Windows XP/2003 Installation seems impossible on my PC

<<<Sorry when I write so much but I give a detailed description of my problem to prevent posts like "Please give more details" >>>

What I want to do?
I have WinXP Pro (x86) installed on one hard disk and want to install Win 2003 Standard (x64) (I tried 2003 x86 and XP x64/x86 too with same results) on another hard disk. I have 5 hard disks all with 1 partition. Only the WinXP partition is active.

What's my setup?
Asus A8N-SLI Premium with Bios 1011-006 (tried the above with Bios 1009 as well). My hard disks:
SATA Port 1 200 GB Maxtor with WinXP on it (only active partition)
SATA Port 2 200 GB Maxtor with stuff on it
SATA Port 3 300 GB Maxtor this is where I try to install Win 2003
SATA Port 4 300 GB Maxtor with stuff on it
SATA Port 5 160 GB Maxtor with stuff on it

What's the error?
After installing Win 2003 Standard x64 or x86 or WinXP Pro x64 or x86 (each with SP2 slipstreamed on a customized install CD) I receive the following error when I try to boot into the setup after the files have been copied during the first boot process (blue setup screens stuff):

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
Please re-install a copy of the above file

Why can't I fix this simple error?
Well after all it's not that simple. I am 100% sure that the file is not corrupt, I have tried everything from copying the file from a working system, copy it again from CD on the recovery console, copy the backup from the dllcache folder. All without results. My old XP x86 installation still works wonderful.

Some more info (this is my boot.ini file):
[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINXP32
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS= "Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition" /noexecute=optout /fastdetect /usepmtimer
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINXP32= "Microsoft Windows XP Professional x86" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn /usepmtimer

The bottom one is my working copy of XP and the above is the entry for my installation. RDISK 2 should be correct since the hard disk I try to install to is # 3. I have tried to replace it with numbers from 0-5 all without success, just in case the setup made a mistake in boot.ini.

Well I am really clueless here and I run out of ideas as well as search results to read so I hope to find some advice here

 

Have you tried the install with the other hard drives disconnected plus making the partition active?

 

I have tried the following:

Unplugging all drives except the WinXP drive and the one I want to install to (Win 2003).
-> same error and WinXP still booted like before

Unplugging all drives except the one I want to install to (Win 2003).
-> same error and WinXP didn't boot anymore for obvious reasons

This is really strange that I get the same error when there's only one disk. The boot.ini read rdisk(0) obviously for the installation which should be correct.

When I plug in all my other drives again WinXP doesn't boot anymore with an error message saying "System Boot Failure" and I had to fix this using fixmbr and fixboot on the recovery console.

This is really weird I can guarantee that my installation discs are not flawed because I installed systems using them on many other PCs succesfully.

 

How about if you attempt to install 2003 with Xp running?
Instead of booting from the CD just throw in the cd while windows is running.
That way maybe, just maybe the boot.ini file will get appended properly.

Just a guess I have no idea if it will work.

 

The x64 edition can't be installed from within Windows because the setup program is no valid 32-bit application.
When I install the x86 edition from within Windows XP to the same or another hard disk I get the ntoskrnl.exe error as well.

 

Are you loading the SATA drivers during the Windows setup when you are prompted to press F6?

 

That's not required because:

1st setup detects all hard disks without the SATA drivers.
2nd slipstreaming the drivers for a setup image doesn't solve the problem.

I also have no disk drive in my computer ;-) so this wouldn't work anyway. Last time I had a disk drive in my PC was in 2001 I think.

I currently try something else:
Although my Bios lists the 200 GB drive with XP as SATA 1 Master (the disk is connected to Port 1 on the mainboard) Windows XP lists it as Disk 3 (Disk Management and Partition Magic both list it as Disk 3). The 300 GB drive I want to install to is connected to Port 3 on the motherboard and detected as SATA 3 Master by the BIOS in Windows it is listed as Disk 1 though.

So what I try now is to make an image of Disk 3 to Disk 1 so my boot drive is detected by both BIOS and Windows as Disk 1. Then I try installation of my second Windows copy again on another drive, maybe that's the solution. If you don't hear from me within the next 4 hours it didn't work lol

 

Ok it semi-works now....

I mirrored the WinXP disk to the 300 GB disk where I initially tried to install the Win 2003 x64 installation. Then I flipped the cables on the motherboard so that 300 GB disk would become Disk 1 in the bios and that worked well, WinXP booted without any problems.
Then I formatted the 200 GB disk where WinXP was located before (now disk 3 in Bios) and installed Win 2003 x64 to it.
Then I booted and.... IT WORKED

BUT it only works when I have the Win 2003 x64 setup CD in my first DVD drive (doesn't work when I have it in the second) and wait the five seconds until the message to press a key to boot from CD disappears and the Windows boot menu loads. Then I can choose Win 2003 and it boots fine. When I have no CD to eventually boot from in the drive I still get the ntoskrnl.exe error

I know this is probably a very specific problem I have here but I am not quite happy with my solution yet.

 

It’s a bit of a puzzler Chris. Try disabling the ‘Quick Boot’ option in the bios to see if this does the same job of slowing the boot time down that the CD in the drive is doing. I’m just thinking that perhaps the hard drives are not spinning up fast enough to be recognised during normal boot.

The discrepancy between the bios and Windows numbering of the drives could be the problem. Have you tried removing the SATA extension module to see if this is causing it?

Do you have any kind of raid set configured?

Are you sure the boot device order in the bios is set correctly for SATA 1 to be the first hard drive in the sequence.

 

Here's what I've tried now without success:

1) Disable Quick Boot (that also enables a pretty long memory scan)
2) Enable the Floppy Drive as first boot device and Floppy Seek during Boot
3) Disable the IDE Controller with the DVD drives and only leave SATA enabled
4) Use a Windows 98 boot CD and chose to boot from hard disk (this didn't help as well! only the x64 2k3 CD inserted helps)

I doubt the hard disk spin up time is the problem, I have set the detection of disks in Bios to auto (manual is not possible for SATA anyway) and the hard disk detection doesn't continue as long as the disks didn't spin up (you can clearly hear that).
I have disabled all RAID functions in Bios. I can't enable them for testing because it would make an array of my disks full of data without asking poor data.

One last thing. What do you mean by removing the SATA extension module? I have 8 SATA ports on board. 4 nForce 4 ports (with my 2 300 GB disks and 2 200 GB disks) which are detected by Windows without any driver and 4 SImage ports (with 1 160 GB backup disk) which is detected by Win XP with a special driver and not detected by Win 2003. I doubt that's the problem though, because when I disconnect that 160 GB disk and do the setup without it I have the same problem.

I am really clueless. The boot.ini definitely has the correct settings. The different numbering in Bios and Windows shouldn't be a problem because my XP works fine. It's not a boot delay problem in general, because when I am using another CD than the 2003 setup disc it doesn't work as well. This is really weird

 

I only had a quick look at the manual for that board and I missed that it had 8 SATA connections. I’ve got to get myself one of those! The last two pages of the manual mention an expansion card for two additional external SATA drives. I assumed you were using this to give you the 5 SATA drives connected.

I agree that XP booting ok even with the drive order discrepancy of the bios and Windows seems to rule this out as the cause of the problem, however I still feel it may have something to do with it as it’s not normal.

I’ve no experience with 64bit computers or OSes Chris so I’m out of my depth here and out of ideas now. Perhaps try the Asus forum I’ve already had a search there for similar problems but came up with nothing.

 

I found the solution and it was indeed the different order of the disks in Windows and the Bios!!

Here's what I did in easy steps except the stuff from above (just in case someone else has this problem and finds this step):

1) I copied ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini from the Win XP disk (Bios Disk 1, Windows Disk 3) to the Win 2003 disk (Bios Disk 3, Windows Disk 1)
2) I changed boot.ini on the new drive from:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS= "Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition" /noexecute=optout /fastdetect /usepmtimer
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINXP32= "Microsoft Windows XP Professional x86" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn /usepmtimer

to:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS= "Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition" /noexecute=optout /fastdetect /usepmtimer
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINXP32= "Microsoft Windows XP Professional x86" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn /usepmtimer
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(10)partition(1)\NOTHING= "Boot.ini from secondary drive "

(the last line is only to ensure I am booting off the right disk)

3) I set the Win 2003 partition active (I did it with Boot-US)
4) I rebooted and in Bios I set the boot load order from
Disk 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 to Disk 3 / 4 / 1 / 2 (which is the way Windows lists the disks)
5) All worked perfectly fine

So what does this tell us... Windows Server 2003 x64 seems to have problems with Bios/Windows drive detection differences while Windows XP Pro doesn't care obviously, because XP always booted fine from any drive with any setting.

 

Curious, you now have disk 3 set as the first boot device in the bios, but on bootup you are getting the ntloader boot.ini menu from hard disk 1 – is that correct? If so I’m even more confused now. The bios should load the MBR of the first boot hard drive, which would then load the PBR of the active partition on that drive, which should be your XP install and its boot.ini. file. The only thing that makes sense to me now is that your bios is somehow assigning the wrong number on screen to the drive. I wonder what would happen if you now physically swapped the XP and 2003 hard drives (but kept the bios order as 3,4,1,2) and change the XP boot.ini file to the same at the 2003 one that is working for you now. Would 2003 then boot ok from drive 3?

If you have Boot-Us then why don’t you use it as your bootmanager instead of the ntloader. I always give each NT install is own ntloader and use either Boot-Us or OSL2000 as my bootmanager. I’m wondering if Boot-Us would cure the numbering problem, as it always makes each hard drive HDD0 on boot, so every boot.ini file in every Windows is always set to rdisk(0).

 

No you got me wrong there I copied the boot files from Disk 1 to 3 and made Disk 3 the first boot device. Bios still discovers it as Disk 3 but I just told it to boot from Disk 3 first instead of Disk 1 since Windows detects Disk 3 as Disk 1. Pretty confusing

I didn't use Boot-US because I get the ntoskrnl.exe error with it

So a short overview of my setup now:
Boot Devices
Disk 3, 4, 1, 2 (that's the order the Bios is looking for active partitions on the hdds)

Windows Detects Disk 3 as 1, 4 as 2, 1 as 3 and 2 as 4

So my bios boot load order is now the same as the order Windows detects the drive so this fixed the issue I guess

 

Glad you found a working solution. If you ever discover what's behind the numbering discrepancy I would be interested to know.