BIOS Setup Help: A beginner entering into an encrypted world

arela · Post by **arela** » Tue Jul 08, 2003 11:15 am

BIOS tweak:
BIOS, ADVANCED / PCI configuration:
1 onboard sata/ide raid controller: enable
2 onboard ata device first: yes

Sorry for the * (at least i can't find it anymore)
FastBuild should look like this:
Channel:ID Drive mode Capacity Asignment Mode
---------1---xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-Array 1----U5

-=space x=numbers or letters

(i am sure it was a star in front 1 in channel row, but ...

1 tip may be to disable booting (in BIOS) from every disc
exept the CD-rom during the installation.
It might force the WINXP to find sata(n)

Yepp it would be easy tho use an IDE disc as C, but ain't that loosing?
I want you to win tonight Nestor

[ This Message was edited by: arela on 2003-07-08 12:19 ]

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Tue Jul 08, 2003 11:39 am

Exactly Immanuel, this is what I was thinking to do too, installing XP directly to the Maxtor IDE. But it’s a shame to remove the dongle so well connected and attached everything is impeccable, and I’ve paid for it, it’s quite useful too. Dam it, what if I had only two SATA drives? Well, if this continues for too long, no doubt, this little dongle will go to fire…

Thanks for your good wishes Arela, if I can have it tonight, that would be great! I’ll try all those ideas of yours to see if I can get it right… let’s see… I’ll tell you soon what has happened.

Thank you!

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Tue Jul 08, 2003 12:25 pm

Well I've removed the SATA drive, here I am, with the Seagate Barracuda V in my hands. I'll coppy the information related to the installation:

INSTALLATION SUMMARY
If you are using a Windows operating system, add your new hard drive using Seagate's DiscWizard (tm) software, available at http://www.seagate.com/support

If you cannot use DiscWizard,
the use standard Microsoft installation:

1- Attach the cables. Bothe the signal interface and power cables are keyed for easy installation. Mount the drive securely using two screes per side. Do not over tighten the screws.

2- Run your computer's BIOS/system setup program. Select Auto-detect option and enable logical block addressing (LBA). Save and exit the setup[ program.

3- Boot your computer from your Windows CD-ROM or Startup diskatte. Run FDISK to partition the drive, rebot, run FORMAT and SETUP.

4- Continue with the Windows setup installation.

I'll tell you more later, when having tryed all the options I have available at the moment, to see if I can finally install Win XP...

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Tue Jul 08, 2003 12:36 pm

Here you have the DiscWizard direct download:

http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/dow ... wse_en.exe

Here you have a coumple of links to learn how to use it:

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/ ... maint.html

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/ ... _dwse.html

I'm doint it, in the purpose of somebody else searching his way as I am now...

arela · Post by **arela** » Tue Jul 08, 2003 1:02 pm

sorry to hear, but after all IDE have proven ok and i guess you can access sata drive later....and a good E: is always welcome!

Immanuel · Post by **Immanuel** » Tue Jul 08, 2003 5:10 pm

Nestor

I must admit, that I am not much into SATA drives. I am just not in the market for it yet. But that dongle you keep talking about - what is it?

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Tue Jul 08, 2003 7:08 pm

Here you have a picture of the SATA dongle, even if the page is in Japonese...

http://www.unitycorp.co.jp/products/opt ... ongle.html

And here you have a page in your onw language:

http://www.computeruniverse.net/product ... verter.asp

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Tue Jul 08, 2003 7:14 pm

I have installed the DiscWizard, it’s an excellent and recommended utility. It serves not only the installation of SATA drives, but also all other kind. Most drives are listed by model and so you can even know how to install each and every one of them.

This utility allowed me to format one of the drives, of course, the Maxtor is going to be the primary drive. I formatted it in several partitions as need for me, in NTFS, that’s it…

Nevertheless, I have to say I couldn’t solve the problem yet… i.e. I couldn’t install XP.

I’m still trying ways, but I think I’m actually closer… still having the exact same line coming back:

The /WinXP/fasttx2k.sys has caused an unexpected error (18) in line 2108 in D: /xpsp1/base/boot/ setup/oemdisk.c

We’ll see… if you have any idea…

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Tue Jul 08, 2003 10:56 pm

Bloody hell, nothing I can do... I don't know what to do, I've tryed everyting...

spacef · Post by **spacef** » Wed Jul 09, 2003 3:44 am

may be XP doesn't like SATA ?
Have you tried the ASUS forums ? it's full of overclocked gaming nerds but it can be helpful, at least that's the only solution i can think of and that you didn't mention....

spacef · Post by **spacef** » Wed Jul 09, 2003 3:49 am

or just put the sata drive etc "after" you installed XP and have your system running... also couldn't it be a dirty cd problem ? or the install disk that is too old to accept sata?

If i were you, at this point, i would try to have everything running as on a "classical" sytem, and pretend aftrward that you upgrade to SATA.

I think it's the only way to detrmine that SATA is causing the XP Installation problem.

[ This Message was edited by: spacef on 2003-07-09 06:18 ]

Immanuel · Post by **Immanuel** » Wed Jul 09, 2003 6:01 am

I think spacef is very right here. I am not German by the way

That dongle looks like something, that you bought seperately - I mean it wasn't in the box with your motherboard. Am I right?

If it wasn't, there goes one more reason, why you should just install XP without the Seagate connected. Xp is nice in the way, that it does not mess up drive letters, when you add a second hard drive. One thing to note is, that SATA is younger than XP. XP very likely wasn't designed to be installed with a SATA drive.

So here goes: Take out the Seagate - and the dongle. Install XP on your Maxtor. Add the Seagate after that.

arela · Post by **arela** » Wed Jul 09, 2003 12:04 pm

Sad story, but for me it looks like this is not a HD related thing.
Check memory (should show up in BIOS main page)
Is there anything in BIOS messing it up?
Is WINXP cd ok?
Does installation halt imediatly, or?
Still wonder about that

dongle!!!

.....a happy sata(n)-ist

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 12:56 am

Hello Zdies!
Thanks for your answers

Well, XP does accept SATA, in fact, everything goes perfectly well till I have to install the drivers for SATA, but everything is ok. I have even done partitions with DiscWisard, from Seagate, and this utility shows you clearly the existence of SATA HDs to be prepared for Win XP, so there is no doubt about it, XP does accept SATA.

This is an excellent idea of course, Asus forums would be the very best, but they have been under construction or something like that for a few weeks so far, and there is no way to get assistance or help from them. Hopefully, at any moment they will finish their work and I’m going to be able to get into those forums… there I’m sure there will be people with similar problems, or even threads already written about them, and just reading a bit will be enough for me to sort the problem out.

Well, I thought about it, removing the dongle (which is bought separately from the MOBO but still from ASUS), is what I have been thinking to do, but I’m not sure that the data in the installation, will be read in the same way… it’s a bit risky. I mean, I perhaps cannot read the installation installed thought IDE when back to the SATA platform, and vice versa. In such case I would prefer to remove the dongle for good… Which I don’t want to do cos it’s handy for many reasons. But, again, as I already said, if this goes too far, this little dongle will be fired. I still have the patient to try out some more options. And it is wise to wait for Asus forums to be open anew.

BIOS are ok, there is nothing wrong nor with the parameters, nor with the upgrade itself, they are fine.

The XP CD is perfect, it’s new! It’s an OEM version, so…

Well, this is it… there is a maxim that says:

Patience is the mother of all sciences. I believe in it… and will try some more, when coming back, I’m going to tell you something, hopefully, important like: “The problem was bla bla bla” or “I’ve installed XP, bla bla bla”

Be attentive...

THANK YOU GUYS… THAN YOU AND THANK YOU!!!

Post by **garyb** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 2:03 am

what is the disadvantage of having the c drive be ide?can't you install the sata drives after xp?this makes sense to me,but maybe it is not sensible.......

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 2:29 am

This is a coherent thought, but you know, technology it's not alwyas what you spect... I really preffer to wait a little bit, insate of waiting a long time if I mistake. I'm going to check this matter through som Asus user base, whatever, and will come back to tell you what is goin on... I'm sure I'm going to find the way to solve this soon

Cheers Garyb

Immanuel · Post by **Immanuel** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 7:59 am

Nestor
The Seagate tools leets you partition your harddrive for winXP. This means, that it creates an NTFS filesystem for winXP, witch is not the exact same filesystem as win2k uses. This does not have to proove, that winXP can be installed on a SATA drive (with a dongle even).

I still do not understand, why you do not just try to install winXP on the Maxtor (the maxtor is an parallel IDE drive, rigth?). And that dongle, if it is for connecting a parallel drive to a SATA connection on the motherboard - forget about it - It wont help you speedvice. It will just make it possible to use an old parallel drive on the SATA port - in case you run out of parallel connections, witch is not the case with you. I am not German by the way

Anyway, you have nothing to loose by installing winXP on your parallel drive and then later add on you SATA drive - only time.

arela · Post by **arela** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 1:52 pm

Some links:
http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:gJ ... o&ie=UTF-8

and this one for XP and sata
1. Open your browser.
2. Go to http://support.microsoft.com.
3. Enter 313348 in the Microsoft web site's search box.
4. Press Enter.

The ASUS forum has been closed at least since middle of may, so don't expect help there, but they direct you to this form:
http://www.asusmall.com.tw/forms/complaint_TSD.asp

Is the dongle between sata chip and HD?
go go go

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 3:44 pm

Thanks very much guys, I already have those Links you are giving me here... Of course they are usefull, the problem it's not how to now, but the error message.

Immanuel, I'm not being deaf to your words, believe me... The only think I want to do, is trying some expert advice I've got from Asus, and then, if this is not satisfactory, I'll remove the dongle, believe me...

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Fri Jul 11, 2003 6:36 pm

I have tried everything,finally, decided to pull away this horrible, dishonest, complicated, little and disgusting, revolting and sickening dongle… (I feel much better now, do I look like?

)

Of course, as expected, the IDE was immediately detected by the BIOS

and was set to slave, I changed it to Master, and that’s it, done… Well, at least I have a HD at home!

But… When installing XP, everything was going very well, but a strange message came up now:

NTLDR is missing
press Con + Alt + Del to reboot your system

Well, I have found that the message “NTLDR is missing” it’s a message generated when you installed windows 98 or 95 into your system, and of course, as you know, I didn’t cos it’s a new system and hard drives have been just formatted. BTW, of course, I have formatted them to NTFS as stated before, just to remind you there is no problem in this way. I have also tried to install into the C drive.

The BIOS Setup says something like:

“There was an error, you have to enter Setup, Power, to get more information”. I think that everything is ok in the BIOS, cos I have not changed anything in the Power section, nevertheless, here you have a copy of it, so you can see by yourselves what is going on:

POWER;

Power Management……………………… [User Defined]
Video Off Option………………………… [Suspend – Off]
HDD Power Down………………………. [Disabled]
ACPI Suspend To Ram………………….. [Disabled]

Suspend Mode…………………………… [Disabled]
PWR Button L4 Secs……………………. [Soft Off]

Power up control………………………… (everything is disabled here)
Hardware Monitor………………………. (I have chosen to monitor CPU, MOBO and fans, everything seems to go well, the MOBO gets about no more than 19C* and the CPU no more than 44C*)

I did a little step … what do you think I can do now to get XP finally into my system?

[ This Message was edited by: nestor on 2003-07-11 19:37 ]

[ This Message was edited by: nestor on 2003-07-11 19:39 ]