Win 2000 Boot Failure with IBM HD's 2

[mwittmd]

Help!

I have just assembled an Athlon 1.33 266MHz system with a Gigabyte GA-7DXR mobo (that has Promise RAID ATA100 capabilities) and two IBM Deskstar 60GXP 40GB hard drives configured as RAID 0 (striped). Using fdisk and format, I have managed to partition the 'drive' into one 80GB drive and format it without complication. I then load Win 2000 off the CD, adding the Promise drivers in the setup (by pushing F6), and let the installation continue. The problem occurs when it asks to reboot => the computer reboots but will not boot off the HD. If you boot off a floppy, you can read the data on the HD. What is that?

Gigabyte emailed me that this is a known problem with IBM 40GB drives, and I need a firmware update from them. I cannot find this update on IBM's site, and IBM has not answered my e-mail yet.

What is happening? I need help, 'cause now all I have is a heavy and expensive paperweight!!! s-)

 

[chiph]

They usually take up to 2 business days to respond. But they will eventually get back to you (always have for me).

Chip H.

 

[mwittmd]

Thanks!

I did get an e-mail from IBM, and they are skeptical that the problem is the drives (and there is no firmware update anyway).

Here's the latest development: When I reboot during the win2000 installation, it now boots into a "Trap" error or exception, with a bunch of codes underneath. The error never says the same thing twice.

Also, if I go into BIOS and change the boot device from RAID to IDE3 or Not installed => I still get the same errors, even though it should not be looking for the drive.

I need any help people can give me. Thanks.

 

[chiph]

Is it a Trap "E"?

If so, it's RAM related.

Chip H.

 

[Guest_imported]

I am having the same problem with IBM drives at 60 GB each. Did you ever get it to work, or do you have to boot from another disk?
Eugene
ejr1@att.net

 

[zoran]

Have you installed win xp using fat32 or ntfs? Please let me know.

 

[Guest_imported]

I'm having exactly the same problem with ASUS A7V133 mobo, Promise RAID100, striped 0, and two 20GB Quantum Barracudas. I dare say its not the drives! BTW, haven't figured out a solution yet. Would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Mugen96]

I am also having a similar problem with the same mobo, 7DXR, and with two GXP75 307075 75 gig baby's doing my work. I can't get past the 4th disk in the installation, even after installing the new drivers by using the F6 option, it returns with an INACCESSABLE_BOOT_DEVICE error and wont continue. Really need to get this one up and running. I am trying to install Windwos 2000 Advanced server on this one. Any help will be greatly appreciate. Please HELP ME. <grin>

Dan

 

[mwittmd]

Hello Everybody!

OK, here is what I've learned thus far (sorry it's been so long):

I ended up using one 40GB drive through the normal ATA100 IDE1 slot, just so I can get the system running. Once I figure all this out, I'm going to reconnect to raid and mirror the drive (RAID 1).

Gigabyte continues to be adament that my Deskstar 60GXP 40GB drives are the problem and that I need a firmware update called Ericson.zip from IBM. They even found it for me, but the firmware update failed on my drives. I'm not sure if the firmware update is the wrong version or what. IBM seems to have stopped answering me, so I don't know what's happening in that department.

This is where I sit. I'll let you know if I learn anything new.

 

[Guest_imported]

I called Gigabyte and they said the problem was with FDISK not properly writing the master boot record (MBR). They pointed me to a shareware FDISK alternative, AEFDISK, available from

http://www.aefdisk.com.

I downloaded it and and used it to format my disks. Be sure, since AEFDISK is a command line program to use the correct parameter for the format you want for your disk, e.g., FAT32. I didn't get it correct the first few times I tried. There was no need for new drive firmware.

 

[Mugen96]

To EJRosentha:
I am going to try it as soon as I can backup the 100gigs of data that I have on the raid array already. This will fix the problem with Windows 2000 saying that it cannot find any hard disks connected to install to? I was under the inpression that this will only set up the partitions, and not set the drives up themselves. I am going to try it, but I just want to make sure that we are covering all of the bases. The main problem is getting Windows 2000 to realize that the hard disks are there, wether it wants to see that as a raid array or a normal drive just partitioned...I don't care, but I need to get the server to come up. Thank you for your replies, trust me, they are very helpful. Thank you again.

Dan

 

[chiph]

mwittmd and all:

There's a story on Slashdot (

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/04/0050238)

covering several problems people have had with the GXP line of drives.

Chip H.

 

[Guest_imported]

Hello, I want to add I have the same problem with two Seagate 40Gb UltraATA100 harddisks and an Asus A7V133 motherboard. The WIN2000 cannot find them! I've read, Win2000 can't run in a Raid0 structure (although it can manage one). But I've tried with two disks ATA100, IDE, and I couldn't. At last, I decided to use the two default IDEs (not the two RAID/ATA100 IDEs). I've installed the Win2000 properly. But, my CD-ROMs units, what are in the RAID/ATA100 IDEs don't work with Win2000!!!!!!! And if I install the promise driver (proper one), the system crashes in the Windows 2000 loading screen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Guest_imported]

Yep, I just got a brand spanking new Western Digital 100GB drive. It's running from the slave cable of IDE2.

Win 2000 installed okay, and seemingly rebooted fine for a few times. But eventually I get a blue screen after windows tries to start... says something along the lines of &quot;Drive is not a valid boot device&quot;.

Most cryptic.

I thought I had it cracked on this installation as it started going wierd after I installed the new detonator drivers, I removed them and it seemed to fix it. This morning it's complaining again.

If anybody has a solution, let me know.

JP

 

[chiph]

When you installed Windows 2000, did you hit F6 first thing? Otherwise the installer won't load the Promise/HiPoint RAID drivers, and can't recognize the array.

The other problem I've seen is trying to create too large of a partition when installing Win2K. I'm using RAID-1 (Striping) to get faster performance, and I couldn't create a 50gb NTFS partition to install on. I ended up creating a 30gb FAT32 partition, completing the install, and running convert.exe later.

Chip H.

 

[jeromet]

I also have a GA-7DXR MoBo using IBM 60GXP HD's and am having partition/formating problem. Two 40GB HD's are used with a RAID 1 array, divided into 3 partitions, 4, 8, & 27 GB's. Two 20GB HD's are for extra storage/performance. I find I must leave off the two 20GB HD's to force W2k to write it's boot sector and swap file on the RAID mirror, as I want a totally redundant auto booting operating system, else it picks out the primary IDE HD for this(I plan to add an alternate swap file partition on one of the extra 20GB HD's which W2k is smart enough to detect and use). This part, installing W2k and creating an autobooting RAID 1 array works well. I also discovered not to share RW-CDROM drives and Zip drives with ATA100 HD's as this forces them to operate in ATA33 mode. For 100% error free write operations, they need to use PIO mode. I've put them on secondary IDE2 channel using 40 pin cable. BIOS & W2k like this. After the W2k install, I attached one of the 20GB HD's to primary IDE channel and partitioned and formated it just find. My problem shows up after I install Gigabyte's recommended TUCD drivers. One of them affects W2k's ability to partition and format ATA100 HD's, a rather serious problem. I though because I could overclock my system 12%, run Prime 95's Torture test for 12 hours, 3DMark2001 and Quake3 Arena, system was fine. Only after trying to re-partition one of the 20GB drives did I discover the problem. I get a fatal Stop 0x0000001E's C0000005 error at location 8041F615. I have to disconnect 20GB drive from system to be able to run. To be able to add drive back, I have to wipe all HD's, re-install W2k and partition/format all desired none RAID HD's prior to adding Gigabyte drivers. If anyone has figured out the sequence of Gigabyte drivers or the correct release versions that eliminate this partition problem, please let me know? That is what I am working on next. I know it is not the VIA Bus Master Mini driver for sure. That was my first guess, but I've eliminated it already. It happens without it loaded. Those of you who plan ATA100 drive expansions, better test your system using a borrowed or cheap ATA100 drive well in advance to see that you can partition and format OK. BTW, I've gotten no response from Gigabyte. Anyone have a Gigabyte contact who cares about customer service? I need a caring Gigabyte contact. Thanks, Jerome

 

[Guest_imported]

the problem i've had with the 7dxr and 60gxp (40 gig) drives is OS-independent, i think. on one of the iterations where windows failed to boot (mysterious blue screen of random error messages during the kernel load), i swapped master/slave to boot off my linux hard drive (both hard drives are the ibm drives), and i got a kernel panic error saying it couldn't mount the root file system. after giving up (and going out for dinner and a pint) i came back and, lo and behold, both OSs would boot fine.

i found that i would get fatal errors on boot as described above, and when playing diablo 2 (or another high-end game). otherwise the system would be stable as a rock.

ibm tech support was clueless, i haven't heard back from gigabyte yet. i'm going to give a go at running ibm's fitness test a few times in a row to see if i can generate the error and get an error code or something.

 

[nosf]

Greetings,

I am working on a new win2k Server and it seems i have found the common pitfall. I am using a Gigabyte 8IRXP mainboard and 2 x IBM 40 GB 60GXP disks. Setting up win2k on the Promise RAID I am getting the INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE BOSD from win2k on its boot into the gui mode of the install.
Initially i tried the RAID drivers from the cd (that came with the board). win2k setup could not find any disks on the th raid controller. I opted to install win2k on the primary IDE (as i have done before with NT 4.0 and the prmise ATA33 RAID PCI cards) install the RAID drivers once the system is up then move the drive to the raid and the alter the boot sequence.
I then recieved a blackscreen message saying that winodws could not find the correct path to boot.
So i get new RAID drivers from gigabyte.
this does not help when i update the raid drivers in windows2k on the primary ide controller
then move it over to the raid again.
same problem.
Next option, install win2k again to see if the new drivers will load at setup.
this time it works and i create a new NTFS partition
format it and install win2k
on 1st reboot all looks good
the &quot;starting windows 2000 server family&quot;
logo is there
and just befire the gui loads
BOSD
INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE
I have the latest BIOS
latest drivers
i have tested both drives with IBM's DFT
looked for the suggested firmware update for the disks
found a download but it didnt have any update in it just the DFT (my disks are very new maybe they dont need it).
I have come across several theories but none have
taken me any closer to solving the problem

cheers
nosf
steven holloway
technical consultant
cairns australia

 

[jeromet]

I wanted to follow up on my earlier message of Feb. 1 on the GA-7DXR system I was building where I could not re-partition and re-format hard drives after I had loaded all device drivers and devise support software. I have cleared the Gigabytes drivers as the cause of my problems. The culprit was Nero's CD packet writing software, InCD verson 2.0 that came bundled with my AOpen RW-CDROM drive. I could install and uninstall InCD and reproduce the problem every time. I have upgraded InCD to version 3.21. I can now re-partition and re-format HD's any which way I want. I have notified support@giga-byte.com and support@ahead.de of this problem and my solution. This had me stumped quite a spell. I emailed Gigabyte 3 times for help on this problem and have not heard from them yet. This is as bad as customer support gets.

Thanks for the ears.
Jeromet

 

[chiph]

Jeromet -

Thanks for the tip. I've been using Adaptec's CD-RW software, but recently purchased Nero. I probably got the fixed version (3.21) and so didn't run into your problem.

Chip H.
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