Gunna throw the dam thing out the window, help please!!

[bacon]

Rite ok i sold my 36gb raptor, dfi UT 250/A643700 and bought myself a 74gb raptor,MSi k8n neo2 and 3200 winchester

Ok booted up fine the mobo had bios 1.3 so recognised the winchester perfect....Great i thought just update to bios 1.36...sorted all good


Now, i boot from my Xp disc, format the new HD (full format) create a single partition and choose to install windows, blah blah all goes well

then of as you know it reboots itself so it can boot from the HD and finish the installation from there.....right just as it goes to boot from the HD i get a msg "error booting operating system"


I cant get windows to finish installing and to boot from the HD, iv tried everything

-sata 1+2, sata 3+4
-OCZ 3500EB, 1 stick/2 sticks all in different slots
-generic 2100 mem
-taking the hsf off my fan controller and powering it using the fan header on the mobo assuming it had problems booting without a fan plugged in
-using just the new 74gb raptor and using both HD


Thing is all my old kit has been sent and i have no idea which bit of kit is causing he problem, it boots from a floppy just fine as i used a WD app to check the new raptor for errors (it was fine btw nowt wrong with it)

i just dont understand why it cant boot from my HD, it can format/write data to my HD but it cant boot from it

WHATS GOING WRONG before this machine finds itself sitting outside under my window with several cuts and bruises!


My spec:
A64 3200 winny
msi k8n neo 2 1.36 bios
1gb OCZ 3500EB
XFX GT
74gb raptor
160gb WD sata

normally i can diagnose a problem but im so frustarated i cant think straight :mad:

[sparkie34]

Last time I got the "error loading operating system" message my hdd was corrupt :shrug:


got an ide drive to throw in there to try?

[Der_KHAN]

wrong sata driver maybe? (raid-driver instead of non-raid-driver)

[bacon]

Last time I got the "error loading operating system" message my hdd was corrupt :shrug:


got an ide drive to throw in there to try?

i bought the HD from a guy i know who won it in a doom3 competition, hwnce was unopened, id be gutted if the HD was screwed, iv tried the additional drivers but hasnt made a difference, tho it shouldnt need any anyway as its native to the nf3 chipset on this mobo, or so i thought

i have no IDE drive to test with either

thanks for the replys guys so far

[bacon]

i know i have a wd 80GB special edition drive that acted like that. it was a drive that i got refurb, and it just wouldnt boot.
after a low-level format, it worked fine. no idea why it had the problem, but its been fine for a couple months now.

trying to redownload the WD utility but low and behold my usb stick isnt being recognised by these crappy uni computers (XP btw also), dam my luck sux

[trans am]

I had this message last night after I reinstalled raid 0 on sata 3and4 on my dfi LPut 250gb. I think you need to enable last 4 drives in ide config screen. also try hdd as 1st boot device. only use sata 3 and 4. 1 and 2 will give you problems once you start overclocking.

btw I love the title for this thread lol!

[shadco]

You did load the via raid driver using the F6 specify additional devices right?

[bacon]

You did load the via raid driver using the F6 specify additional devices right?


surely the sata drivers are native on the nf3 chipset rite?

found this over at msi forums

http://forum.msi.com.tw/thread.php?threadid=54392&hilight=error+loading+operating+system

lol at thread title on that page,

trans am: thanks mate ;)

[bacon]

rite im off home in the hope all will work, thanks for those that helped, appreciate all comments, will get back to you all 2moro

Cheers

[shadco]

rite im off home in the hope all will work, thanks for those that helped, appreciate all comments, will get back to you all 2moro

Cheers

Nope you gotta load the driver from floppy.

Be sure to put the drive on channel 3 or 4 next to the AGP slot if you plan on overclocking much.

[trans am]

Nope you gotta load the driver from floppy.

Be sure to put the drive on channel 3 or 4 next to the AGP slot if you plan on overclocking much.

What gets me is that even if he didn't press F6 to load the floppy, why was he able to load windows? If the drivers weren't loaded, He would get the "no hard drive detected" message before getting to the create partition screen. right?

[shadco]

What gets me is that even if he didn't press F6 to load the floppy, why was he able to load windows? If the drivers weren't loaded, He would get the "no hard drive detected" message before getting to the create partition screen. right?

I agree it shouldn't see the drive at all but I didn't even try without loading the dirver and mine is booting a Raptor 74 no problems and I haven't had drive issues all the way up to 290Mhz.

I didn't see anything tricky in the bios either I just set sata 1&2 to disabled plugged the drive into sata 3 and set the boot order in the bios.

I also did a linux install on one over the weekend and had no problem with the drive showing up there without any added driver.

[Der_KHAN]

surely the sata drivers are native on the nf3 chipset rite?

that doesnt mean that windows already has those drivers
you will have to do the F6 thingy

[bacon]

well i ending up writing zero's to the entire drive and it worked perfectly after that, past drives didnt need to have zero's written across the whole drive to be able to be bootable but for whatever reason this did, i no i didnt need drivers at windows startup, it was how i thought that its native on the nf3 chipset

Cheers for those that helped, appreciate it

[trans am]

So I take it you didn't throw the damn thing out the window afterall.

[bacon]

So I take it you didn't throw the damn thing out the window afterall.

nope ;)

[Psilonaught1]

i have this same problem with my A8V - on pressing F8 setup, windows setup works fine and extracts all the required files, but as soon as the machine reboots and tried to start the installation process the HDD "ticks" and the machine restarts

I don't understand this thing about writing zeros to the end of the HDD?! I have a maxtor drive, how do i achieve this ?

[bacon]

i have this same problem with my A8V - on pressing F8 setup, windows setup works fine and extracts all the required files, but as soon as the machine reboots and tried to start the installation process the HDD "ticks" and the machine restarts

I don't understand this thing about writing zeros to the end of the HDD?! I have a maxtor drive, how do i achieve this ?


maxtor should have some software on their site for testing/formatting the hard drive, i.e usefull for people who want to test for bad sectors etc

i used the WD application and did a full format that wrote zeros to the entire drive, i.e no data left including the mbr

data is stored in binary as 0's and 1's, so writing noughts to entire drive eliminates all data etc

after that it worked perfect

[trans am]

maxtor should have some software on their site for testing/formatting the hard drive, i.e usefull for people who want to test for bad sectors etc

i used the WD application and did a full format that wrote zeros to the entire drive, i.e no data left including the mbr

data is stored in binary as 0's and 1's, so writing noughts to entire drive eliminates all data etc

after that it worked perfect

Yes, it's called Powermax. you you can also write zero's(low level format) in some raid controllers. The sil controller on the gigabyte has the option to do low level formats.

[aonic]

whats the application for WD's called?
sorry if i missed it

[bacon]

http://support.wdc.com/download/dlg/DlgDiagv504c.exe

here ya go

[ibby]

good to see it working, ill keep the 0's in mind ..

[aonic]

Thanks.. I got a problem with it.. when i run it, my pc just stops @ "Virtual Drive" part while it loading.. any ideas?

[bacon]

Thanks.. I got a problem with it.. when i run it, my pc just stops @ "Virtual Drive" part while it loading.. any ideas?


hmmm no idea dude, i just let it install to a preformatted bootable floppy, and all went great first time