d975xbx2 installation problems

[mattmos]

Hey,

have just installed a badaxe2 with qx6700, a single sata raptor and a sata dvd drive.

When booting I can get to the blue text windows setup screen but it just stops at that point. Gives me an error before reading the cd something along the lines of cannot read array, but I assumed this was just because I haven't formatted the hard disk yet?

Do I need to install raid drivers to support the intel sata sockets even if I'm not going to raid anything?

In the Bios it can identify the cpu and drives ok, have set sata to achp setting.

Any help appreciated!
Matt

 

[OhNoPoPo]

This is very complicated of a question. Your problem is that windows doesn't have native SATA drivers. Did you use the F6 floppy installation method, as outlined in the manual?

Basically, you set the BIOS to RAID (yes, even if you aren't RAID'ing anything), load windows, and it'll ask you if you have any 3rd party drivers, press F6, and it'll load the RAID drivers which will let you run the SATA drives in native SATA mode.

If you don't do this, Windows will blue screen when running SATA natively.

 

[mattmos]

Ah ok, thanks for the reply - I'll have to salvage a floppy drive from my girlfriend's machine to load the driver, but at least I understand why its not progressing.

ta very much
matt

 

[moosey]

I'm having similar problems with the Intel controller not seeing my HDDs, post if yours works out.

 

[DaddyRabbit]

Actually if you have an SATA Optical drive you should set your BIOS to "AHCI" unless you are going to use RAID. AHCI will allow you to use NCQ for drives that support it.

And yes you must do the F6 floppy thing and load the Intel ICH7R drivers (ensure that if the BIOS is set to AHCI or RAID that you select the correct driver from the list!).

EDIT - In other words, if you are going to setup HDDs in RAID mode on the ICH7R select RAID in BIOS, Otherwise if you are using ONLY SATA devices (including the optical you are installing Windows from) on the ICH7R and are NOT setting the HDDs to RAID then set the BIOS option to AHCI. You could also set it to IDE but you will not be able to use hot swap or NCQ.

 

[moosey]

I ended up getting my problem worked out. I installed on the Intel controller and had AHCI listed in BIOS. I then installed AHCI drivers off of the floppy and Win XP finally recognized my HDDs.

 

[Stew4HD]

Any clues on how to get raid to work with existing, formatted SATA hard drives? THis issue is making me bonkers!

 

[DaddyRabbit]

Originally posted by: Stew4HD
Any clues on how to get raid to work with existing, formatted SATA hard drives? THis issue is making me bonkers!

Honestly, if you can beg, borrow, or steal another drive that is big enough to hold the data you need to retrieve (IDE or SATA) I would install to it as a single drive with the RAID drivers (just enough of an install to copy off the data to the single drive), copy the data then re-install to the raid array normally. The problem is you will still have to re-install games and apps that way which is what I'm assuming you wished to avoid.

If the old drives were setup as a raid array then I don't know of a way that you can install a new driver if you can't boot Windows (doesn't mean there isn't one however )

 

[Stew4HD]

Hmm, I was thinking of getting a new drive as a fix. The 2 existing are 2 80GB seagates, so grabbing a much bigger HDD would be no problem. I just don't want to lose my music and pix. SO, I could install a new drive, set SATA 0, install the OS, then add the old drives as SATA 1 and 2?

Thanks for the reply

 

[DaddyRabbit]

That's a good question, I didn't consider one thing and that is this raid volume was setup on a different controller and I'm not sure that just plugging the disks in to another controller would work.

I haven't used RAID on desktops in quite some time for these very reasons (driver install and compatibiliy issues etc) so I am by no means an expert on onbord RAID but I'm thinking that you may have to re-initialize the volume which, if I'm correct, will wipe any data on the drives. Were these initially configured as a mirror, stripe, or JBOD?

Also what was the controller you used on the old MOBO?

Sorry If I led you down the wrong path...

 

[Stew4HD]

I bought this system from a guy. I am pretty sure he set it up as a raid. Silly me, I dind't look at the bios of the old mobo to check it's setup. I thought the controller would pick it up. I am at a loss on how to get it to recognise the OS. Error loading operation system is the message I get

 

[DaddyRabbit]

It might still work if you get another single drive and install to it, install the Marvel drivers, then plug in the drives to the Marvel controller and boot from the single drive just to see if they come up and you can copy your data. Just make sure while you are messing with it NOT to initialize the drives or you will lose the data.

I hope it works out man cause losing data bites. While I know you don't want to hear this... After you get everything up and running (and especially if you get your music etc back) get Ghost or Acronis and backup, I learned the hard way more times than I care, or dare, to speak of

 

[mattmos]

glad things worked out for you moosey - I'm not having much luck though.

Started up with ahci, pressed f6, loaded the driver from a borrowed floppy disk. windows started to run from the cd, got as far as prompting me to begin the xp pro installation, then froze. Then there was a loud bang and the whole thing died.

Replaced power cable and it came back.

Tried repeating the procedure with the sata option on raid and this time got a blue screen giving me a warning about my hard disk not being recognised or there being problems with the hd (a single 150gb raptor).

Now when I try to load up with IDE as sata option I can only get to the point of starting xp pro installation and then it immediately resets itself.

Tried reseting bios to default, disabling everything unecessary, to no avail.

Has anyone else had these issues?

I'm pretty sure I installed things ok, the only thing that worried me slightly is that the cooling case of my 8800gtx is pressing down on the audio header connected to the front panel quite hard. Anyone else with this issue?

heeeeeelp!

Matt

 

[grooge]

Originally posted by: mattmos
glad things worked out for you moosey - I'm not having much luck though.

Started up with ahci, pressed f6, loaded the driver from a borrowed floppy disk. windows started to run from the cd, got as far as prompting me to begin the xp pro installation, then froze. Then there was a loud bang and the whole thing died.

Replaced power cable and it came back.

Tried repeating the procedure with the sata option on raid and this time got a blue screen giving me a warning about my hard disk not being recognised or there being problems with the hd (a single 150gb raptor).

Now when I try to load up with IDE as sata option I can only get to the point of starting xp pro installation and then it immediately resets itself.

Tried reseting bios to default, disabling everything unecessary, to no avail.

Has anyone else had these issues?

I'm pretty sure I installed things ok, the only thing that worried me slightly is that the cooling case of my 8800gtx is pressing down on the audio header connected to the front panel quite hard. Anyone else with this issue?

heeeeeelp!

Matt

so, you are saying that the video card is pushing the motherboard against the case, maybe grounding it, and you heard a loud bang.... and still expecting having a problem free computer...

 

[moosey]

Originally posted by: mattmos
glad things worked out for you moosey - I'm not having much luck though.

Started up with ahci, pressed f6, loaded the driver from a borrowed floppy disk. windows started to run from the cd, got as far as prompting me to begin the xp pro installation, then froze. Then there was a loud bang and the whole thing died.

Replaced power cable and it came back.

Tried repeating the procedure with the sata option on raid and this time got a blue screen giving me a warning about my hard disk not being recognised or there being problems with the hd (a single 150gb raptor).

Now when I try to load up with IDE as sata option I can only get to the point of starting xp pro installation and then it immediately resets itself.

Tried reseting bios to default, disabling everything unecessary, to no avail.

Has anyone else had these issues?

I'm pretty sure I installed things ok, the only thing that worried me slightly is that the cooling case of my 8800gtx is pressing down on the audio header connected to the front panel quite hard. Anyone else with this issue?

heeeeeelp!

Matt

I'm not quite sure what the problem could be. I have almost the same setup as you...same board and HDD. My problem was I had the drives on the blue (marvell) ports and not the black sata (intel). Once I switched to Intel it was all ok and XP picked up my drives that the Marvell controller was not. Like I had mentioned I set BIOS to AHCI and then just F6 in the XP install for the ICH7R AHCI drivers. Let me know if you've made anymroe progress.

 

[mattmos]

Originally posted by: grooge

so, you are saying that the video card is pushing the motherboard against the case, maybe grounding it, and you heard a loud bang.... and still expecting having a problem free computer...

Its not pushing hard enough to connect the motherboard with the case - but it could be causing problems with the connector maybe...

Does anyone else out there have a 8800 gtx or gts and have problems with the audio header connection?

I'm thinking about using the second pic-e slot for the video and would that cause the video to run any slower?

 

[moosey]

do you have an extra PATA optical drive to see if Windows will install off of that?

 

[mattmos]

Hey moosey, thanks for the suggestion, I did try a pata cd drive but the same thing occurred. Tonight finally tried taking the memory sticks out and testing each individually and it turns out they were the cause - one I was able to use to install and run windows, the other rebooted my machine as soon as windows started loading. So back to the shop tomorrow. Should have tried this sooner obviously

Still have the problem with the tight fit on the front panel audio header underneath the 8800 gtx cooling case - its not plugged in for the moment, is anyone else running a bx2 and 8800 together and how did you fit the front panel audio?

Still have no idea what caused the plug to blow but glad it hasn't damaged any components internally.

Final question - was so glad to get windows installing that I left the sata drive set to IDE in bios - not sure if I will ever need to hot swap etc, so do you think its advisable to go back and reformat using achp setting? Might get another larger sata as storage down the line, but not going to raid.

thanks everyone who helped so far

Matt

 

[moosey]

Yeah, bad memory will do that, oh well at least you found the cause. What kind was it?

As far as the AHCI, I'm guessing you didn't install the drivers when you formatted. I think there's a way to do so in Windows but it's better off of a format. Basically what you get is the hotswapping and NCQ. I don't know if you'll really be able to tell a difference with AHCI, but if you just formatted and installed nothing else, I'm guessing it won't be a problem to just take the extra hour and reinstall if you wanted.

I've had mine going for a few days now but haven't had time to try and o/c yet. Guess I'll see how it goes.
Good luck with yours.

 

[mattmos]

mem was a matched pair of corsair xms2 800mhz 1 gb sticks - hardly the value stuff but not top end either, it might be aging a bit now but thought it would do the job.

may try to reinstall if I have time, NCQ sounds semi-useful.

As for the overclocking, I think I need to let my nerves recover a little first! Looking forward to pushing the chip a little further, and I'm looking forward to benching this machine against my work machine (dual woodcrest xeon 3ghz). It was less than half the cost, so I'll be happy if I can get anywhere near that kind of performance. Also be interesting to compare the 8800gtx against the quadro 5500...

hope it all goes well for you

 

[mattmos]

well, overclocking wasn't as much of a worry as I thought it might be - pushed fsb up to 333, so have the quad running at 3.33ghz with mem 1:1 with fsb. I've upped the voltage of the memory to 1.92 to match manufacterers recommendations, everything else is stock.

timings are default atm - 5-5-5-18 - what should I change here and what will it effect ?