Abit KT7-Raid Is Giving Me Hell!

[flamingsouls]

Hello


I recently bought an Abit KT7-Raid, AMD 1.1 Ghz CPU, and some PC150 Ram from Mushkin(256 megs on two 128 pieces). Right now I am scared to even go into the CMOS to change anything. When I go in there and save the information, it restarts and my monitor doesn't turn on and the harddrive is being accessed indefinetly. So I have to shut down the computer via power switch, unplug the cord, wait for the sound that basically says there is no electricity in the computer, and plug back in the cord, and turn on the computer. Then it boots up. That's the first problem.
The second, is I have a Maxtor 40 gig harddrive in there. I had an Abit BH6 before this and I could only get it to read 30 gig's because of the motherboard's limitations on harddrives. I know there was a BIOS fix for it, but I could never get it to work. So I thought with this new motherboard, I would be able to use it. So I have to tread into the CMOS when I boot up, to get the harddrive recognized, and it does get recognized, but when I go to save, the above problem happens and it never works.
So when I just boot up and not go into the CMOS, I get to the screen right after the splash screen, but not into windows, the part were you see the drivers being loaded. Then it freezes right there. But when I don't have the Maxtor plugged in, it boots up.
When I boot up in safe mode, the harddrive is recognized but I can't live in safe mode.

This is what my computer consists of

Abit KT7-Raid
AMD 1.1Ghz Thunderbird(Retail)
Pioneer DVD-Rom
PlexWriter 12/4/32 SCSI
SoundBlaster Live! Value
ASUS V770 32Meg AGP
TekRam DC390U2/UW
56k Modem
Linksys 10/100 network card
256 PC150 Mushkin


Also, now whenever the computer freezes, I just used to press the restart button, but when I do it now, the computer does what it does when I save the CMOS. It goes on, but nothing posts and the monitor never gets a signal.

I know this is a lot, and I am still trying stuff, but if any of you great Anandtech readers can help, please do. I really want to keep my nice setup, but I'm not sure if I should just go back to 128megs of ram and a p2 450.

thx
Josh

 

[Usul]

Remove the partition, and format the HDD and repartition. This to get the 40 GB.

 

[AC]

1st prob:
clear the CMOS settings via the jumper
then set default/optimal settings, save and exit
u should then be able to go in and modify settings

2nd prob:
set CMOS to autodetect the drives, don't specify settings
u might want to do a low-level format of the drive to clear the master boot record and repartition to avoid any translation mode problems

 

[jimmygates]

Sounds like the CMOS has a problem saving your settings.....try changing the CMOS battery?



-jimbo

 

[flamingsouls]

Thanks for the help guys. I sorta got things working now. I did reformat the 40 gig harddrive but that didn't help. But I did set the main harddrive on the IDE1 channel by itself and the 40gig and the DVD on IDE2. I know this is a very large jump in performance but all I'm using this drive for is storage so nothing really important will be running from it. I tried the 40 gig and the 10gig on the same channel but it would never work.

thx
Josh