XP, MAC PRO & SATA
 
Simple Fix! As you may or may not be aware, there exists a small compatibility problem between the Mac Pro and the recommended installation procedure for XP service pack 2 using Apple’s BETA boot camp application. The problem degrades a single modern SATA hard drive performance from 60-80 Gigabyte/s throughput down to a steady 3792 Kilobytes/s. If you are currently running XP on your Mac Pro, you will most likely have this problem. The problem is that currently Intel’s XP SATA drivers (for the Intel 531xESB chipset found on the Mac Pro) MUST be included as part of the Windows XP installation disk and installed as part of a new installation, and not as an after-thought. (Don’t ask me why, I don’t know!) Luckily for us Mac users, the windows community has been busy building automated tools that allow us to install device drivers and windows fix-packs directly onto installation disks to perform clean installations. The ability to install fix-packs means that your Windows XP Service-Pack 1 installation disc can be updated and used to build a Windows XP Service-Pack 2 disc as required by the latest Intel chipsets. Requirements You will want to download (or legally acquire) the following items: * Any Windows XP Home or Professional (full installation disk) * Download Service Pack 2 Network Installation Package (if required) * Download WPA_KILL by searching www.filewatcher.com (remove spyware) * Download RemoveWGA from www.FirewallLeakTester.com (remove spyware) * Download nLite for free (and make a small donation) * Download .NET Framework Version 2.0 Redistributable Package * Download RVM XP Hot Fix Package (website) * Review other add-ons on that website * Download Intel’s 5000X chipset drivers (thanks to ars technica for first publishing) * Download Intel’s 631xESB chipset SATA drivers (version 15/05/2006 7.4.0.1005) * Download ImgBurn bootable CD burning tool (and make a small donation) * Download SiSoftware Sandra Light from here (benchmarking tool) Building your custom XP boot disk The first step is to download all the files into an installation directory (lets say C:\MacXP) on a working Windows box. This might be your currently booting XP on the Mac Pro, or any other modern windows box. I strongly recommend spending a few hours searching through the AddOn’s for nLite. These packages allow for Adobe Acrobat Reader, AVG Antivirus, and other free tools to be installed auto-magically in your installation. Second step is to make a unique directory for each of the Intel device drivers (e.g, C:\MacXP\IntelDriverA), copy the drivers into the respective folders and expand the contents. I recommend Third step is to install the .NET framework required by nLite. Fourth step is to install ImgBurn if you don’t already have a CD burning tool installed. (I selected ImgBurn because it was free, and it worked for me, even on the crippled SATA drive on my MacPro). We will use the nLite tool to build the custom bootable cdrom. By following the steps above you have all the modules ready to pass into nLite when it requests it. The nLite installation process is very well described here and I recommend you follow its instructions. When you come up to Integrating the device drivers you MUST install the Intel Drivers you have downloaded. Select the “Insert” tab, followed by the “Multiple Driver Folder”. If you followed my suggested directory naming structure, select the “C:\MacXP” folder, and click okay. A window will display all the Intel Drivers. Select All, then Okay. A second window will appear listing driver names in the “Text mode integration options”. Select the ESB2 SATA RAID Controller (Server ESB2) entry, and press okay. The window will reappear, click cancel. Confirm that the “Intel, TXT-iaStore_ESB2, HDC, 5.6.2.1002, 01/16/2006” item is present in the list. Click next, and continue following the nLite instructions. Fifth Step is burn the .ISO image file generated by nLITE. Sixth Step is to perform a re-install of Windows XP using your custom boot disk. Seventh Step is to run SiSoftware Sandra Light software to confirm that you have reasonable hard drive performance that reflects the drives installed in your system. 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