Help With Misterious Bios Behavior

I own an ASUS P4c 800-E Deluxe with Pentium 4 CPU 3.2GHZ
Everything in the system was working in perfect harmony until one day it did not want to start. Everything was black, very black...........there was no sign of life whatsoever, very mysteriously it went from working perfectly to not wanting to start up.
When it finally decided to "spark" there was a message on the screen that came from the "Twilight zone" asking me if I wanted to revert to BIOS default settings, which I agreed to accept thinking that later I could go back and re-configure everything the way it was; and that's when the problems begun.
I had 3 P-ATA IDE hard drives installed without any conflicts whatsoever, and now the BIOS only sees 1, the one containing the OS (WDC WD1200JB-00GVA)
The current BIOS is:
American Megatrends Inc.
Version: 1023.001 (Flashed from Previous Version 1022)
BIOS settings werereverted and configured as follows:
---BIOS SETUP UTILITY
----(PRIMARY IDE MASTER DETECTED)
---WDC WD1200JB-00GVA

------IDE CONFIGURATION
---------------ENHANCED MODE SUPPORT ON:
-------S-ATA
---BOOT DEVICE PRIORITY SET TO:
1......Floppy drive
2......PM-WDC WD1200JB
3......SM-SONY DVD-ROM
---ADVANCED MENU---
---ONBOARD DEVICES CONFIGURATION---
---OPERATING MODE.........
---RAID---
I see the device configuration as wrong ....
Since I have 3 IDE drives hooked up, I made the following changes:


------IDE CONFIGURATION
---------------ENHANCED MODE SUPPORT ON:
(Changed to) -------P-ATA

---BOOT DEVICE PRIORITY SET TO: (*Left as it was)
1......Floppy drive
2......PM-WDC WD1200JB
3......SM-SONY DVD-ROM


---ADVANCED MENU---
---ONBOARD DEVICES CONFIGURATION---
---OPERATING MODE.........
(*Changed to ---IDE---

I went ahead and saved the changes.
At re-boot the POST seems to detect the ram, OS hard drive, CD/DVD drives but continues without detecting the other 2 hard drives, and the following message appears:

A disk read error occurred, press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart.

After re-starting the configurations in the BIOS have also changed from the previously entered by me; the hard drive is not detected as primary any more, but as a third master.
And when the booting device priority is attempted to be changed the IDE hard drive is not available as an option any more and does not appear anywhere else but at the "Onboard devices configuration" as a third IDE drive.


When I try to re-enter the configurations manually as I had them when I reverted to default settings they do not work any more ( I am sure I entered everything the way it was since I wrote it all down).
Until I go to resetting everything back again at the "Exit ----- change to default settings -----save and exit "

Then it goes back to default RAID, S-ATA, and everything else. ..........FRUSTRATION!

Question is:
Is it to the point of view of all of you more experienced folks out there, a BIOS problem that can be fixed by Flashing the BIOS again with the same version?

OR.......

There is a newer BIOS version available at ASUS website, but it is a BETA version.
Is it recommended to flash with a BETA BIOS, are there possible problems with BETA's?
I truly need help since I have tried everything to set the BIOS to detect the other 2 hard drives and nothing.
I still remember when everything used to be so nicely running................

Thanks in advance.

 

Try a "reset ". Disconnect all of the HDDs. When you startup it will give you an error message that there is no OS drive. Reconnect the OS HDD and go into the BIOS when you restart. Check that it is recognised correctly, otherwise look for settings for the drive. If you get it detected correctly, reconnect the other drives one at a time (check the jumper settings).

"Enhanced mode" should not have an influence (read about it in the motherboard manual).

Third master? Something is not right. I might wonder if it is trying to run the drives in a RAID array. Check for RAID settings.
Maybe it is looking for SATA HDDs. You may/should be able to disable the SATA controller if you are not using it.

Look through any settings for drives/drive controllers in the m/b manual.

The BIOS sets the drive information by reading the MBR of the drives. There may well be a problem in one of the MBR's. Run the drive manufacturer's utilities, they may tell you.

Edit:

From http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...toid=83744a3cdde5c010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD
Matt