from the IDE drive and I can see my 1TB Samsung recognised and the correct controller drivers loaded.

My next step will be to image the 20GB IDE drive on to the SATA drive and fingers crossed it should boot from the Samsung.

I will keep you posted

en4rab
Posts: 18
Joined: Fri Feb 27, 2009 10:44
Product(s): Scaleo E

Re: Installation Help

Postby en4rab » Sun Mar 01, 2009 12:30

Im fairly sure the hard drive not being recognised in XP mce install is some sort of bug in the MCE drivers.
This might not work for everyone but as i mentioned in my previous post this is how i got round the problem.

The first time I installed XP MCE on my 1TB Hitachi drive it all went fine, but that was a test install, so i tried
to run the install again and got the problem of the HDD not being recognised by MCE setups partitioning page.

The solution to this was to boot an ubuntu install disk, then when the screen when crazy
(i was using the scart socket and my TV as display) press ALT+F2 or ALT+F3 to switch to a text console, login as root
Now type sudo fdisk /dev/sda and fdisk should run, press p to display the curent partitions then d to delete them.
If you have more than one partition defined delete them all, then write the changes to disk and quit.
Now reboot with the XP MCE install disk and the install routine should see your HDD again and you can partition it and install.

A quick word about that, when partitioning the drive I found the first time I made a partition it showed up as H: in the
install page, to fix this i deleted it again and then recreated it, this time it showed up as C: and then continued with the install.

I have since set my drive to SATA150 but i dont think that was the problem, I get the feeling that some HDD's are being
supplied with a partition already defined on them which is causing them to not be seen, I was lucky and my HDD was supplied
truly blank so i knew it would work, if it had had a partition already on it I would have just assumed the scaleo didnt like it.

nowhere man
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2009 12:00
Product(s): SCALEO E

Re: Installation Help

Postby nowhere man » Sun Mar 01, 2009 14:06


jimsey
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2009 0:24
Product(s): Scaleo-E

Re: Installation Help

Postby jimsey » Sun Mar 01, 2009 18:29

Update: Success!!!

I tried deleting all partitions on the 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F1 (HD103UJ) but that did not work for me, setup still did not pick up the drive.

In the end i installed Win XP MCE onto an old 20GB IDE drive from a USB stick (see previous post) then I used the free trial of Acronis MigrateEasy to copy the data and MBR onto the new disk

http://www.acronis.co.uk/homecomputing/ ... grateeasy/

It worked like a charm and was very easy! Now i am booting off my shiney new drive!

Wahey!

Hope this works you all your other disks!

James

abu
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2009 0:33
Product(s): scaleo E media center

Re: Installation Help

Postby abu » Mon Mar 02, 2009 3:30

Hi

Problem sorted. As Dave posted his advice from the PC builder the problem is that this system does not recognise Hitachi HDD as we all experienced. He also said it would not recognise Samsumg, and he is most likely right. He is also right about the fact that the system recognises WD and Seagate drives IRRESPECTIVE of size. Interestingly, maplin sells these OEM HDDs with the same code put in fact they contain different makes. hence the system worked for some customers. I went to Maplin and i explained the problem, they looked into their local stock, and hurray, they found me a seagate HDD under the same code, in same box of 320GB, though it was 360GB, and of course same price. slotted in the system and took Vista and XP no problem.

so no need for any fiddles, just get a seagate or WD HDD, anysize you like and you should be alright. but as a caution, this system is a legacy (old system), do not go too far with the size of the HDD just in case that it may not work if too big. at least we know that some fitted 500GB, and i fitted 360GB. the only small problem here is that the seagate was slightly more noisey when stressed, than the dead quiet Hitachi. but when the box is closed, it all seems fine.

further advice, no need for third party scusi (SATA) drivers as you install windows. The drivers are part of the BIOS of the system, which is very convenient as there is no floppy drive if you are installing XP. As those drivers are SATA1, and on the limited BIOS, may explain the incompatibilty problem, particularly with more modern SATA2 HDDs.

the wireless card will need drivers installed from the internet. so you need another PC and search RTL Realtec 8185 wireless PCI, and you will find the drivers for XP or the latest for vista. virtually every part needed a driver including the front display, scarts, TV tuner name it. it is easier to use a driverscan program or just sreach in sofpedia or similar website.

Maplin should return the Hitachi HDD as their advice was wrong on the advert (sale advert supplement booklet, still in their shops). use the excuse that now they advise max 250GB (though this advice is also wrong anyway).

if anybody is upgrading memory, you need to be careful, as this FIC motherboard also limited to one spec (400/333, PC3200 DDR). apparently some generic brands such as ebuyer budget one may not work. Buffalo (the one on the system) is very rare, and those available very expensive. Anybody tried any brand DDR memory that worked?? and were to buy it??????

I am also thinking about getting a videocard with HDMI perhaps to fit on the riser card therefore standard PCI, or e-PCI but low profile. any ideas what cards????

i removed the wireless standard plate, and drilled a 10 mm whole in one of the spare low profile closure plates for the wireless card arial, and small whole for the light (unnecessary) and replaced that on the low profile PCI (no need to attach the card to the plate anyway, as the arial has loose wire, and it does not have any plugs. I therefore freed a place on the riser card for possible video card. if you do not want to do any DIY, just but a small (like memory stick) USB wireless adapter, and use it on one of the USB ports on the back. it is too small to be noticed or cause any hassle, and is more reliable. It also could be compliant with the latest faster n protocol (back compliant wit b & g anyway).

abu

oldrusty
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Mar 02, 2009 13:04
Product(s): scaleo e

Re: Installation Help

Postby oldrusty » Mon Mar 02, 2009 13:19

i thought i was mad with this problem, i did get it fixed by doing a vista installation with another computer and then moving the hard drive across, not an elegant solution but it did work.

gogadget
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Mar 06, 2009 22:37
Product(s): Scaleo E

Re: Installation Help

Postby gogadget » Fri Mar 06, 2009 22:57

Hi Guys,
I also bought a barebones system from Maplin. I attempted to build it using a couple of spare Hitachi Deskstar sata drives from an old raid array and being 250gig shouldn't have been a problem. I then tried each drive in turn but Vista Ultimate failed to install on either!! Initial setup seemed to go ok right up to entering the software key, then halted and asked for HD drivers. (couldn't see hard drive)
I was lucky enough to have a Western Digital 250gig and low and behold Vista installed without any further problems. It would appear that this unit, for some reason, doesn't like Hitachi drives.

Chris

thompa
Posts: 15
Joined: Tue Oct 28, 2008 21:27
Product(s): Fujitsu-Siemens Scaleo EVI 2535

Re: Installation Help

Postby thompa » Fri Mar 06, 2009 23:23

The old Deathstars...

mjs2209
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Mar 08, 2009 10:58
Product(s): Scaleo E

Re: Installation Help

Postby mjs2209 » Sun Mar 08, 2009 11:59

I had the same problem with a 640GB drive from Maplin, this is what I managed to work out and have got the system installed.....

Firstly I'm installing XP not Vista(!)

Make sure XP disc is SP2 or SP3. Then start up machine with SATA cable REMOVED from hard drive. Once the "Boot from CD" screen disappears and you hear the CD/DVD Drive spin up insert the SATA cable to the hard drive. Everything works fine from then on. One thing to note is that you need to either disable "Boot from CD" after that or keep removing the cd when you boot otherwise it seems to stick again. If you do use an original XP or XP SP1 disc you will only see a maximum HD of 137GB. As soon as you do an update to SP2 or SP3 this will show the correct disc size (I have done it this way too!!)

Well this works for me. I could really now do with getting some XP Drivers from Fujitsu's website, but doesn't look that easy. As someone has said it's something to do with the serial number issue!!

malcbay
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Mar 05, 2009 14:48
Product(s): Scaleo E Media Centre

Re: Installation Help

Postby malcbay » Sun Mar 08, 2009 16:03

I recently bought my Scaleo E from Maplins and would have been stuck totally if it wasn't for all the advice and experience on this thread - thanks.

Having had the exact same problem as others with the Maplin supplied Hitachi drive, I installed a 320gb WD SATA (WD3200AAJSDTL)from PC World. This of course worked perfectly.

As I was installing Vista Home Premium, there was no need to fdisk or format the drive. Just booted with the Vista CD in the CD drive and Vista installed to the HDD no problem.

Media Centre fired up with initially the video output via the SCART out.
Wireless card worked without needing to load drivers from supplied CD.
Only SW I needed from the CD was the VFD display driver. This worked fine after a reboot.

Connected to my Sony 40" LCD using a DVI to HDMI cable and RCA audio for R & L, everything works well.

Only remaining issue is that when displaying the Vista desktop (on the Sony) I don't see the 'screen edges'; once Media Centre is active screen size looks correct. Probably a video card driver issue, to be investigated.

Cheers,
Malcolm


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