Bootup Errrrrror!!!

[Ilyushin]

Hi,

On Thursday a bootup problem occured, where the point where the OS
should start loading, ie at the point after 'Verifying DMI Pool Data....' it
just stops and does nothing. The first time this error occured, the problem
read:
"A disk read error has occured
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart."
Since then, it doesn't say anything, just stops there.

In BIOS it only picks the drives up as 127.99GB drives, even tho
it's 250GB.

What I've attempted so far:
Using another 160GB SATA drive.
Buying another motherboard, testing it, same problem.
Flashed BIOS, cleared CMOS. Erased previous DMI data.

My system specs:

GA-K8NF-9 motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3000+
1024MB Corsair RAM
250GB SATA NCQ HDD
Radeon x800xl 256mb PCI-e
400W PSU

Any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Im guessing it's
the RAM...

[mike_w]

If you insert a boot CD, such as Windows installation CD, UBCD or a Linux LiveCD, can you see the hard drives then?

As for the 128GB - I think that's the old limit of hard drives - you can get around in Windows by installing the latest service pack (I think).

[Ilyushin]

mike_w, that's where a further scary problem evolves...

I tried putting a Windows CD in to the drive, and booted off that, to see if the setup would at least detect the drive (it does so correctly in the BIOS). It did pick up something, but not my 250GB drive. It picked up:

C:[unknown partition], 131 071MB, disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi (mbr).

Is that not my CD drive? That's all it detects when I try both the 160GB and 250GB
drive. As far as SATA drivers go, I have never had to install drivers when installing
Windows, as I have done this twice before with XP and 2003.

[mike_w]

It picked up:

C:[unknown partition], 131 071MB, disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi (mbr).

I think that'll be the hard drive - I don't think it can detect anything bigger (at least not without a service pack). As for SATA drivers, you need to hit an F key (F6?) when the installation starts (it says at the bottom), and then stick in your floppy with SATA drivers.

The CD ROM drive would only be something like 700MB, and I doubt it would detect it as a hard drive anyway.

[Ilyushin]

Ok, even though I never needed them before, Ill still
give it a try.

I think I did try a IDE drive, but Windows still thought it was a 131 071mb
partition.

[dodgybob]

It's irrelevant which drive, pata or sata if you are using a pre-sp1 windows xp cd. It doesn't support drives above something like 137GB in size as support for 48bit LBA addressing only came with service pack 1 and above. A solution that might solve this for you would be to slipstream sp1 or sp2 into the cd. There are lots of websites with details on how to do this, here is an example:

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase...slipstream.asp

I tried it a while ago and it worked brilliantly on my 200gb drive when i had to reinstall.

Also you could slipstream in your sata drivers etc., again there are a lot of websites with details on how to do this. This would negate the need for pressing F6 on bootup for sata drivers.

[Ilyushin]

Hello again.

I built this PC before. I installed Windows XP Home, with SP2.
Everything was fine, it detected my drive as 250GB, etc - there were
no problems, until it decided to start on Thursday.

So, with the same CD, I booted up off it, chose to delete the partition, and
create a new one. Max size was 131gb. Chose it, and installed. Now I'm running
off 130GB on a 250GB drive. I checked Disk Management and Partition Magic, both
say there is no additional space left on the drive....

Don't know where to go about this now....

[Xaar]

is the drive set to Auto in the bios?
I mean, you haven't tried manually configuring the drive?

If it is on auto, i guess you could always try and manually configure using the manufacturers stated settings (sectors/tracks etc)