A7V333 EIDE- serious problem

[KnightshadeDragon]

I purchased an A7V333 (without RAID) and am suddenly having problems. I have 1 Western Digital 40GB ATA100 drive, and one Maxtor 80GB ATA133 on the primary chain and one Plextor 16/10/40A and a Kenwood Tru72X CDROM on the second chain. Both chains are using ATA133 cables. After working with the CDRom earlier in the day, suddenly I am unable to access anything on the drive. I get an error like ?E is Unreadable. The file system is corrupt or unreadable? from both drives (regardless of the CD I put in) I reboot and my Plextor is being listed as a PLXTVR in the bios (it used to be Plextor) and my Kenwood is KENVOD or something similar. During the next post screen (the summary) it lists both as ?Write Once? drives. I ensured I had the most recent bios (as well as trying the new beta ones) and also tried switching the primary and secondary cables. When I did this it listed my HDD?s incorrectly (something like EDV instead of WDD and EXTVR instead of MAXTOR. I also changed out the cable completely and recieved similar results to those above....I'm at my wits end as I think my secondary connection may be bad. Please help me!

Knightshade

 

[Boonesmi]

what happens if you only use a single drive on the secondary ide?

 

[KnightshadeDragon]

I just tried that a second ago...it still comes out jumbled (in the bios and in windoze) I.e. Plextor is listed PLXTVR and is unusable in windoze.

 

[Boonesmi]

maybe someone can help you more.... but to me it sounds like a hardware problem, not a configuration problem

might be time to return the board

 

[Boonesmi]

just curious... does the plextor identify correctly if its set as slave to one of the harddrives on the primary ide?

 

[KnightshadeDragon]

Yes, I currently have the Plextor slaved to my Western Digital and it reports and functions fine. I damned sure hope it's not the board..I just got the damned thing after sending back a defective Gigabyte 7VRXP! I'm gonna cry....

 

[Boonesmi]

where did you buy it from?

 

[KnightshadeDragon]

Both boards came from Spartan Technologies. (www.spartantech.com)

They have been good with me thus far, but their magnanimous attitude could wear thin pretty quick I'd think....

 

[KnightshadeDragon]

-bump-

I REALLY need help on this one guys.

 

[pillage2001]

Tried changing cables??? Check for loose connections?

If everything fails, RMA the board.

 

[Scheur]

Maybe this is of any use...

I've had the same kind op problems on different boards, all with a Via chipset.
I think the kind of error you describe has to do with the hardware you
connect to IDE2.

When I use a Creative DVD-player as secondary master in combination with
an AOpen writer as secondary slave on a Via KT266 chipset, everything works fine.
When I replace the DVD-player for a Pioneer DVD-player things go wrong. With DMA
turned on for the secondary master, the drive refuses to read any CD or DVD. When I
switch the drives attached to IDE 2, for some kind of reason things work well.

I have had this kind of problem with other drives (Asus DVD-player and a HP writer for
example) in different combinations with three different Via chipsets for both Pentium
and AMD processors (133A, KT133 and KT266 chipsets). This occurs with win98,Me, 2000
and XP. Maybe its a fault in the Via 4in1 driver?

Try turning off the DMA in Windows if you can't get it fixed. At least you can read your
CD's.

Jan.

 

[KnightshadeAtWork]

Ok, I've spoken with Asus...they suggested pulling the CMOS jumper and resetting my system. I'll give that a crack when I get home. As it stands, I have little faith in this though.

As for changing cables, I tried that with known-good cables and recieved the same results. Now I have to suffer through the day at work to get home and try this out. If it doesn't work, it's probably RMA-land for me! (again) I imagine that I will grab the A7V333 with RAID this time...at least I can take advantage of my ATA133 HDD then....(how lame is it to not offer 133 support without raid? Asus....what were you thinking?!)

-KS-

 

[KnightshadeDragon]

Wow....resetting the CMOS was all that was necessary for this little 'issue' to be corrected. It's the only thing I didn't do prior to calling Asus. Once I reset the CMOS I found that through this adventure I had blown a EIDE cable. Once that was replaced I was back in business! Thanks for all the suggestions guys! You are top notch!

 

[IndyJaws]

Glad you got it working! I have the same board - RAID version (built my new system this week - see sig) and so far so good.

By the way, if you're not setting up the board for a RAID installation, but want to use the extra channels for addl. drives, it's a pain in the arse!

 

[KnightshadeDragon]

HAHAHAHA!!!! Did I say it was FIXED?! I spoke too soon!! The simple truth is that now I know how to fix it when it breaks...which is about every 6-10 hours. Also of note (and not corrected by the CMOS clear) is that my floppy no longer works. It HAS to be a bad board....what else could it be?!