Unable to install Windows XP on a Toshiba laptop

[insaneYLN]

Hello all, an uncle of mine has a Toshiba Qosmio G30-175 laptop which came pre-installed with Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. He has misplaced the product and recovery disks that came with the laptop. Also, most of the applications have become corrupt and utilities such as the Task Manager do not open, possibly due to virus infection(s).


I tried installing Microsoft Windows XP Professional but before the Windows setup could load, the following error was displayed on the screen, of which I have attached an image.

Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer.

After searching for the issue on Google and subsequently reading threads on various forums, it is indicative that a missing RAID driver is the culprit. I looked up on Toshiba's UK website and the Qosmio G30-175 is a discontinued model, Qosmio G30-175 - Toshiba.

Also, the drivers download list for the said model is provided for only the following operating systems - Windows XP MCE, Windows Vista 32-Bit, Windows Vista 64-Bit and Windows 7 32-Bit.


Please assist me to acquire the appropriate driver(s) of the conflicting peripheral for Windows XP Professional, and help me so that I can successfully install the aforementioned operating system on my uncle's old laptop.


I await your expertise.

 

[whitestar_999]

any xp edition raid driver will work for any xp edition.when the xp setup is starting it asks to press F6 to load external raid drivers etc.now there are 2 things you can do:
1.in bios setting if there is an option to use usb drive as floppy enable it & copy raid drivers(after extracting them to files like abc.sys etc) into the pen drive(preferably empty with no folders & just raid files).connect pen drive & then after pressing F6 give the path to pen drive.
2.use nlite & integrate the raid driver into xp cd itself to create a new xp cd with built in raid driver so it will install normally just like on a normal pc without raid.
nLite - Deployment Tool for the bootable Unattended Windows installation - Guide

 

[insaneYLN]

Thank you whitestar_999 for aptly addressing my query and alleviating my confusion.


The laptop has two physical hard drives which are arranged in RAID. Can I disable the RAID arrangement and use the capacities of both the physical hard drives for additional storage, similar to having multiple hard drives on a desktop?

I looked into the BIOS but could not find an option which would allow me to disable the RAID configuration. I have attached images of the BIOS.


Other than using this old laptop for basic purposes such as e-mail and web browsing, my uncle intends on storing the videos of my cousins' school and club football matches on it, thus calling for the need of additional storage!

 

[whitestar_999]

in your 2nd pic usb-fdd legacy emulation is enabled which is same as use usb drive as fdd.also in your 3rd pic built-in hdd1 has state "1raid-0",see if you can change this state to "JBOD" in create state settings for hdd1.JBOD means "just a bunch of disks" & basically means disabling any RAID configuration.

 

[insaneYLN]

whitestar_999, thank you once again for your continued help.


I was able to successfully change the state for HDD1 to JBOD, but the user manual says, Windows cannot be installed in this disk. I have attached a screenshot of that portion from the e-manual. I am a tad too confused with this statement.


Also, do I need any other additional drivers other than the RAID driver whilst loading external drivers during the Windows XP installation?


Once again, I await your apt replies.

 

[whitestar_999]

change the setting back to 1raid-0 for 1st hdd & then you have to follow any one of the 2 ways i mentioned before.according to the manual pic you posted only when hdd status is 2raid-0 or raid-1 the raid setup will be followed(80gb on 80gb+80gb hdd).you don't need any other driver except raid driver during install because these driver only allow the install cd to see your hdd.after install download usual audio/video/bluetooth etc drivers from toshiba site.

 

[insaneYLN]

change the setting back to 1raid-0 for 1st hdd & then you have to follow any one of the 2 ways i mentioned before.according to the manual pic you posted only when hdd status is 2raid-0 or raid-1 the raid setup will be followed(80gb on 80gb+80gb hdd).you don't need any other driver except raid driver during install because these driver only allow the install cd to see your hdd.after install download usual audio/video/bluetooth etc drivers from toshiba site.

whitestar_999, thank you once again for your prompt response.


Am I correct to understand from your quoted message that after I set the configuration status for HDD1 to 1RAID-0 and leave the setting for HDD2 as JBOD, I will be able to use the combined capacities of both the physical hard drives?

Should I try installing Microsoft Windows XP Professional with the configuration states for both, HDD1 and HDD2 set as JBOD, after I have finished loading the required external driver(s) via USB-FDD emulation?


I await your expert opinions.

 

[whitestar_999]

Am I correct to understand from your quoted message that after I set the configuration status for HDD1 to 1RAID-0 and leave the setting for HDD2 as JBOD, I will be able to use the combined capacities of both the physical hard drives?

yes so no need to configure both hdd as jbod.

 

[insaneYLN]

Hello whitestar_999, as per your advice, I set the configuration statuses for HDD1 to 1RAID-0 and HDD2 to JBOD. I downloaded the RAID driver from, Driver Details - Toshiba and extracted the individual files to an empty flash drive.

After checking the BIOS and making sure USB-FDD Legacy Emulation was left enabled, I inserted the Microsoft Windows XP Professional setup disc and pressed F6 to load external drivers. But the process was unsuccessful and I have attached images of the display messages encountered during setup.


I do not know what I am doing wrong and thus I await your further assistance.

 

[Minion]

Hello all, an uncle of mine has a Toshiba Qosmio G30-175 laptop which came pre-installed with Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. He has misplaced the product and recovery disks that came with the laptop. Also, most of the applications have become corrupt and utilities such as the Task Manager do not open, possibly due to virus infection(s).


I tried installing Microsoft Windows XP Professional but before the Windows setup could load, the following error was displayed on the screen, of which I have attached an image.


After searching for the issue on Google and subsequently reading threads on various forums, it is indicative that a missing RAID driver is the culprit. I looked up on Toshiba's UK website and the Qosmio G30-175 is a discontinued model, Qosmio G30-175 - Toshiba.

Also, the drivers download list for the said model is provided for only the following operating systems - Windows XP MCE, Windows Vista 32-Bit, Windows Vista 64-Bit and Windows 7 32-Bit.


Please assist me to acquire the appropriate driver(s) of the conflicting peripheral for Windows XP Professional, and help me so that I can successfully install the aforementioned operating system on my uncle's old laptop.


I await your expertise.

Your partition table is corrupt.You can solve this issue by downloading gparted live and repair your partition using it, but I am sorry you will lose all data.

 

[whitestar_999]

try the 2nd method i mentioned above(using nLite) to integrated the raid driver into xp cd itself to create a new xp cd.just extract all files into a folder & then follow nlite instruction.you can do this on another pc.

@minion,read all posts & not just quote 1st post before posting anything.the matter op & i are discussing here has nothing to do with partition tables.

 

[Minion]

^^@whitestar_999 I have read all post I faced similar situation sometime back with my desktop and i resolved issue like i have mentioned above.

 

[insaneYLN]

Hello whitestar_999, before I try your second suggested method of using nLite, I thought of giving one last go at the first method of using USB-FDD Legacy Emulation.
I formatted the flash drive as FAT (as opposed to FAT32 during the previous attempt), extracted all the individual files of the downloaded RAID driver, connected the flash drive to the laptop, inserted the Windows XP setup disc into the laptop optical drive and switched it on. This time the screen message was stuck on -

Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration

I wonder why the setup is unable to integrate the USB flash drive to allow the external driver to be loaded? With reference to the BIOS page 2 image, I was wondering if changing the option for USB Memory BIOS Support Type to FDD would make any difference?


Also, referring to Minion's statement, how do I know if the partition tables are corrupt or not?


I await your further responses and I thank you for your patience.

 

[whitestar_999]

@minion,it seems like you don't know about custom hardware RAID setup & probably because you never had one.it doesn't matter whether partition tables are corrupted or bootsector or file system you first need your bootable cd/dvd/pen drive to be able to see your hard disks which they can't unless the driver for that custom RAID setup is loaded first.if your cd/dvd/pen drive can't even see hdd then how can you repair/fix/rescue any thing.

@insaneYLN,nLite method is better long term solution because it creates a boot disk which you can simply use without any hassle whenever you need to install xp.

 

[insaneYLN]

@insaneYLN,nLite method is better long term solution because it creates a boot disk which you can simply use without any hassle whenever you need to install xp.

whitestar_999, thank you once again for your prompt replies. I will heed your advice and try the nLite method.


For the sake of my sanity, is it possible you could shed some light as to why the USB-FDD Legacy Emulation method did not work or function?


I thank you for continuing to have tremendous patience with my naivety!

 

[Minion]

Hello whitestar_999, before I try your second suggested method of using nLite, I thought of giving one last go at the first method of using USB-FDD Legacy Emulation.
I formatted the flash drive as FAT (as opposed to FAT32 during the previous attempt), extracted all the individual files of the downloaded RAID driver, connected the flash drive to the laptop, inserted the Windows XP setup disc into the laptop optical drive and switched it on. This time the screen message was stuck on -

I wonder why the setup is unable to integrate the USB flash drive to allow the external driver to be loaded? With reference to the BIOS page 2 image, I was wondering if changing the option for USB Memory BIOS Support Type to FDD would make any difference?


Also, referring to Minion's statement, how do I know if the partition tables are corrupt or not?


I await your further responses and I thank you for your patience.

gparted is a bootable CD based on linux it will show you what is condition of you HDD.
I strongly recommend you to try gparted to see if partition table is corrupt.just try it for once may solve your problem in one go.
It is part of troubleshooting.So do it buddy to know your exact problem.

 

[whitestar_999]

when you boot from cd the letter assigned to it is usually D but in your case you also have a usb(or FDD) connected so you have to find out the letter assigned to each drive manually using dos command "cd" using xp cd repair console.when you pressed F6 maybe the xp cd failed to locate usb because of drive letter assignment or maybe because there was a conflict with boot order(correct order must be cd>fdd>hdd).anyways it is a lot of hassle compared to nLite method where you have to do the procedure just once to create a custom XP cd with your raid driver & afterwards whenever you have o install it's just the usual procedure.

@minion,i know younger generations don't value patience as much but try it sometimes.gparted cd or for that matter any bootable cd can not see op's hdd because to do that it must have the hardware raid driver for op's laptop model.this is the reason why there are methods to manually add raid drivers to any bootable windows/linux cd/dvd.without that custom toshiba raid driver any bootable cd/dvd is useless for op.

 

[insaneYLN]

whitestar_999, thank you very much for the insightful information. It has indeed boosted my knowledge and I wish to continue progressing to learn from you all.


I have one last query before I create and subsequently burn a bootable ISO image. In nLite, at the Integrate Drivers option, do I select Regular PNP driver or Textmode driver?

I presume Textmode driver would be the option to choose because the former implies plug and play, which would be relevant only after Windows has successfully installed and is running, right?


Once again, I am grateful for your continued guidance and patience.

 

[whitestar_999]

you are right about using textmode driver.go ahead & create the cd.

 

[insaneYLN]

Hello whitestar_999 and apologies for being unable to get back much earlier with matters concerning my uncle's laptop. The nLite method worked brilliantly and I have successfully installed Microsoft Windows XP Professional on the Toshiba laptop.


Thank you very much for all your help.