# Pain in my ASRock (4CoreDual)



## GJSNeptune (Jun 3, 2007)

Just got this board, as well as a Pentium D 820. I swap out my old motherboard and install my new goodies. Of course, trouble ensues.

I turn it on and enter BIOS to fix the time and set boot devices. I first try to boot from my existing Windows installation, which is on my WD 160GB SATA drive. I get to the Windows boot screen, but the system reboots after that. Okay. Maybe I need to reinstall Windows. Fine.

I pop in my Windows CD to see if maybe I can repair my installation. I enter Windows setup and I don't have any repair options. Ugh. I do it again and have Windows install on my 40GB IDE drive. At least I'd get a temporary install to prepare one of my SATA drives. It seems to be successful. I reboot. I get through BIOS, then the Windows underscore appears on the screen.

Press any keep to boot from the CD.....a disk read error has occured.

Damnet!

What now? If I power on with no hard drives installed, Windows will boot fine and check for hardware settings, etc. But when a hard drive is connected, I get a disk read error.

I've tried everything I can think of. Different hard drive. Different optical drive. Hard drive as IDE master and optical drives as slaves. Is it because there's no FDD installed? Is there a BIOS setting I need to change? I just don't know what the problem is. I had a much easier time with a much older Abit NF7-S v2. I thought technology was supposed to make things easier. 

Anyway, I know the IDE hard drive is fine. I used GParted LiveCD to reformat it (NTFS), and it doesn't appear to be a hard drive problem anyway. Anyone have any ideas? I bought this board used, so it won't be replaced, and my Pentium D is a waste without a board to put it in. Please tell me there's hope.


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## pbmaster (Jun 3, 2007)

That's odd...when I swapped mobo's I had no problems whatsoever..no reinstalls..nothing. I'm not sure what could be wrong...before I got my new mobo I had several HDD problems and completely resetting my BIOS was the only way I could get it to work.


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## GJSNeptune (Jun 3, 2007)

What did you swap from?

I didn't think I'd have a problem either. I swapped my dad's old computer to my old one and his Windows install booted right up. That was even a Celeron to an AthlonXP.


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## pbmaster (Jun 3, 2007)

I swapped from a ASUS A8N SLI-Deluxe to what I have now(in my profile). I think the main thing that prevented me from having any problems was because it was the same chipset, but because of all what you've done, something should have worked by now.


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## GJSNeptune (Jun 3, 2007)

Does anyone know possible reasons for a system to reboot after the Windows boot screen?

Do I need a boot disk or CD to repair the startup? I don't know much about the software part of this process.


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## tkpenalty (Jun 3, 2007)

If its SATA, you can but... not for IDE. You HAVE to reinstall for IDE.


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## GJSNeptune (Jun 3, 2007)

My current install is on a SATA, but the system reboots a couple seconds after the Windows boot screen appears. It seems that getting it to *not* reboot is my only hope. I just have no idea why it does it.


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## GJSNeptune (Jun 3, 2007)

Anyone?


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## GJSNeptune (Jun 4, 2007)

Anyone have any ideas?


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## JousteR (Jun 4, 2007)

I've always done a fresh install of O/S..Did u put in your chipset driver disk..?
it may be running old chipset drivers..?


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## Dippyskoodlez (Jun 4, 2007)

GJSNeptune said:


> Anyone have any ideas?



You could try booting in safe mode, if that doesn't work, you'll have to back everything up and format, because its not worth the hassle fixing it by hand. You'll likely encounter stability issues and performance losses.


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## erocker (Jun 4, 2007)

It could be the chipset/IDE drivers screwing things up.  Have you flashed the bios?


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## Steevo (Jun 4, 2007)

Possibly a board problem. Or a PCI other clock lock problem, if you are OC'ing it don't as of yet.


But to be honest unless you had the same drive controller onthe SATA port or you were running in IDE native mode on the other board it will not be able to access the drive after the motherboard hands over control to windows. I can prove this as the new machine I built can run in IDE native mode, but with AHCI (Advanced host controler interface) turned on I get BSOD'd and have to reboot. So unless if I insert the SATA driver to allow windows to interface with the AHCI then it is a no go. Many boards do not have the option to turn it off and use native interfaces with windows, nessacatating the installation of a kernel mode driver for hard drive access. Same as RAID drivers.


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## Grings (Jun 4, 2007)

have you still got your old motherboard and chip, and if so will it still boot from that?, if it does then boot into windows, remove the nvidia motherboard drivers, and shut down instead of restart, then swap back over to the new motherboard

if your old board was using microsoft drivers instead of nvidia ones, add the nvidia ones first then remove them again (its a pain in the ass removing microsoft drivers, and when nvidia ones are removed, all (motherboard) hardware is detected as if newly installed)


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## Dippyskoodlez (Jun 4, 2007)

erocker said:


> It could be the chipset/IDE drivers screwing things up.  Have you flashed the bios?





It is.


This is the same reason windows doesn't boot to USB. It initialized the driver when booting, if its the wrong one... well... BSOD! The wrong drive would probably promptly cause a GPF.

(in the case of USB, it loses drive access)


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## GJSNeptune (Jun 4, 2007)

Yes, my old board and chip work fine. I reinstalled them after my first attempt, and my existing Windows drive booted right up.

I've tried booting into Safe mode and the system reboots again.

Aside from getting the new board to run my existing Windows intallation, why won't the Windows CD boot and install on my formatted IDE 40GB drive?

I've only flashed a BIOS from Windows. How do I do it otherwise?


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## GJSNeptune (Jun 4, 2007)

So according to Grings, if I clean the NVIDIA drivers from my existing Windows installation, it'll boot with the new board?

I'm fine with that plan, but I'd rather not reinstall my old board _again_. If I could get Windows to boot from the CD and install on my IDE drive, could I wipe drivers from a Windows install that isn't the one running at the moment?


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## Mussels (Jun 4, 2007)

GJSNeptune said:


> Does anyone know possible reasons for a system to reboot after the Windows boot screen?
> 
> Do I need a boot disk or CD to repair the startup? I don't know much about the software part of this process.



The force is telling me to run memtest, and check your ram for faultiness!

Perhaps raise teh voltages on the mobo?


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## Dippyskoodlez (Jun 4, 2007)

GJSNeptune said:


> So according to Grings, if I clean the NVIDIA drivers from my existing Windows installation, it'll boot with the new board?
> 
> I'm fine with that plan, but I'd rather not reinstall my old board _again_. If I could get Windows to boot from the CD and install on my IDE drive, could I wipe drivers from a Windows install that isn't the one running at the moment?



not unless you have some haxxor driver swapping skills with the command prompt.

It actually sounds like you're using a 40 pin IDE cable. (why the cd wont boot).

Windows just wont boot because its designed not to.


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## GJSNeptune (Jun 4, 2007)

Dippyskoodlez said:


> It actually sounds like you're using a 40 pin IDE cable. (why the cd wont boot).
> 
> Windows just wont boot because its designed not to.



What? Explain please?


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## JrRacinFan (Jun 4, 2007)

Older IDE cables are 40 conductor, the newer ones are 80 conductor. Are you using the one that came with either mobo, aka newer cable?


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## GJSNeptune (Jun 4, 2007)

Ha. I didn't even know there's an 80. I'll try the ones that came with the board, but why would it matter? I've seen Windows boot from the CD, and I've seen Windows try to boot from my SATA drive. I've also seen Windows try to install on the 40GB IDE drive. Why would the error only come after it restarted after installing?


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## GJSNeptune (Jun 4, 2007)

Well right now I only have the dual-device IDE cable, so the hard drive will still be on a 40-c cable. Do both devices need it, or which one needs it more?


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## JrRacinFan (Jun 4, 2007)

Hmmm, just a question but do you have an SATA based DVD drive handy?


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## Steevo (Jun 4, 2007)

If the drive doesn't detect the extra ground cables to make the 80 it limits the speed to UDMA3 or Ultra ATA 66. It doesn't prevent the drive from working, just from performing at its theoretical best.


I am going to agree with Mussels, either get a boot floppy or CD to run memtest http://www.memtest86.com/



And or downclock everythign a bit.


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## Mussels (Jun 4, 2007)

Steevo said:


> If the drive doesn't detect the extra ground cables to make the 80 it limits the speed to UDMA3 or Ultra ATA 66. It doesn't prevent the drive from working, just from performing at its theoretical best.
> 
> I am going to agree with Mussels, either get a boot floppy or CD to run memtest http://www.memtest86.com/
> 
> ...




Actually it locks it to ATA 33, on 40 pin cables.

What it sounds like is he has installed his OS to an IDE and a sata drive, and both reboot once he reaches windows - once he even had errors installing the OS. To me that sounds like system instability, due to overheating, or most likely - bad/badly configured ram.


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## Steevo (Jun 4, 2007)

Dammit. You are right 


Ahh the days of slicing flat 40 pin cables to zip them up into a bunch.


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## aximbigfan (Jun 4, 2007)

ok, try the followign things:

make SURE the 775 cooler is on tight!

reflash the bios to latest version

after you get doen reflashing, set up the bios

boot off of xp install disk and format and install

before you do ANYTHING
reboot
install chipset drivers....
reboot
then video drivers....
reboot
then sound, and any other drivers
reboot

then lets see what happens.


chris


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## Mussels (Jun 4, 2007)

DO what he said, but where he sais instasll XP - run memtest at that point. If memtest fails, adjust memory settings til its stable, then install XP.


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## GJSNeptune (Jun 4, 2007)

JrRacinFan said:


> Hmmm, just a question but do you have an SATA based DVD drive handy?



I don't.



Mussels said:


> Actually it locks it to ATA 33, on 40 pin cables.
> 
> What it sounds like is he has installed his OS to an IDE and a sata drive, and both reboot once he reaches windows - once he even had errors installing the OS. To me that sounds like system instability, due to overheating, or most likely - bad/badly configured ram.



I only have Windows on a 160GB SATA drive. The 40GB IDE drive is blank. If the system tries to boot Windows, it reboots itself after the Windows boot screen. When it tries to boot Windows from the CD, I get a disk read error.

How can the RAM be bad if both sticks run at 200MHz just fine with my old board. Actually, I had three sticks in my old board, but this one only has two DDR slots. Is this board super-picky?



aximbigfan said:


> ok, try the followign things:
> 
> make SURE the 775 cooler is on tight! It is. Very tight.
> 
> ...



Can't wait for work to end. Just got here though. 



Mussels said:


> DO what he said, but where he sais instasll XP - run memtest at that point. If memtest fails, adjust memory settings til its stable, then install XP.



My memory is fine, and nothing is overclocked. I'm not about to adjust voltage and speed before I even get Windows to work.


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## erocker (Jun 5, 2007)

http://www.asrock.com/support/SATARAIDDriver.html

Get that driver and save it to a floppy or mabye a flash drive if it'll work.  When you first install the CD for Windows, you have to keep hitting F6.. If I remember correctly.  From there you have to go through more crap.  Windows is getting to the boot screen and then realizing it doesn't have the correct sata drivers for Windows to run.  Your bios will recognize the HDD's just fine.  Hope this helps.

* Here's a link to the rest of the drivers: http://www.asrock.com/mb/download.asp?Model=4CoreDual-VSTA&s=


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## Mussels (Jun 5, 2007)

GJSNeptune said:


> I don't.
> My memory is fine, and nothing is overclocked. I'm not about to adjust voltage and speed before I even get Windows to work.



The memory could be fine, here is an example - what if your old mobo ran at 1.9V default, and the new one runs at 1.8V - the memory could be unstable because of this. You're really only checking that the automatic settings are correct, they CAN go wrong.


P.S - yes i used DDR2 voltage examples above. Its just an example.


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## GJSNeptune (Jun 5, 2007)

erocker said:


> http://www.asrock.com/support/SATARAIDDriver.html
> 
> Get that driver and save it to a floppy or mabye a flash drive if it'll work.  When you first install the CD for Windows, you have to keep hitting F6.. If I remember correctly.  From there you have to go through more crap.  Windows is getting to the boot screen and then realizing it doesn't have the correct sata drivers for Windows to run.  Your bios will recognize the HDD's just fine. Hope this helps.



I had to do that for my old (AMD) board. I thought Intel didn't have that problem 'cause SATA drivers were already there. Hitting F6 is fine if Windows would boot from the CD. I just get that stupid _disk read error_. Sometimes I don't know if it's the optical drive or the IDE hard drive. When it's supposed to boot from the CD, I don't see the drive light on. But maybe that's the actual problem.

Which concerns me that it _is_ something wrong with the board because the first time I tried to boot from the Windows CD, it worked, and it seemingly installed on my 40GB IDE drive, and then upon reboot, I got a disk read error. Something went wrong between installation and reboot, and now the board seems useless.


@Mussells
I'll check out the RAM voltage. I didn't realize the new board could be sending the same RAM a different amount. Thanks.


Seems like a defective board or something, so now I'm out what I paid for the board as well as for the Pentium D.


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## GJSNeptune (Jun 8, 2007)

I'm gonna run memtest after work today just for the hell of it. I'm quite positive my memory is just fine though. I'm still stumped and hoping it's not a defective board. It only cost me $25, but if I buy the same board from Newegg, I might as well tack on the $25 to become like $90. That's just ridiculous.

I don't know what most of the BIOS options mean, but there are some boot-related options that I might disable. Other than that, I just don't know what the problem is. I guess I could run a diagonistic on the hard drive, and maybe try a Windows XP floppy boot disk.

Stupid not-working computer parts.


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## GJSNeptune (Jun 8, 2007)

Am running memtest86+ as I type this. The first pass caught one failing address for two errors, and so far the second pass hasn't detected any (and it's gone past the point where it caught the first one).

BIOS is set to run my memory at DDR400 like it should be.


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## GJSNeptune (Jun 8, 2007)

Well, I decided to try my storage SATA drive only, and Windows is booting from the CD, detecting hardware, and seems to be initializing to install on the drive. Why the hell did it hate my IDE drive? And why wouldn't it boot my other SATA drive with Windows on it?

Also, how does Windows partition feature work? If I have it create a partition in an unpartitioned space, does that mean it creates a partition where there's no data, or just start at the beginning of the drive?


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## aximbigfan (Jun 8, 2007)

ok, sorry for no response from me, been getting my new tablet pc up :grin:

ANYWAY, make SURE that your RAM is se to run at the  correct timings. i had a problem with a clients computer yesterday where the system would lock up when i restarted it. turned out that the memory had the wrong values set in the timings section in the bios.

if you can, set the bios to automatically set timings from SPD.


chris


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## GJSNeptune (Jun 8, 2007)

I have BIOS running it at 2.5, which is the advertised CAS latency of the sticks.


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## aximbigfan (Jun 9, 2007)

GJSNeptune said:


> I have BIOS running it at 2.5, which is the advertised CAS latency of the sticks.



ahhh!

change it so that the bios automatically gets the timings.

chris


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## GJSNeptune (Jun 9, 2007)

Any idea about Windows setup partitioning? I have some data on this drive that I'd rather not lose, but I'm assuming creating a partition just formats the entire drive since the drive has no partitions.


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## GJSNeptune (Jun 9, 2007)

Got Windows to install. Got confirmation that XP will ignore previous data on a hard drive if you don't have it format. Was a big relief. Windows is currently finishing the install. Phew!


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