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Help... PC wont load windows.

ChairShot

ChairShot

Senior member
I need help...

I dunno what else to do.
Here's the setup I have:
FX-53 on a MSI NEO4 platinum with 4x512mb Mushkin special 2-2-2 PC3200
Windows XP pro installed on a RAID 0 array (2 raptors)
Connect 3D radeon x850xt pe

Here's what happened since I got the PC back yesterday (got the CPU back from RMA).

- I backed up my old data on my new SATA maxtor HDD.
- added the maxtor HDD in the case
- fired it up

Now first: I get a constant SYSTEM BOOT FAILURE MESSAGE, impossible to load windows. After a while and a couple of failed repairs, I just reinstall windows.
- The install goes well, made the windows updates and all... Installed the drivers for the vid card and for the NFORCE4 chipset.
- I cant seem to see the 300 gig Maxtors. They show up at post but I cant see them in disk manager in windows nor in explorer. I tried only 1 at the time, I tried both, I tried them on the silicon SATA controller, on the NVIDIA controller, same thing, I see them at post, but cant access them in windows. (the drives were formatted and partitionned with partition magic on my other computer).

I finally decide to go to bed a 4am....

- This morning, I fire it up and it wont even load windows..... WTF! It loops through post after it asks me how I want to load windows (safe mode, last know good config...), all choices do the same, reboots when I select.

If any of you have any tips and/or had the same or similar problem... I'm all ears. I'm out of ideas now.

Thanks, Marc.
 
i wish i had more experience with SATA drives - i am assuming you installed the drivers, if they are third-party drivers?

are you using the latest bios update for your mobo?

just trying to get the ball rolling... hate to see a nice system like that sitting idle!!
 
Actually, I dont know if I did it right.

When I installed windows, I provided the drivers (on a floppy that came with the mobo) and it installed fine. Detected right away.

The problem I have is getting 2 SATA maxtor 300gig HDD to be seen in windows (but those are not in raid)

Might be the settings in the BIOS for raid. Should I disable some RAID options instead of having them all enabled?

So many settings, it's hard to know WTF is wrong.
 
having next to no experience with sata, and no experience with raid --

I'd say try installing w/o raid enabled. Also, you may want to try booting to KNOPPIX if you've got one lying around. If it detects the maxtors, then you know its a /windows/ thing, not necessarily a hardware/raid/whatever config thing.

Sorry i couldn't be more help.
 
I must be a setting somewhere that is wrongly set...

Both maxtor drives worked on my other mobo (A7N8X dlx) as I used it to back up my data that was on my old IDE drives. They were formated and partitionned and they workd fine on that other board.

 
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