Windows and CMOS disagree??

[Coherence]

So, I bought a shiny new Antec Sonata case (great price at local Fry's after rebate), an AMD 2500+ Barton, OCZ 512 EL 2x256 sticks, and an Abit AN7 (basically the alternate recommendations from Anandtech's entry-level system) to replace the old P3 733Mhz my GF uses when she's at my place. I'm reusing the video card and storage from the old rig (with the exception of a second CD-ROM, as I only transferred the DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive from the old rig, and did not bother with a floppy drive).

Everything is installed into the case beautifully (my best cabling job ever, with origami-like folds in the ribbon cables to increase air flow, and everything), and I boot it up.

Video card (4200ti 128MB) RAM check runs, all good.

System POSTs, all good.

I go into the BIOS and check CMOS, and the drives are already correctly identified as I had them before in the old rig: an old 20GB primary master, a newer 40GB primary slave (added when the 20GB drive got too full), and a DVD secondary master. I set the correct time, and set the boot sequence to CD (instead of FDD, since one is not being used) followed by HD.

I save CMOS and reboot.

Video card RAM check runs, all good.

System POSTs, all good.

But...

As Windows is about to boot from the hard drive, I get an ever-so-brief flash of what looks like a WinXP BSoD, and the system restarts. If I leave it on like that, I'd have a never-ending cycle of restarts, with the OS never loading, even if I try Safe Mode. (The BSoD is so quick, I can't even get a look at what it says.)

So, I boot with my WinXP CD, and try to run Windows Setup to see what is going on. If I try to run WinXP Repair, it says it can't find any previous installation of Windows on any drive. If I run Setup to do a fresh installation, it says my 40GB drive is the C: drive and my 20GB drive is E:. (This is opposite to what it was in my old rig, and also the opposite of the CMOS settings for master/slave.) D: is probably the DVD/CD, of course.

Both hard drives have the correct jumper settings for master and slave. (I don't like using cable select. I did, however, change the jumper on the 40GB drive from automatic selection to slave, and CMOS certainly agrees with it.)

Any idea why Windows doesn't recognize my drives properly? What could cause it to reverse the drives like that?

Recommendations for correcting this?

 

[Fern]

IIRC, the primary partition on the primary master gets designated as drive:C. It is possible that you just need to switch the IDE cables?

(btw, I'm still using win98se, so an XP user may say different.)

I'm guessing those drives still have the chipset drivers etc from the old hardware, if so, I wouldn't expect it to boot unless the chipsets were very similar (unlikely given the upgrade).

EDIT" Check this thread for changing drive letters HERE

 

[jacktesterson]

can I ask why your using Win 98 SE?


I recommend repartitioning drives and fresh format, then switch cables if problem still exists

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: AMDHardcoreFan
can I ask why your using Win 98 SE?


I recommend repartitioning drives and fresh format, then switch cables if problem still exists

I had the opportunity to try win XP earlier this year,I set up a dual boot system. I found XP very slow to boot up and shut down. From time-to-time I'll google looking for benchies to see if there are any performance difference, mostly in games. And there aren't (except for Doom 3).

So, instead of spending money on win XP I buy hardware that I know gives a tangible performance boost.


Soon driver support will dry up (even though MS extended support till June '06), and newer games (like D3) won't run on 98se. So, I'll be switching, but prolly to win2k. I just didn't find any benefit in XP. I assume the features that others find so attractive are things I don't use.

 

[3chordcharlie]

XP is much more stable than 98se. It should also be much faster, on the hardware you listed.

I've got a similar issue with an XP installation that I need to redo, though it boots fine - what *should* be the C drive is listed as E.

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie
XP is much more stable than 98se. It should also be much faster, on the hardware you listed.

I've got a similar issue with an XP installation that I need to redo, though it boots fine - what *should* be the C drive is listed as E.

Yes, considering it is the "latest and greatest" it should be. However, as to faster, it can't be proven in benchmark test. Perhaps it's not? At least not yet, as driver support disappears it should pull ahead.

I tried to find something concerning more "stable" but was unsuccessful. I suppose thats because only about 6% of business desktop pc's use win XP (according to cnet, a survey was published Dec '03). I thought there might be some hard data (as opposed to anedotal evidence), like business statistics on reduced service calls for XP compared to 98se. But there just don't seem to be many businesses who have switched to it.

 

[Coherence]

Originally posted by: Fern
IIRC, the primary partition on the primary master gets designated as drive:C. It is possible that you just need to switch the IDE cables?

I'm guessing those drives still have the chipset drivers etc from the old hardware, if so, I wouldn't expect it to boot unless the chipsets were very similar (unlikely given the upgrade).

EDIT" Check this thread for changing drive letters HERE

The primary partition on the primary master is correct in CMOS, but Windows Setup is reversing it with the slave, for some reason. That's the whole problem.

As far as chipset drivers go, I don't see how that would be an issue, as XP would normally just detect new hardware and ask for the new drivers.

The only other thing I may do is give up the 20GB drive entirely, since it's an old ATA66. (The 40GB is an ATA 100, I think.) I'm not sure if I have any important info on the 20GB drive, but I'm pretty sure I backed all that up to my P4C system (in my sig).

I almost wondered if Windows Setup was looking at the two drives and deciding for itself which one it thinks Windows should be on based on drive size, speed, etc. (But MS would never be so presumptuous to put something like that into Windows, would they? 😛)

 

[Fern]

I'm guessing your BSODs are due to the old chipset drivers. I have seen that reported by many w/XP when changing mobos.

Here's a link to an Anandtech article on how to change mobos (with XP) without a fresh install.
LINK HERE

Perhaps if you get that in order, your drive letter problem will go away, or you can change it in windows per the above link I posted.

Good Luck with it,

Fern

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: Fern
Yes, considering it is the "latest and greatest" it should be. However, as to faster, it can't be proven in benchmark test. Perhaps it's not? At least not yet, as driver support disappears it should pull ahead.

I tried to find something concerning more "stable" but was unsuccessful. I suppose thats because only about 6% of business desktop pc's use win XP (according to cnet, a survey was published Dec '03). I thought there might be some hard data (as opposed to anedotal evidence), like business statistics on reduced service calls for XP compared to 98se. But there just don't seem to be many businesses who have switched to it.

This is true - everywhere I've worked the last few years has just barely switched to 2Kpro, or is in the process of switching.

Just the increased ability to apply more updates wihtout rebooting and such is a big benefit of XP, but I don't think there's too much question that it crashes less often (particularly in multi-tasking, out-of-memory situations) and recovers from the infrequent crashes more gracefully, compared to 98se.

I would say once you hit ~1ghz, and 256mb of ram, you are pretty unambiguously better off with XP. But I'm not trying to convince you to buy it! You have a 98se licence, it meets your needs, and you are entitled to use it (I still have 3 active 98se licences, with no plans to upgrade any of them). With older hardware, and particularly with 128mb of ram or less, XP has too much overhead to perform well.

 

[sunase]

I certainly wouldn't expect Windows to survive a chipset change automatically. Every single time I've tried that has been BSOD and even doing a repair install has only fixed that BSOD 50/50 (full install always works, though, obviously). Those drivers shouldn't affect Windows setup, however.

I wouldn't run Windows setup with more than one hard drive plugged in either, though. I have dim memories of ending up with the boot loader on one drive and the actual OS on another, formatting the wrong partition by being sleepy and hitting the wrong thing, having my system drive permanently be E: (apparently you can only change drive letters for non-system drives from disk management anyway), etc. Just better procedure to only give setup one drive to screw up with IMHO. ^^

BTW, has any else noticed setup format sizes slightly different from normal format sizes? If true, I wonder if it tries to resize partitions when it doesn't have that little extra space on the drive it likes available...that could explain some things I've encountered before...

 

[stevty2889]

Try unplugging the 40Gig drive, and try a repair install that way. As some one else said, windows XP does not like it when you switch to a different chipset, even similar chipsets sometimes, let alone going from Intel to AMD. I changed from an 865 chipset, to an 875 chipset and couldn't even get a repair install to work. If you have to do a full re-install to get it to work, you could always do the full install on the 40gig drive, and copy over anything from the 20 gig drive that you wanted to keep.