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Slow SATA performance on Mac Pro in XP/Bootcamp

Maybe I am way to PC-centric. The last Apple I owned was a Apple IIc, but I am more than used to having to install chipset drivers everytime I put windows on some spanking new state-of-the-art box. I wish that it was easier to hook up a floppy and do it that way. I have had to do a few windows re-installs with the ol' [f6] back in the day because I was running SCSI Hard Disks. The whole reason I bought a mac was to get away from this kind of thing !!!

It is a major pain in the butt if you don't have a spare PC lying around. I am not game to start again and try with a USB key but there is no reason why it should not work. Tried the method suggested on this thread and it seems to be working fine, just wish I didn't have to make a slipstream disk. I was trying to be 100% legit !
 
egeis said:
You cant just install the drivers on a existing bootcamp windows install?
Click to expand...
You mean if you get the mac pro with boot camp, you wont be able to install the new drivers for bootcamp onto your comp? Or were you talking about not being able to install SATA drivers?
 
Mr. Mister said:
No, it's some kind of paradox, you can't install SATA drivers from the hard drive that will turn to being SATA once the drivers are installed, so they have to be installed from a disk.
Click to expand...
Do you absolutley need that?
 
Mr. Mister said:
It's either that or the slowest hard drive performance imaginable.
Click to expand...
Where do you get the SATA drivers. DO you need them only if you have 2 or more drives? I dont know if this is just me but it seems to take a lot of complicated steps to get this thing working. I never needed SATA drivers and what not on any other comp i had. :(
 
I'mAMac said:
Where do you get the SATA drivers. I dont know if this is just me but it seems to take a lot of complicated steps to get this thing working. I never needed SATA drivers and what not on any other comp i had. :(
Click to expand...
That's because Apple sucks right now.
 
Damn. Well on the bright side, if I do experience any problems, there is this forum. :D Where do you get the SATA drivers and do i need to install them as soon as i get the Mac?
 
I tried the F6 thing at boot with a USB floppy drive. It seems to recognize the USB floppy drive and read the disk during boot, but I can't hit F6!

It looks like the USB KB is not initialized in time to hit F6! Doh!

I even tried a Peecee USB KB :(
 
nLite on both my PCs wont work right, sits there on the Integrating Drivers or whatever it was called for the hour that I let it sit. Think its a problem with my SP2 slipstreamed disk?
 
Where do you get the SATA drivers. DO you need them only if you have 2 or more drives? I dont know if this is just me but it seems to take a lot of complicated steps to get this thing working. I never needed SATA drivers and what not on any other comp i had.
Click to expand...

go back a few pages and there is a link.

nView slipsteam will work as described in this method just make sure you re-read the instructions a few times and ONLY INCLUDE THE DRIVER YOU NEED.
 
Borman said:
nLite on both my PCs wont work right, sits there on the Integrating Drivers or whatever it was called for the hour that I let it sit. Think its a problem with my SP2 slipstreamed disk?
Click to expand...

I had the same problem, I don't it's a problem with your nlite disc, I had to reinstall OS X and bootcamp and then it worked.

I made like 20 different CDs, and they were all stalling at the same point that you describe.
 
My Mac Pro Is Getting 54mb Sata Performance In Xp

I used nLite - here's how I did it.

copied Entire XP SP2 OEM CD into a folder called "MACXPINSTALL"

Under MACXPINSTALL Folder I Created a folder called "IntelDrivers"

Under the IntelDrivers Folder I created TWO folders:
one called "IntelSATA"
one called "IntelINF"

Under the IntelSATA Folder I expanded the driver for the Intel SATA controller that I got from Intel's Website (link can be found in earlier post)

Under the IntelINF Folder I expanded the driver for the Intel 5000 Chipset that I got from Intel's Website (link can be found in earlier post)

Next I started nLite
Pointed to the MACXPINSTALL Folder - Next - Next
Select the "Integrate Drivers" Button - Next
NOTE: FOLLOW THESE STEPS EXACTLY!
Click "Insert" - "Multiple Driver Folder"
Browser to the path of the IntelDrivers Folder (X:\MACXPINSTALL\IntelDrivers\)
Click "OK"
Click "ALL"
Click "OK"
Select "Intel(R) ESB2 SATA RAID Controller (Server ESB2)"
Click "OK"
Click "Cancel"
Click "Next"

From here on it's just Next... to the end and then save the ISO file

Once it's saved you need to burn it to a CD and you are ready to go.

I HIGHLY recommend that you install XP on a seperate Hard Drive from OSX

In this case you DO NOT need to install BootCamp at all

Simply REMOVE your Mac Hard Drive before installing
Turn on the computer
Hold Down the Option Key to get the boot menu
press the CD Eject key and insert the XP CD into the top drive
press the CD Eject Key to close the drive
select the CD as your boot device and away you go!

It will work if you leave the MAC drive installed BUT Windows XP will see it's root drive as Drive F: instead of Drive C: (What a PAIN!)

I have really tried messing this system up. I installed Acronis TrueImage 9.0 after installed XP and used it to clone my drive to another blank SATA drive that I had inserted into the system (The Mac drive was still removed). It worked perfectly!

I installed DaemonTools and mounted a 5.8GB image file - no problemo
From daemon tools I installed a high end 3D Graphics game - it's up and running smooth as silk!

Next I'll be migrating my XP data and settings from my old PC so I can put that (P4 3.2Ghz, 2GB, 750GB, NVIDIA 6800) dinosaur to rest! I think I'm jadded.

Enjoy!

P.S. If you have to run nLite a second time for any reason you need to DELETE everything and start over - otherwise it will take FOREVER to process and the CD will have errors. Fresh installs work perfectly.
 
I having gotten far enough to start installing Windows, nLite is where it gets stuck at the Integrating drivers.

Edit: New problem. Keyboard not responding in the blue Setup screen for Windows. My Macbook Pro never gave me this much trouble :( Using the keyboard that shipped with the Mac Pro
 
syrianos said:
i'm trying to get win xp x64 edition - built 1830 to slistream with sp2 but i get an error that some files aree not copied correctly,
should i just continue?
Click to expand...

I also had an error witth my 32 bit WinXP SP2 Professional (saying something about an error in a .c file), this error happened before reformatting the hdd. I just rebooted and tried once more - the error did not show up again.

cheers,
stingray
 
topgunn said:
I have my external floppy drive and a disk loaded with the SATA drivers so I am going to try loading the drivers that way (when it asks you to hit F6 to install 3rd party drivers). Has anyone actually tried this yet? I know there has been some theoretical discussion on the subject but I don't think anyon has actually tested it yet. It should do basically the same thing as slipstreaming the CD.
Click to expand...

I tried it from a USB stick first. Although the installer saw the drivers, I couldn't load any - I always got an error
 
Borman said:
I having gotten far enough to start installing Windows, nLite is where it gets stuck at the Integrating drivers.

Edit: New problem. Keyboard not responding in the blue Setup screen for Windows. My Macbook Pro never gave me this much trouble :( Using the keyboard that shipped with the Mac Pro
Click to expand...

Try unplugging any external devices (Firewire, USB) that you don't need for the install. A keyboard and mouse, that's all you need.
 
Yep, found it out afterwards heh. Ended up being my mouse, go figure. I just wanted to confirm that this method DOES work, after some problems with nLite, and the system reads and writes very similar to what the other users have experienced. All and all, Im very happy. Installing FEAR now lol.
 
Hello, today I tried two things :
- Using F6 key with a USB floppy drive works. I managed to install SATA drivers like that. But I didn't install X5000 chipset driver and the HD is still slow (I think we can't put the chipset driver on a floppy and use F6 key to load it at startup as it's not a disk driver, am I wrong ?)
- Installing Vista seems to have the SATA drivers. Unfortunately I couldn't benchmark c: because Sisoft Sandra give me an error. But I manage to benchmark another partition d: (formated as FAT) and got 40 MB/s without any additional driver other than Vista ones (didn't even install Mac drivers).
 
Yoc said:
Hello, today I tried two things :
- Using F6 key with a USB floppy drive works. I managed to install SATA drivers like that. But I didn't install X5000 chipset driver and the HD is still slow (I think we can't put the chipset driver on a floppy and use F6 key to load it at startup as it's not a disk driver, am I wrong ?)
Click to expand...

Good to learn that! ( Beau boulot!)so we must make a new iso to insert the x5000 driver for Windows!:mad:
 
Updated Website

amac4me said:
The issue is that the Intel's XP SATA drivers for the Intel 531xESB chips on the Mac Pro have to be included as part of the XP installation disk and installed as part of the new installation, not done after the install.

What you need to do is build a custom Windows XP boot disk.

Here's how:
http://web.mac.com/terrabit/iWeb/macpro/xp.html
Click to expand...


Due to bandwidth restrictions on the Dot Mac account, I have purchased a new webserver. The new address for the website is:

http://www.macprojournal.com/

or:

http://71.18.168.229 (if the above DNS entries haven't updated yet).
 
cyboman said:
I used nLite - here's how I did it.

copied Entire XP SP2 OEM CD into a folder called "MACXPINSTALL"

Under MACXPINSTALL Folder I Created a folder called "IntelDrivers"

Under the IntelDrivers Folder I created TWO folders:
one called "IntelSATA"
one called "IntelINF"

Under the IntelSATA Folder I expanded the driver for the Intel SATA controller that I got from Intel's Website (link can be found in earlier post)

Under the IntelINF Folder I expanded the driver for the Intel 5000 Chipset that I got from Intel's Website (link can be found in earlier post)

Next I started nLite
Pointed to the MACXPINSTALL Folder - Next - Next
Select the "Integrate Drivers" Button - Next
NOTE: FOLLOW THESE STEPS EXACTLY!
Click "Insert" - "Multiple Driver Folder"
Browser to the path of the IntelDrivers Folder (X:\MACXPINSTALL\IntelDrivers\)
Click "OK"
Click "ALL"
Click "OK"
Select "Intel(R) ESB2 SATA RAID Controller (Server ESB2)"
Click "OK"
Click "Cancel"
Click "Next"

From here on it's just Next... to the end and then save the ISO file

Once it's saved you need to burn it to a CD and you are ready to go.

I HIGHLY recommend that you install XP on a seperate Hard Drive from OSX

In this case you DO NOT need to install BootCamp at all

Simply REMOVE your Mac Hard Drive before installing
Turn on the computer
Hold Down the Option Key to get the boot menu
press the CD Eject key and insert the XP CD into the top drive
press the CD Eject Key to close the drive
select the CD as your boot device and away you go!

It will work if you leave the MAC drive installed BUT Windows XP will see it's root drive as Drive F: instead of Drive C: (What a PAIN!)

I have really tried messing this system up. I installed Acronis TrueImage 9.0 after installed XP and used it to clone my drive to another blank SATA drive that I had inserted into the system (The Mac drive was still removed). It worked perfectly!

I installed DaemonTools and mounted a 5.8GB image file - no problemo
From daemon tools I installed a high end 3D Graphics game - it's up and running smooth as silk!

Next I'll be migrating my XP data and settings from my old PC so I can put that (P4 3.2Ghz, 2GB, 750GB, NVIDIA 6800) dinosaur to rest! I think I'm jadded.

Enjoy!

P.S. If you have to run nLite a second time for any reason you need to DELETE everything and start over - otherwise it will take FOREVER to process and the CD will have errors. Fresh installs work perfectly.
Click to expand...

OK, I am a little confused by parts of this: first, my XP install CD (slipstreamed or not) will NOT install XP onto a separate, internal HD with my Mac drives installed. More specifically, if I want to use separate drives for MacOS and XP, the installer will not install XP onto the #3 disk when #1 and #2 disks contain ONLY MacOS paritions.

I'm reading conflicting info about the partitioning: most sites claim that EFI will not boot a drive unless it is GUID partitioned. This does not seem to be true since I placed a PATA drive in the Mac Pro from a PC (read MBR partitioned) and the Mac Pro booted XP fine. My guess is that most of this applies to Mac's that can't take multiple drives. So, if you only have one drive, it needs to be GUID partitioned, thus the need for BootCamp (but this is only because of the need to combine MacOS and XP on the same drive). It seems the Mac Pro will boot either type of partition.

So does anyone know the answer to any of the following:

1. Can the Mac Pro boot either a GUID or MBR partitioned drive?

2. What is the best way to install MacOS and XP onto separate, internal HDs in a Mac Pro?

Help.
 
I just wanted to thank Terrabit for the excellent instructions. Everything worked perfectly.
 
kkapoor said:
I just wanted to thank Terrabit for the excellent instructions. Everything worked perfectly.
Click to expand...

I just want to be sure I understand which Intel drivers to select. When you go to this link for the 5000X chipset drivers, do you only select number 1?

http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scr...XP+Professional&lang=eng&strOSs=44&submit=Go!

And when you go to download the SATA drivers, you download using the single link which the following brings up:

http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scr...2487&dwnldid=11207&agr=y&lang=eng&prdmap=2487
 
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