EZ-BIOS messing up my system! HELP!

[weirdichi]

First off, my system:

Abit BE6 II
P3 Slot1 700
512 MB PC133 SDRam
GeForce 1 V6600 Pure 32MB
Primary HD: Maxtor 12GB
Secondary HD: Maxtor 40GB

Everytime I start up windows after installing WinXP, I get the EZ-BIOS option to boot from A: or C:. No matter which I choose, it says "invalid system disk, replace and press any key to continue" and it says the same thing after I press any key. I talked with a friend and he says it might be because my board or WinXP cannot support drives bigger than 30GB. I used the Maxtor HD program to format and set partitions on the old HD, but still no go. I'm using the 12GB for main OS and the 40GB as two 24GB partitions for storage. No matter which device I set as bootup, still gives me the same error.

If anybody can help, it'd be appreciated. I thought I'd post it here since I'll get more replies faster and I didn't really know where to stick this thread. Thanks.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Well, the easy way to figure out if it's that drive would be to unplug its power and data cables and see what happens. WinXP is certainly capable of using a 40GB drive. The BE6 II can probably handle larger drives as well, at least up to 64GB anyway.

You did actually INSTALL WinXP, right? If you formatted the old drive, then your OS and data are gone. Recovery software might be able to recover it, but it's a pain.

Did you install EZ-BIOS (or MaxBlast) to the hard drive? EZ-BIOS is a software overlay intended to allow older BIOSes to read larger hard drive capacities. It shouldn't be used with a system that can actually use large drive without a problem. MaxBlast is Maxtor's branded version. If you partitioned and formatted with Maxtor's software, you may have installed MaxBlast/EZ-BIOS at the same time. MaxBlast should be able to be removed (as there's no need to have it installed to the 12GB drive in any case), but if you erased your data, you're going to have to either reinstall or try to recover it.

 

[weirdichi]

Thanksk lord evermore. I was able to install XP on it fine, but the problem comes after I install it and restart the computer. Right now I'm more worried about gettin it up and running fine than the data that's on there. I think what's happened is that both HDD have the maxblast program on it. I have data on the 40GB that I need, so if I format the 13GB one, then I'm not quite sure if they will work together or give me that same error message again. Right now I'm going to update the bios and see if that will help. Any more help would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[GoodToGo]

I thought EZ-Bios was a WD program:Q ALso I have EZ-Bios in my comp with dual WD 60 gigs on XP, so I dont think its the drive size or even XP for that matter. Uninstall EZ-Bios and see what happens. Also update your bios drivers and see what happens.

 

[Lord Evermore]

EZ-BIOS is made by Phoenix and licensed to a lot of manufacturers. It's just a drive overlay software, no reason for every brand to use something different.

I really don't think you need EZ-BIOS installed on the 40GB drive either.