Well its been a while but I really F'd myself this time.

Invisible Evil · Post by **Invisible Evil** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 10:14 am

IM clueless on what just happened,
I upgraded my wifes rig from a 2.4ghz p4 400mhz to a 3.0ghzE 800fsb,
While I was at it i decided to flash the bios, I have done it a million times before, this time on an ABIT ic-7G. reboot and then boom "cant access operating system" ok..
I rebooted one more time.. nope
I then reset the cmos....nope
made sure no cables are loose etc. nope
Finally I boot using the XP cd.. go to repair console I checked the MBR, and the Partition, the MBR said it was invalid so I used the repaair comand went on and fdisked and formated, started to install windows again since i had nothing on the drive. Reboot and then ........
cannot access OS.. ARGH!

I know its something I aint thinking of but Ill look stupid to get it goin so if any ideas LMK..
Im hitting the net to research and see what I can find.

OH and drive is ok put it in my rig and its ok.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 11:20 am

did it boot ok before the bios flash? Any issues with running an 800 fsb on that chipset? if the hardware isn't syncopating you can get that can't find os message? any changes in the way that the hd shows up in bios after the flash? sounds like it is somewhere in the mobo chipset

if none of the bios settings are goofy, i'd try reflashing to the old bios - mebbe also try kicking the fsb down to 166 to see if that works....will the memory run 200 fsb at current voltage and be stable?

sure you've thought of these already ... howsabout the PS - can it handle faster cpu?

good luck - I get into one of these jackpots about every 6 months and it is always something simple...grr

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 11:26 am

OK let me make sure I follow you:

- BIOS sees the drive
- The WinXP installer sees the drive and allows you to do a Windows install on it (or at least start one).

Some suggestions:

- Check your boot order settings in the BIOS menu. It might be trying to boot from another device like a SCSI device. Boot order should be Floppy, CD, IDE0, Other.

- If it worked okay before the flash update then try to find a copy of the older firmware - most mobo manufacturers keep archives of older versions on their websites. (BTW most firmware update utils allow you to backup the old firmware before upgrading - ALWAYS do this. You never know). Failing that, try re-installing the latest firmware - maybe it didn't take right.

- Your new mobo may require a driver for the EIDE controller. When you boot using the XP CD the very first option that appears (briefly at the bottom) is to press F6 to install SCSI or other controller drivers. Press F6, and wait while it continues to load, then it will prompt you for a driver disk ON A FLOPPY. Controller drivers MUST be on a floppy - you can't access drivers from the CD or hard drive at this point.

- It's possible your mobo is configuring the drive incorrectly in BIOS. I've seen this happen a few times recently. For some stupid reason the auto detect will detect the drive type as something else other than LBA. You can usually go into the BIOS menu and manually detect the drive and then change the setting if it's not LBA.

Hope this helps...

Invisible Evil · Post by **Invisible Evil** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 11:27 am

Honestly everything was running fine, I did the curiousity kill thing, Ya know how FP always is saying If it works dont fix it... well I fixed it LOL. and Then I f'd it and didnt even kiss it first.

I went back to the old BIOS, and hasnt worked.
I had and Idea though, the XP bootable has an older ver. of FDISK on it than XPBOOT, im going to do a fdisk and see if I can fix the mbr and start from scratch, i hope it works, but keep the ideas coming.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 12:45 pm

DUDE you SHOULD NOT be using FDisk. FDISK is for Win9x.

If you want to blow away the whole drive and install clean just boot with the XP installer CD, let it create the partition for you.

Invisible Evil · Post by **Invisible Evil** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 1:25 pm

1st I posted that evedentaly the same time as you b/c All i saw was one post.
2cnd I was goofed when I said xpboot I ment WD boot disk, anyway I seem to have gotten it going.
Im pretty sure it was that the BIOS set the drive to auto, I manually put it on LBA as you suggested.

Thanks for the help in either case If I would have kept my head straight and thought to see the access mode I could have saved all the data. Live and Learn.

zandor · Post by **zandor** » Wed Nov 24, 2004 8:50 pm

Originally posted by FlyingPenguin
DUDE you SHOULD NOT be using FDisk. FDISK is for Win9x.

fdisk? What's wrong w/ fdisk? I always use fdisk since Windows is too dumb to partition on cylinder boundaries & makes Linux complain. Oh, wait. I'm using Linux fdisk. Totally different animal. BTW Disk Druid sucks lol.
Use the installer's partitioning software, WinNT/2K/XP disk admin, or the WinNT/2K/XP command line one (diskpart I think) for partitioning unless you're running Linux, BSD, etc. Then use the UNIX partitioning software. Unless of course the particular disk you're partitioning will only be used for Windows, then it doesn't really matter if you use the Windows or unix stuff.