Anybody ever run into this? I fought all day and still can't get it.

I'm was running a dualboot system. Always booting from XP.
XP-sp2 on c:\ 120gig (fat32) slave
win98se on d:\ 80gig (fat32) master

I put a bigger HD on d:\ so now it's:
XP-sp2 on c:\ 120gig (fat32) slave
(empty) on d:\ 160gig (ntfs) master

and it runs fine but I keep getting interupted
with this message after I boot up.
"Windows could not load the installer for volume-contact your hardware vendor"
(Even after a fresh format on D:\)

I thought it might be the fat32 and ntfs combo issue, so I threw in another
smaller blank 120gig fat32 drive for d:\ to see if it would fix it.
No Change....

Bios identifies them fine everytime.
XP identifies them as well, but only after that message appears, and it
never commits to the drive model in the control panel. It always titles D:\
as "Disk drive" instead of the MFG name.

Everything works fine, but the message is annoying.
It appears to be re-installing the drive everytime I boot.
Any thoughts? (thanks)

Have you modified your boot.ini file to reflect the change to a single-boot system?

If I read you right, I think it already is/was.
I never created a Dualboot in one disk. (and never partitioned either HD ever)
I always changed boot drives physically in Bios. (not windows boot up screens)

Separate hard drives. Physical drive C is XP only, Physical D is blank
Also, they are both plain IDE...no SATA, no RAID, no SCSI...etc

[boot loader]
timeout = 30
default = multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS = "Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

but good thought, I would have never checked...thx

You might check out the references to syssetup.dl in this thread:
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/t1066439093

Boot up in SAFE MODe and run computer management console to fix it.

Steve,
I tried all the dll suggestions in that thread, but no soap. (thx)
Chef,
I went to safe mode and ran the computer management, but everything
about both drives appears fine as if no form of maintenance is required.
Drive letters, MFG names, positions all appear fine. So if you know something
specific in there to check for let me know... (thx)

I even went ahead and flipped the drives jumpers reversing master and slave.
No change. (even tried cable select, no change)
I've deleted the drive, same fail message on boot, but it still works when done.
I've disabled it...same deal
Every scan for new hardware yields the same message.
...of course if I leave the ribbon cable off...I never get the message. LOL
Oh well...

I think I have this fixed, and it may have been a combination of several issues.

1: Since I flipped the master/slave jumpers on both drives, the master is now on the far end of the cable like most hd tips recommend.
I didn’t think it would matter that much, but it looks like it might. Bios now lines the hard drives up in first-primary, where it was in second-primary when the slave drive was on the far end of the 80pin cable. And prior to this, windows also showed the drives as UDMA mode 2. With the drives correctly cabled, they changed in windows to UDMA mode 5. (but still complained when I hardware scanned)

2: I then re-installed service pack 2. The hardware did one final find/install, and the message no longer appears when I boot, or when I scan for new hardware changes.

So I suspect a combo of bios being happier with the drives master/slave strapped on the proper cable position, and possibly a bad .dll in windows that wouldn’t clear without re-installing service pack 2. Not 100% sure which one, or both, actually fixed the problem.

All set...
Thanks for the input…It sent me in the right places to look.