Step 14.1 : Setting Up Windows

Before you begin installing Windows, you'll first need to prepare a floppy disk containing the drivers for the Intel ICH6R RAID controller. There are two ways to do this :-

1. Create the driver disk directly from the CD provided with the Gigabyte GA-8GPNXP Duo motherboard. Insert the driver CD into your CD-ROM drive and an empty floppy disk into the floppy drive and go to command prompt. Change the drive letter to the CD-ROM drive (usually D:) and type 'cd BootDrv' followed by 'menu'. Select the option 'Intel Application Accelerator 4.0' and wait for it to copy the files into the floppy disk, or,

2. Download the Intel Application Accelerator floppy configuration utility directly from Intel's website. Execute the file and follow the on-screen instructions.

Next, insert the Microsoft Windows XP setup CD into the optical drive and boot the system. It should boot from the CD. Follow the steps below:-

The Windows Setup screen. At the beginning of this stage, it will prompt you to press F6 to load additional storage drivers. Quickly press the F6 key and wait.

After pressing F6 and waiting for a few minutes, you'll get to this screen where it will ask you to specify additional mass storage drivers. Press the 'S' key now.

It will now ask you to insert the drivers which you have copied to your floppy disk earlier. Now, put the floppy disk into your floppy drive and press the ENTER key.

Windows Setup will read the floppy and identify the drivers found in the disk. Select the 'Intel 82801FR SATA RAID Controller'.

Once the driver is loaded (shown above), press the ESC key to continue with the setup process but leave the floppy disk inside the drive. Windows will continue to load the necessary files for the setup to continue.

You'll reach this screen when setup is ready to continue the installation process. Now, press the ENTER key to set up Windows XP.