Maxtor PCI ATA133 card caused boot problems with WinXP installation

[John_6205]

I recently got an upgrade for my Win98 computer to convert
it to XP. With Win98 I was using my Maxtor ATA133 pci
card for all drives including booting, xfering files
between drives etc... (I had 4 HD's connected).

Now that I have upgraded to XP, everything seems to work
fine EXCEPT that my computer WILL NOT BOOT off of the ATA
card??!! It will boot off of the integraged IDE port just
fine (that is where I did the fresh XP install), and I can
see all of the other drives connected to the pci card, and
xfer files back and forth between the drives np. I have
no conflicts under device manager, everything seems to be
working fine...except the C: drive will not boot off the
pci card.

I called Maxtor on this several times, and have tried
reinstalling by pressing F6, repairing the drive in set up
after pressing F6, with NO different result, complete
format and reinstall...no boot.

The last guy I spoke to at Maxtor said that this is a
problem with the Windows XP security system anti piracy
stuff, in that now XP is written so that you can only boot
off of the exact hardware that the program was
installed??? Is this true? What happens if my PCI card
or motherboard dies? I have to do a complete XP fresh
reinstall again? What the heck is that??

It seem strange that I'm not getting an error message from
XP, the system just hangs with a blinking cursor, then has
a couple of strange colored squares appear on the screen
with strange symbols on them.

Can anyone out there help me? I'm ready to return XP and
go back to good old reliable Win98???

[necrokrome]

lets see, you have an onboard controllers and a controller card. you want to boot off the PCI card. i did this on a gateway once. when istalling XP, you should see a message at the beginning on the install process (if you have scsi drivers, ect press F#). setup the drives how you want them, have the scsi cards driver on a 3.5 floppy. when the install program asks for it, pop it in, you still have to press F# though. it may ask for it a few times. but before doing that be sure you bios is setup to boot from the scsi card. you may be able to get away with swapping HD's around, not recomended though, not because of some microsoft crap but because its not clean.

[caprig]

Hi,
I have just gotten to my boiling point with the Maxtor ATA133 40G HD that I was trying to install on an older computer.

What a NIGHTMARE.

I have to use that stupid card, and when I try to use the new HD to install Win98SE, Com 2 disappears.

When I switch the bootable HD back to the original smaller IDE, it is fine.

I am so frustrated. You have NO idea.

Glad to know I am not alone, in a manner of speaking.