Hello, new around here so sorry for what may be stupid question (although only stupid question is the one not asked.) Downloaded an iso from one of the videos. Test installed on a VM, and of course, after a couple glitches, it finally booted to the desktop. Ran well. Moved to real HW. ASUS Z77 Sabertooth, with a Samsung 950 Pro NVMe drive, PCIe connected. Went well, copied the files to the 950, then went to reboot. After the post, black screen forever. No OS boot. On reboot: detailed couldn't start due to missing NTLDR. Even after copying them again, same result. I went snooping around the install.esd (after converting it to a wim) and found ntoskrn8.sys and storport.sys in the system32\drivers folder as they should be, also stornvme.sys (Microsoft driver) was present. The only successful NVMe install of XP I have done, was on an ASUS Maximus XI Hero with the same 950 pro installed. I used backported Samsung drivers. Was surprised, but unfortunately, the only driver for that board, beyond the actual install and XP, was the NVMe driver. I have had problems with the Z77 for some time with XP and NVMe. Same successful install media (without the ACPI patch) would not get passed the "setup is inspecting..." screen. This latest attempt was the closest it has come to actually working. But no OS boot is an epic fail. I have used DISM (obviously) to get Win 7 32bit installed to the 950 (MBR partition) and boot in legacy mode. But the processes herein described are a bit too complex for my 72 years. So what am I doing wrong? What am I missing? (Other than I should not have started this project a month ago, and my ignorance.) So far, in the past month I have come up with no answers, just more questions--as well as my inquires being ignored... haha. Thanks for your patience.
Hello, thanks for the reply. I happen to have Ventoy on a flash drive, that contains the grubFM-iso. But learning curve sets in, and am trying to figure out what to do with it. I use Ventoy to access multiple install ISOs, for OS installation. grub is picking up the NVMe drive (in legacy mode) but not sure yet where to go from there. (3 dots as not allowed to post links yet.) Edit 1: Figured it out. 1st boot--NTLDR missing; 2nd attempt using second option--NTLDR missing.
Update: Took the 950 Pro along with the PCIe adapter, and installed it on a Maximus XI Hero motherboard, i7-8700K CPU. The 950 booted, and the install continued. However, there was an issue with the install, due to ACPI not fully compliant. Re-booting in safe mode, and setup continued. On the next reboot, missing hal.dll. After re-running setup to the 950 on the Maximus XI motherboard. Result, bluescreen stop, the bios is not fully ACPI compliant. I am not sure, but I suspect the iso was made with an earlier version of the XP2ESD package. Just for perspective, standard install of XP (NOT integral edition) patched using Patch Integrator for ACPI, AHCI, NVMe, and USB3 installed without issue to the Samsung 950 Pro, and booted to the desktop, on the Maximus XI Hero motherboard (drive in M.2_1 socket.) Edit 2: After rebuilding the ISO using XP2ESD Ver. 1.6.2, (just one version of XP included) on initial reboot: BSOD WDF01000.sys Page Fault in non paged area. Boot in safe mode, get to snappy driver install: reboot--Missing hal.dll.... of course, there are no XP drivers for the Maximus XI, and people wonder why my project is for a ASUS Z77 Sabertooth, that has full XP driver support on the ASUS website. But XP for whatever reason, does not see the PCIe adapted Samsung NVMe 950 Pro, which is the last Samsung NVMe with its own OptionROM in the box, capable of booting in Legacy mode. There seems to be little interest in this from what I see. So, I continue to struggle on my own.
Thank you for showing an interest. I do appreciate it! All on the Z77: I have not tried using XP2ESD on a SATA drive. It is on the to-do list. So far, XP has installed and booted on a SATA drive using my original SP3 ISO (updated from SP2,) with slipstreamed AHCI, USB3, NVMe drivers. However, with the pcie/950 nvme, connected, the SATA drive will not boot. With a pcie/980 nvme connected, the SATA drive boots XP, detects the nvme, allows me to install the driver (it asked for file secnvme.sys, which I have on a flashdrive.) The 980 has GPT partition scheme. For the missing NTLDR, attempted to replace NTLDR, but still popped NTLDR missing. During the install of XP2ESD Ver.1.6.2 created ISO on the Maximus XI, it would boot in safe mode. But in the end, all I got was WDF01000, and hal.dll errors. I run 64 bit OS (Win 11) on all 4 of my running systems. However, the Z77 project requires 32bit XP, though ASUS does have the XP 64bit drivers for the board on their website. ... Don't have 5 posts yet. EDIT I: I just checked the windows\system32 directory of the XP2ESD installation on the 950 Pro, and there is NO hal.dll present. 14% chance of expanding the right one.. well....
Correct hal.dll internal name is: halmacpi.dll, taken from the currently running clean install of XP SP3 on the Maximus XI Hero and PCIe adapted Samsung NVMe 950 Pro. Used a modified MSDN iso, with ACPI, AHCI, USB3, and MS NVMe, backported drivers integrated. Not prepped with XP2ESD.
Yes they are rare and quite expensive. I have a new one in a factory sealed box as well as my test drive. But getting XP to boot on it is also rare. I have done it on the Maximus XI, but so far no joy on the Z77 Sabertooth. Tried to clone the SATA SSD while my niece was here today: Epic fail. Drive read error... Tried Macrium, but that would not clone the XP system drive. RescuZilla cloned it, but booting it gives the drive read error. The process did something to the drive, and now the SATA drive will again not boot with an NVMe PCIe connected on the Z77, just black screen. Before the clone, I had the SATA SSD booting with the 950 connected. Also I cannot get XP installed on that 950 on the Maximus XI--halts at "Setup is starting Windows" screen. Edit: Got it on the Maximus XI/950 Pro--the gpt partitioned sata ssd was interfering with the install, so disconnected it.
Hello to this great thread! Can please someone help me with an XP2ESD Build? Currently I'm following instructions of the first post but after I gather everything and run the build cmd I always get an error "install.wim not found". Should I change something inside config.ini? Thank you!
If anyone is trying to build, do NOT use Windows 11 24H2 as host, it will throw MASSIVE errors. I tried to build from Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021 (which build number is 19044, 21H2), it worked.