Windows 8 Pro Install Fail/BSOD - amdsbs.sys (AMD AHCI/RAID) IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

I received my boxed copy of Windows 8 Pro from UPS here a few hours ago, and I tried to perform a full reformat/upgrade (choosing the option not to save any files) and every time it boots into the weird blue setup screen, I automatically get the same error every time. The error is an IRQ_IS_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL problem, and the file stated is amdsbs.sys.

You can find all sorts of problems with people having failures just like myself when they attempt to install Windows 8 on their rigs - and they're all AMD-based systems with AHCI/RAID enabled. I'm assuming I could change everything back over to IDE mode, but I'm not ready to go that far just to install this stupid operating system.

There are a few 'guides' around the internet that are supposed to help overcome the problem, and it involves using DISM to mount the install.wim and boot.wim images to a local directory and replacing 3 of these amdsbs.sys files with a version from either the Developer preview or the Customer preview ISO. I have also attempted this, and I was successfully able to perform the repair (but only on install.wim since I knew what its name was - it's just 'Windows 8'). After modding only the install.wim file I was finally able to make it into the setup and get to the point where I could choose which hard drive to install the OS on. As soon as I type in my product key and choose the drive, the setup program crashes YET again with the exact same error.

I'm pretty appauled that Microsoft was stupid enough to not check out a driver to make sure it works with AMD systems that use AHCI/RAID because if you have any combination of AMD chipsets and you use AHCI or RAID then you're going to get a blue screen. I have another computer with a completely different motherboard but still using AHCI, and the exact same error pops up.

Does anybody have any insight as to how I can get around this crap problem and install the OS on this machine? I had to recover my last saved image through Acronis TrueImage to get my PC back to it's old Windows 7 state. Until Microsoft is able to fix this problem, I have a worthless piece of software sitting in front of me.

I'm still interested in overwriting all of the amdsbs.sys files in the install.wim and boot.wim files and would be happy to try it again, but I would need more clarification from these instructions I found earlier:

If anybody has anything they can add to help me with this problem I'd truly appreciate it. Thanks!

 

Thanks for the response ezhik, much appreciated. I've done a bit of research since I first posted this thread, and it turns out that it's still quite a common problem - but it's only limited to certain chipsets (mainly some of the newer models where the motherboard's southbridge supports RAID 0,1,10 and RAID 5. I've finally figured out how to replace all of these amdsbs.sys files in both the boot.wim and install.wim file, and I was able to finally install Windows 8 Enterprise N on my other test machine box using that modified Win8 installation. I have yet to test it on this rig though (my main workstation) because I don't want to have to end up having to restore the entire drive yet again from a previous TrueImage Home snapshot.

So far, it seems this exact same problem has shown up on no less than five unique AMD chipsets, and I have to assume that there are probably a lot more that fit into this category as well. Rumor has it somebody over at Microsoft ended up being lazy one day and slipstreamed in an older revision of the amdsbs.sys file that doesn't work properly with the newer chipsets. My test station has an MSI 880GMS-E41 motherboard with the AMD 880g chipset using the SB850 southbridge, while my FX-8120 setup is using an ASUS M5A97, with AMD 970 chipset and SB950 southbridge. I'm starting to feel better now since my tester PC was able to complete the install, but I'm still extremely annoyed that I had to spend so much time having to swap out *.sys files - not to mention everyone else having to do the same.

If too many people are having the same BSOD problems with the installation program, I sincerely hope there's someone out there that could create a delta so it can be easily fixed.

 

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