SATA drive not found after BIOS update

If you can't find any other reasons, I would go along with Rockster2U and remove all the partitions. I think you have bugs in the MBR of that drive, or, the BIOS cannot read the way it is partitioned the same way it did with the original BIOS version.

Don't balk at backing up the data, the drive could fail tomorrow taking all the data with it. I have my data backed up on another network computer and two or three backups on CD.

If there seems to be any further headaches with the drive I would do a low-level (zero) format on it which will rewrite the MBR completely. I would then use the Samsung utilities to partition and format the drive (do not install a DDO (Dynamic Drive Overlay) if it is offered).

Matt
Edit: You could try booting to the Windows CD and running the FixMBR command in the Recovery Console.

 

Hi Matt

When (with the P-ATA drive temporarily installed) I had access to Recovery Console I did in fact try the 'fixmbr' command. I got the message:- "The computer appears to have a non-standard or invalid MBR. FIXMBR may damage your partition tables if you proceed..." So I backed-off and instead used the 'fixboot' command with D: (the SATA drive) as the target partition, and got the response:- "New bootsector was successfully written ". You already know what the outcome was.

Thanks for your patience and I do I assure you entirely take the point about not hesitating any more and, furthermore, going the whole hog and doing a low-level format. This would be fine if I were confident about my data back-up but, sad to say, I'm not. It's on a .tib (image) file on my laptop and the last time I tried to restore from one of these (using Acronis TrueImage) it told me the file was corrupted; I don't want to risk getting that message again after I've erased everything.

So, what I'm minded to do now is to use a Mepis linux distro I have on CD-ROM to copy all (or as many as I want to keep) of the files and folders on my SATA disk to a USB hard drive. Since it's going to take 2 or more weeks for me to take delivery of the USB HD I've decided on, I'm just going to have wait though it's a PITA. (I need the USB HD anyway).

I can use the Samsung utility to do a low-level format of the drive. However the only tool it has that looks anything like a partitioning tool is so non-intuitive - even though it has a GUI - that I wouldn't dare use it (in fact I'm not even sure that it's meant to be used for creating partitions) and Samsung's so-called manual is a joke. Do you have any advice for me about possible alternatives? (I don't think I'd trust myself to use DOS).

 

This is a nightmare! I'm still no further forward than I was in July.

To recap. After I (successfully) flash-updated my PC's BIOS to the latest version, my PC would no longer boot into WinXP installed on the SATA disk, though it had previously always booted into WinXP on that disk. There was never any other hard drive installed on that computer (and I have no need to install any; I had therefore never installed VIA's RAID utilitilities but I had always, of course, installed VIA's Serial ATA Controller during the Windows Setup process by hitting F6 at the start)

I have been trying everything to get it to boot, without success. Successively, after each step trying again and when meeting no success moving to the next step, I have:-

• re-downloaded the BIOS update and reflashed the BIOS, in DOS
• done a low-level format using Samsung's disk utility
• completely erased the disk using DBAN
• used Windows Setup to create a partition on the disk (leaving a chunk of unpartitioned space), then to format that partition (first a 'quick format' then, after that didn't help, the full works)
• tried to get Windows Setup to install WinXP on the formatted partition

Setup detects the disk and 'sees' the partition as a system partition (or at least that is what I take '[MBR}' to mean). But, in spite of this, Setup fails to complete installing WinXP (this has happened before). When (after having started Windows and copied the files from the CD) Setup restarts the computer (with the CD still in the drive), instead of Setup resuming from where it left off it starts all over again from the beginning. An endless loop!

There is nothing wrong with the SATA drive (I've tested it). I do not believe (though I may be wrong) that my slipstreamed Windows installation CD is corrupted because I have used it successfully to install WinXP on a PATA drive.

The only abnormal sign that I detect is (as reported above) a weird 'Warning' message which appears very early in POST so briefly as to be impossible to read properly, but the best I can make of it is:- "Have option ROM cannot be invoked" (followed by a vendor number). This is a complete mystery to me - but it never used to appear before I flashed the BIOS

This situation is driving me nuts! Can anyone, PLEASE, suggest what I can do?

 

Bump

Anyone....?

Please....?

 

That stage might be the key (unless I have failed to reread something earlier). When it reboots to the CD, remove the CD and restart the computer. It should then boot to the HDD and request that you put the CD back in the drive. Do the same on any subsequent restarts or take the CD drive out of the boot options in the BIOS.

Matt

 

What seems to be happening is:-

At some stage (it didn't register with me at the time when this started happening) the message that used always to appear in POST when there's a CD in the drive "Press any key to boot from CD" stopped appearing.

(BTW my Asus mobo's BIOS has an option to enable/disable this message but the AOpen's BIOS has no such option)

So if the Windows CDROM is in the drive when Setup restarts the computer after having copied all the files, the BIOS is booting from that CD (again, and again...). It's not giving me the option (as it used to do) not to boot from that CD by not pressing any key - it's just booting from it itself. Hence the endless loop.

I've tried to force it to boot from the C: drive. I did this by going into BIOS setup immediately after Windows Setup restarted the computer, and resetting the boot sequence in such a way that the only boot device enabled was C: (2nd and 3rd boot devices disabled, and 'boot other device' disabled). I also physically removed the Windows CD from the drive. The result was that it wouldn't boot at all, so Windows Setup can't continue. I got the message by now so drearily familiar:- "Disk boot failure. Insert system disk... "

I imagine the only possible conclusion to draw from this is that the BIOS itself is what is broken? Unless anyone has any alternative diagnosis...?

If the BIOS is broken, what do I do about that?

 

----NEWS FLASH----
I've answered my own question.

I flashed the BIOS again, this time with the previous version. This was suggested by Mattman three weeks ago If only I'd done it then...

After flashing, the weird subliminal warning ceased to appear and the "press any key to boot from CD" message reappeared. Consequently Windows Setup after restarting now continues to install WinXP. It's installing it as I write.

Hoping nothing else goes wrong!

(Edit:-

Nothing did, it's up and running.

Is there a moral....? (yeah I already know I should have restored the previous BIOS version 3 weeks ago, but apart from that). It puzzles me that a BIOS update dl'd from the mfr's website and which flashed the CMOS with - reportedly - no errors could cause all this havoc. One thing is clear to me:- Mattman's strong warning against flashing from within Windows seems to have been bang on target.

It's all very well to say "if it ain't broke, don't fix it ", but don't we all rely on regular BIOS updates to improve functionality? Where would we - or the mfrs - be without them? So what do we do if we can't trust their updates not to wreck our machines? Oh well...)

 

Glad to hear it's finally rectified. You have worked hard solving it.

I don't know why manufacturer's offer Windows based BIOS upgrades. If there is a problem, the Windows system will not be functioning correctly anyway.

Hope it goes well.
Matt

 

Rockster2U

Can I please test my understanding?

The boot partition always gets the drive letter 'C' - right? The options available in my PC's BIOS from which to select 1st, 2nd, 3rd boot device are:-
C
SCSI
CDROM
D
E
F
ZIP
USB-FDD
USB-ZIP
LAN

My chosen boot order is:- 1.USB-FDD, 2.CDROM, 3.C. I have 'boot other device' enabled so (as long as I have no boot floppy in my USB-FDD drive and don't 'press any key to boot from CD' if invited to do so), the PC boots from 'C' . With only the SATA drive installed it (of course) gets the drive letter 'C' when XP boots-up. But with a PATA drive installed as well, also with WinXP on it (even though, as previously explained, configured as 'cable select') its primary partition - not the SATA drive's primary partition - is treated as the boot partition and allocated the drive letter 'C'. Selecting as boot device in the BIOS a drive letter other than 'C' doesn't help - it just treats the primary partition on the PATA drive as the boot partition regardless.

I agree with you that McTavish was dead on when he suggested that "perhaps the default bios settings make the IDE channels the boot device and your bios does not then auto search for SATA drives ". The problem all along has been that (as you will have seen above) there is no option to make my SATA drive the first boot hard drive (as McTavish suggested might be the case). And yes, I did try using SCSI and that made no difference.

It seems therefore that priority of a PATA drive connected to an IDE connector on the mobo over a SATA drive must be built-into my PC's BIOS and will always automatically occur - all other things being equal. If this assumption is correct then maybe the only way to stop it happening would be by not having WinXP installed on the PATA drive (or else for the PATA drive not to have any primary partition on it)?

Does that answer your question?

 

Well, yes and no - kinda maybe. Perhaps an explanation is in order. If one has already installed Windows to a PATA drive that Windows labels as C and then does a second Windows installation to another drive (SATA), the second installation will not be labeled C when the first drive is in the machine (even if it (PATA) was disconnected for the second OS installation and plugged back in later). I think you understand this and have done a good job of explaining your current dilemma. So, on to my edit and a possible fix at the end.



edit: Decided a little more explaining might prove to be helpful. Your IDE (PATA) Hdd's will be configured as HDD0 and HDD1 if two regular ATA drives are on the primary IDE header. Then your SATA drives will be HDD2 and HDD3 if two SATA drives are used. In your case, (as I understand it) HDD0 is your regular PATA drive. You can disconnect it and do an installation on a SATA drive which will be recognized as HDD0 until you re-connect your regular ATA drive, at which point that drive (PATA) reclaims its designation as HDD0 and the SATA becomes HDD1. Now, if you had two opticals in your system, the drive lettering would most likely be PATA as C, Optical #1 as D, Optical #2 as E and finally, your SATA as F. This is because your devices on the IDE headers are going to take precedence over those on the SATA header. Now to confuse this - if you hadn't originally installed an OS on your PATA drive, yes, your SATA would be labeled as C even if you later add a PATA drive. (Note - the PATA would still become HDD0 and the SATA would become HDD1 even if it was HDD0 when no PATA was present, however, your SATA would remain C under this example).

I think you have built in a conflict with the way you went about trying to install two operating systems and may need to use a boot floppy, a third party boot loader or edit your boot.ini file. If you search under surferdude2, you'll find instructions on all of the above in his previous posts.

 

kosketus:

I don't have any further guidance but I thought you might appreciate a little moral support. I just replaced a Motherboard (bad caps) with another from a different manufacturer and did a repair install. All went well as expected but I then added a SATA drive and cloned the PATA system drive. That too went well and the machine was booting just fine to the SATA without the PATA hooked up. I then added a removable HDD tray for the original drive (PATA) and a DVDRW drive but with the PATA drive hooked up - same - and I mean exact same error you have been fighting. No problem right? Wrong.

I can get it to boot to the SATA with a slipstreamed SP2 CD in either optical bay or I can boot to the SATA with a floppy but, I spent yesterday afternoon fighting this thing to get a normal boot to the SATA with no crutches. I can put a different PATA drive in the removable bay and it boots right up to the SATA. I have FDISKed the original MBR and the drive itself and rebuilt the partition in a different machine - no glory here either. I have been through every permutation possible re: editing the boot.ini file which resides clearly on the SATA drive. I did another repair install of Windows with both drives in the machine - still no glory with both drives hooked up. I have been in the repair console and tried every trick I know. Have tried several other tools using a BartPE disc without having the system drive responsible for anything except being readable. Have tried several other things that I usually never (lets say seldom) have to resort to - still no glory.

At this point, I'm about ready to throw in the towel and just use a different PATA drive in the removable bay which then permits everything to run just fine. There has to be a drive ID buried somewhere in the registry that is causing this behavior (I cloned this drive using ghost circa 2003 from a floppy) and I will spend a little time researching this before calling it quits. For whatever its worth - this one may have beaten me. I thought your misery might enjoy some company.