Unable to load Windows XP

[Eg0Death]

I swapped out my Gigabyte motherboard for an Asus A8N-SLI SE to make use of dual PCI-E video cards.  During the Windows XP Setup I press F6 to load SATA drivers.  After being prompted to do so I press S to "Specify Additional Device."  I put the floppy drive created with the utility from the motherboard manufacturer into the floppy drive, press enter and -

File txtsetup.oem caused an unexpected error (1024) at
line 1747 in d:\xpsprtm\base\boot\setup\oemdisk.c.

I've tried multiple floppies on different floppy drives.  I've tried the drivers from the CD included with the motherboard as well as the most recent from the manufacturer.  The manufacturer told me it was because I have 4 GB of RAM.  I removed 2 and tried again with the same results. 

The Windows installation will complete without issue if I install to a single IDE HDD. 

Asus has very slow tech support, so it will be days before I hear from them again.  I'm hoping someone has an idea. 

Custom built machine
4 GB Mushkin PC3200
AMD Athlon x2 4200+
I've tried a 4 different SATA hard drives.

[Eg0Death]

Asus is now telling me there is a problem with my Windows CD.  I have a hard time buying that because I did not have this issue when I set up RAID on my Gigabyte motherboard. 

[stevejohnson1958]

First thing...make sure the floppy was created correctly from the manufacturer CD.

Also...make sure BIOS is configured to boot from the SATA in question...

Keep us posted.

[Eg0Death]

I've created the floppy from another computer using the GUI and from DOS using the FreeDOS command line utility included on the manufacturer's CD. 

The BIOS is set to boot from the SATA in question, but would that even come into play during the Windows install? 

[stevejohnson1958]

If the SATA drive is the boot device...yes.

[Eg0Death]

I reset my BIOS values to the default and took out all but the essential hardware.
 
I made one adjustment at a time until my RAID 0 from the original build was
visible in the NVIDIA Raid manager.  After it became visible again I was able to
boot to it.  Now I'm having issues with my SLI configuration (ASUS EN8600GT x2).
 I'll poke around in other threads for relevant info.  For the record, here are the
changes I made to my BIOS after reverting the settings to the default.

Advanced->PCIPnP->Init Display First-> [PCI-E]
Advanced->Onboard Device Configuration->NVRAID Configuration->RAID Enable -> [Enabled]
Advanced->Onboard Device Configuration->NVRAID Configuration->First SATA Master->
[Enabled]
Advanced->Onboard Device Configuration->NVRAID Configuration->Second SATA Master->
[Enabled]

I then used the onboard NVIDIA Raid manager and restored the RAID 0.  The drives
no longer show during the main POST but they do show up as a healthy Stripe in the
RAID status. 

My computer is functional again (mostly) but I don't know if the initial issue
has been resolved (txtsetup.oem error).  If it is not, I won't be able to perform
 a repair install of Windows in the future.