Windows XP Setup Fails to Recognize USB Floppy after formatting AHCI disk

Question

I am attempting to install Windows XP Professional x64 onto a HP EliteBook 8540w. I have downloaded both the latest Intel Rapid Storage Technology drivers and the Intel Storage Matrix drivers that are listed on HPs website and copied the drivers over to a floppy disk (two separate floppies, one for each version of the drivers.) Booting to my WinXP Pro x64 install CD, I go through the F6 process, load the driver and am able to see my HDD, delete, create and format partitions on it. When I go to continue the install, after checking the disk, the system asks me to enter the disk labeled "Intel Rapid Storage Technology" and press enter to continue. Nothing happens at this point when I press enter. This happens if I use the latest drivers or the older drivers.

We have created a slipstreamed install CD using nLite that has the AHCI drivers integrated, which installs fine. However, we have identified a number of issues with the system that I believe are side-effects of using nLite for the slipstreaming and I am attempting to verify that. I have researched this issue and found a few examples of others having the same problem, but no solution.

The USB floppy is a Lacie branded floppy, connecting it to a working XP workstation shows it to be the Y-E Data USB floppy drive that is supposedly 100% compatible with XP per MS KB 916196.

Answer 1

Figured out the problem. The HP EliteBook 8540w has both a USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 controller onboard. The USB port I was using was one of the USB 3.0 ones. I finally gave up on AHCI and just installed in IDE mode. When I got into Windows after the installation the USB floppy and mouse I had attached all stopped working. Tested all the USB ports on the system, found two that the newly installed Windows could recognize. Connected the USB floppy to one of those ports, re-enabled AHCI through BIOS and ran through the basic installation again. Worked fine this time around and am currently installing all Windows updates.

I do not know why the setup can recognize the USB 3.0 ports as legacy USB devices at the beginning of setup and not at the end of setup. And I doubt that this is a common cause of this issue, but hopefully this will help someone else at some point.

Answer 2

Try driver packs

Driver packs tutorial, read carefully.

http://forum.driverpacks.net/viewtopic.php?id=1449

Download software "Driverpacks Base"

http://driverpacks.net/downloads

You can install other driver packs besides the "Mass Storage", but this will bloat the size of the XP install to DVD size, The only driver packs I suggest to slipstream are

Mass Storage, Chipset, Lan, CPU

This will keep it a size to fit on a CD. If you want all the drivers slipstreamed it will require a DVD burner.

I don't change any of the default settings when using the software, just pick the driver packs you want to slipstream and create the ISO image.

If you use other customizing software such as Nlite, use that first then driver packs last, then make the iso, or install problems will result.