2 Problems with Hardware & WinXP; please help!

[Overkiller]

Hello,

recently i did a reformat on my 36GB Raptor HD. I left the brand-new 80 GB WD (previously drive letter F) alone as i JUST got it and was using it for storage. After a reformat/reinstall of WinXP the 80GB WD is c:/ and the 36 GB Raptor is D:/

Not that big of a deal...i can live with that (although i would like to see them switched..but i can't in Drive Manager)

I however cannot boot-up w/out having the WInXp cd in the dvd-drive. EVen when i set it to boot off Hard-Disk first it doesn't, says "error boot disk, insert boot disk and retry." When i leave the WinXP cd in there it says "boot from cd......" and then XP just boots up normally if i dont press anything..

how can i fix this?


Secondly,

WHen i install the dirvers (Catalyst 4.2) for my 9700 PRO under "smartgart" it sets Fast Writes to : OFF and AGP SPEED: OFF,

when i set it to 8X/4x and fast-writes on it says "must restart to see if settings are ok". It restarts and it reverts both settings to OFF.

how can i fix this as well? Thanks!

 

[lavaman]

As far as the booting up problem, I would check your boot.ini file and edit that if necessary. Make sure the D:\ drive or your raptor is the first boot device listed in boot.ini. Also, you may have to change the drive letters. I did this before where I went to reformat a harddrive and I had other drives connected. As soon as you delete the partition on C:\, the other connected drives get reassigned and then your new paritition takes the next available drive letter. What I would do, is disconnect your 80GB WD, and then reformat your Raptor so it's the C:\ drive which should happen by default with no other drives attached.

As far as the video card goes, where are you changing those settings? I think you can change those in the BIOS which is what you should try doing. It seems like you're doing it from within Windows.

 

[Overkiller]

the Ati settings i am doing via "advanced Properties" under smartgart within Windows.

I will attempt to set this in bios, however...

now to the boot.ini file... what should i look for?

this is what it looks like:

[boot loader]
timeout= 30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\windows
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\Windows="MS windows XP pro"/fastdetect


when i go into System>>device Manger>>Disk Drives>>
& check both of them; their location are 0(0) [if this makes a diff]

also, i want to try avoiding a reformat as much as possible as i just got the entire system set-up w/ all the software/ drivers/patches, etc.

Thanks for your response!

 

[lavaman]

Are your SATA drivers loaded correctly? Also, in the BIOS, make sure your SATA device is listed first in the boot process.

 

[Overkiller]

-8X is enabled in the Bios yet smartgart still sets AGP speed to "off" and fastwrites to "off"

-In bios the first boot device is Hard disk
-Hard Disk Boot Priority is the WD 360GD (the Raptor), then "pci add-in device" and finally the 80GB drive last.

Sata Drivers are loaded correctly

 

[Zbox]

I would be cheap and resolve the hard drive scenario by unplugging the 80 GB drive, then low level your 36 GB raptor, reinstall XP, then reconnect the 80 GB, at which point you should be able to reassign your dvd/80 gb drive letters accordingly with drive manager

EDIT:

if you use the windows xp installer to partition and format your drives, ALWAYS reboot once partitions are finalized before proceeding any further into setup (format, etc.)

i've found that not doing so has led to issues with drive letter assignments

 

[Freewolf]

With my MB I have to set it to boot from scsi first for it to boot from my sata drive . If I set it to boot from HD it will try to boot from my ide drive.

 

[Overkiller]

Zbox, thx for the "cheap" resolution

but i dont want to low-level it!..hehe

Freewolf. i'll go try that now! thx

 

[lavaman]

If it were me seeing you just reformatted it anyway, I would do it again without the 80GB drive attached. I know it's a pain, but it would fix the boot problem anyway.

 

[Overkiller]

yeah it would :/

Disabling the 2nd drive via bios doesn't change anything. (so just the raptor is seen).

The reason i'll just deal w/ this issue i guess is b/c i have about 40 GB of data on the 80 GB drive...and i dont' have a DVD-r+R/W drive..just a cd-rw...so yeah

Now about the radeon issue

thanks guys!

 

[RigorousT]

Originally posted by: Overkiller
yeah it would :/

Disabling the 2nd drive via bios doesn't change anything. (so just the raptor is seen).

The reason i'll just deal w/ this issue i guess is b/c i have about 40 GB of data on the 80 GB drive...and i dont' have a DVD-r+R/W drive..just a cd-rw...so yeah

Over, does the 36gb drive have anything important on it? I don't understand why you don't want to low-level format it and reinstall WinXP on it, while the 80gb drive is detached physically...?

You said you had storage data on the 80gb.. And this way after you have the OS loaded on the first drive, you can reattach the 80gb drive as D: and then remove any windows stuff that got installed on the bigger drive....

Problem solved, no?

 

[kornphlake]

well if he's had to download windows service packs, updates and drivers over a dialup like I had to it's probablly taken a couple days of constant downloading to get it all setup, I certainly don't want to have to do that all over again. The MS nazis don't let you download the updates and such from work/school/public library/friends house to a zip disc, CD-R, flash drive or other storage device for installation, they have to be downloaded to the system through windows update.

 

[Overkiller]

i have downloaded all the MS updates, dl. all the patches for all my software, installed all the audio/video codecs, installed firefox and other custom tweaks...tweaked the GUI, etc etc.

re-installed sof2 and its patches, yada ada yada.

i have the entire system in tip top shape...i dind'tnotice this problem until i restarted (i never restart, its always running 100% 24/7 anyways)

so yes. the "easy" solution" would be to reformat..but that would require another 3 hrs of my time to re-do everything ...and i dont really want to do that unless there's an easier method..know what i mean?

thanks guys!

 

[Atlantean]

I can't live with having D drive as my drive with winxp on it... thus last week when I reformatted I had to reinstall my os because I forgot to change the drive it was going on from master to slave. I didn't have all my drivers installed though... why not just back them all up to a cdrw and then reformat... thats a pretty easy solution.

 

[Wolfsraider]

ygpm

 

[Sideswipe001]

About the radeon problem:

Do you have your AGP drivers installed for your motherboard? Also try pressing the start button, going to run, and typing in 'dxdiag'. Go to the display tab and see if AGP Texture Acceleration is Enabled. Sounds to me like your AGP port doesn't have the drivers it needs.

 

[zodder]

Originally posted by: lavaman
If it were me seeing you just reformatted it anyway, I would do it again without the 80GB drive attached. I know it's a pain, but it would fix the boot problem anyway.

That's the only way I was able to do it.