PCTech Forums

ASUS P5GD1
3.0 GHz, 800MHz FSB
ASUS X600XT 128MB
512MB Dual-Channel
Maxtor 40GB
350 Watt PSU
CD-RW writer
DVD-RW writer

Okay those are my specs just incase you decide you need them.

right now my bios is all set to default, as it should be before this problem occurred. Right now I have my HD in IDE (device 0). When i begin to start up, I pass the bios and just before windows starts to load i get this (Initializing MBA Ctrl+Alt+B to configure....... )
Then after that passes if you don't use the command it then changes and another message comes (Managed PC Boot Agent v4.30)
and underneath it is (Pre-Boot eXecution Environment v2.20 (PXE). I have all the jumpers and pc hardware connected properly and the bios recognizes the HD as master and the bios is also set to IDE not raid and these are the defaults so i know the problem isn't there. Its the HD but everything was working fine until i tried to put in another HD in raid and kept my other one in IDE with my cd-rom. Then after i installed the HD it booted up fine the first time, but then it asked me to restart because new hardware was detected. So i restarted my computer. Upon restart the problem occurred from there, and now i have no idea how to fix it. I feel as if I've tried everything to my knowledge to fix it. Also I've been thinking its fried but how could that be if it gets recgonized and the HD processing light still flashes upon loadings. If someone could help that would be great.

Here is where I would start. Take out the second HD and see if everything boots up normally. If it does, then I would look at how I installed the second HD. Normally, anything that is in a RAID config needs more then one HD. So perhaps you set it up incorrectly.

Let me know

Nope i have nothing on my ide except my HD right now. I still get that problem during boot ups just before windows SHOULD start. i have all my bios settings set as default. So there definity not the problem. I also have the jumpers set properly aswell. I just don't know what the problem is.

Okay well I've come to see that the MBA is from my Network Card. I just removed it. but unfortunitly that wasn't the problem. I have the jumper set to master on my HD and is set as first boot in bios. Now when windows is suppose to start just after the bios loading, I now get "Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key". I don't understand this because my bios is recognizing my HD as primary IDE. But it just won't continue to windows. I've also just tried to hook up the cd-rom aswell but it still won't boot the XP cd past Checking Hardware Configurations. It just freezes and the cd stops spinning. (everything is default in bios) meaning its not set to raid its set to IDE.

Is it possible you dont have it set correctly in CMOS? I know when I had a similar problem I had to go into CMOS and set the setting for both HD's. Depending on which HD you want to boot with, it has to be set to boot from that HD.

The reason I ask this is because in my Meyers A+ Certification book it says "After physically installing the hard drive, you must enter its geometry into the CMOS through the CMOS setup program. Without this information the hard drive will not work. Todays EIDE setup utilities handle up to 4 ATA devices and the days of typing values are long gone. In fact you can simply set the "type" to auto, and the system will set up the hard drives CMOS settings for you."

When you set your main HD to Master, is there something else on that IDE channel that is set to slave?

OKAY LISTEN WHAT DID I SAY BEFORE. IF YOUR GOING TO HELP ME. HELP ME! DON"T ASK THESE STUPID ASS QUESTIONS AFTER I HAVE TOLD YOU WHAT THE SETUP IS ALL ABOUT. IM SICK OF PEOPLE ACTING AS IF THEY ARE HELPING BUT ALL THERE DOING IS ASKING THE STUPID QUESTIONS I HAVE CLEARLY ALREADY ANSWERED. SO FOR FUTURE REFERENCE. WHEN YOU ANSWER TO A QUESTION READ TO FIND IF THERE ALREADY HAS BEEN AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION YOU ARE ASKING. WHICH IS WHAT I AM IN SEARCH FOR. BUT THERES NO HELP BECAUSE I GET STUPID QUESTIONS BEING ASKED TO BYPASS THE REAL QUESTION!

Your board has a
4-port SATA RAID controller --find out what plugs into them and buy two--
Hint: IDE is the wrong animal for a sata raid board.
signed Icecube (post is locked--only way to reply)

Thanks for the laugh. Sorry to see you go. I will leave this here for all to see.

hehehe