775Dual-VSTA and a SATA HDD

Daywrecker · Post by **Daywrecker** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 7:07 pm

Im upgrading my system and i have an AsRock 775Dual-VSTA and a Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 HDD from my old system. The computer won't boot for the life of it on the T7K250 SATA HDD. I have the latest BIOS update, selected "non-RAID" in the BIOS, disabled spread spectrum, tried booting the AsRock from an IDE drive (works fine), tried booting my old system with the T7K250 (works fine and using it now), and selected 1.5GB/s SATA interface with Hitachi's Features Tool (since the AsRock doesn't support SATA II) and i still can't get the thing to boot. The error i get is "A disk read error occurred press ctrl+alt+del to restart"

So far no one on Tom's Hardware forum has been able to help and so far AsRock and Hitachi haven't been able to help either. Anyone have any ideas?

PS. i've also tried disconnecting every device i could except the HDD

Post by **Ash2Dust** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 9:03 pm

"A disk read error occurred press ctrl+alt+del to restart"

The usual suspect is a hard drive with unreadable sectors. Do a full chkdsk or error checking in your old system. Next step is to return the MB or get a SATA PCI card.

Does the BIOS correctly identify the drive?
Do you have the BIOS pointing to the correct boot device (drive)?
Do you have a floppy drive hooked up with a floppy in it?
What happens when you boot off the CD and start installing Windows?

I'm assuming you're running Win XP. WinXP most likely wont run on a new motherboard without re-installing it from your Retail (or Generic OEM) Win XP CD. Exceptions I've seen is when the old and new MB have the same chipset. I prefer formatting the drive and doing a clean install anyways with a MB change.

Daywrecker · Post by **Daywrecker** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 9:39 pm

I haven't done a full scan on the hard drive but did do a quick scan without any errors plus im using it now without any problems. Im trying to avoid reinstalling windows, then of course everything else i have. I've done two MoBo changes with this HDD and had no problems. I even had an old hard drive from my mom's computer boot of the AsRock Mobo no problem (it was an IDE drive). There's gotta be something im missing or doing wrong, it just doesn't seem right that this specific hard drive won't boot. I tried every combination of drives possible w/ and w/o floppy and cd drives. The boot sequence is correct and the drive is properly recognized by the Mobo. It's also completely useable when i boot off the IDE drive. Plus i lost my WinXP cd long ago so that kinda rules out a fresh install.

One thing that i just realized is i ordered an indentical drive as the T7K225 for my mom's computer so tomorrow i'll try formating it and see if i can boot off that. If it does then i guess a reinstall is in store, if not, back to square one.

Daywrecker · Post by **Daywrecker** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 7:10 pm

Installing Windows on a brand new T7K225 SATA HDD didn't get me anywhere either. After i boot from the install CD, "Setup is analyzing your hardware" flashes real quick then goes to a blank screen (monitor light stays green). I waited for 15 minutes and Windows setup never came through.

MadRat · Post by **MadRat** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 7:18 pm

had similar problem with my system set my HDD to master
that seems to have cured my problem.

it dont matter if its primary master or secondary master.

just as long as its set to run as a master.

Daywrecker · Post by **Daywrecker** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 7:24 pm

It's a SATA drive and there's only one of them, it has to be the master. And it is plugged into the SATA I port on the Mobo

Post by **ph1l0r** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 4:31 am

Did you try to upgrade the mainboards bios already? There might be a firmware upgrade available for the hdd as well.

Daywrecker · Post by **Daywrecker** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 9:12 am

BIOS is up to date but im having trouble with the firmware for the HDD. Hitachi's given me two updates. The first one didn't work cause i need to install another one first but when they gave me that one it tells me a firmware update is needed but when i tries to update i get "Device not found Return Code = 0x20" Im waiting for a reply from Hitachi to get that sorted out.

Interfusi0n · Post by **Interfusi0n** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 10:16 am

Ash2Dust wrote:WinXP most likely wont run on a new motherboard without re-installing it from your Retail (or Generic OEM) Win XP CD.

I've never had any problems with doing that. I've only done it about 8 times though, so maybe it could be a problem and I've just been lucky. I can't really think of anything that would cause problems for windows with doing that, though.

Post by **ph1l0r** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 10:51 am

Hehe. No idea how you managed to move an installed windows between different hardware. It usually doesn't work without a good deal of preparation. As far as i know windows somehow registers a driver to access the harddisk it is installed. With your board some via driver will get loaded during boot. Same harddisk but with intel chipset. no go. Windows loads the via driver and instantly can't access the harddisk hooked up to the intel hdd controller anymore and fails to load. There are ways to work around this and force windows through detecting mass storage controllers but i gave up trying back when windows 98 and nt4 where the newest OSes and since then always reinstall. Nothing beats a clean install anyway. Only ugly part is getting everything back to the way it used to be.

Daywrecker · Post by **Daywrecker** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 12:37 pm

It looks like im gonna have to do a clean install anyway. I used DriveImage to create an image of my mom's old hard drive and place it on her new HDD. Someone how instead of selecting the blank drive i selected my drive (which was in use and running windows) and selected that as my destination drive. So i ended up erasing my hard drive... I've got everything i need backed up minus some music but that's ok i guess... But now im back to the issue of the Windows Installer not even running on the new system. "Setup is analyzing your hardware" flashes then i just get a blank screen. I don't even get the option to load any drivers...

Post by **ph1l0r** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 12:39 pm

You are asked to press F8 during boot to supply drivers from a floppy disk. Did you by any chance enable raid in the bios? Windows might choke on that.

Daywrecker · Post by **Daywrecker** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 12:56 pm

NO-RAID is selected. The Windows Setup doesn't get that far. I know what you're talking about when the blue screen comes up and says hit F6 to install third party raid drivers. Maybe it freezes on that step and shows a blank screen, i haven't tried hitting F6 yet. Anyone have a copy of Windows XP Home that they could send me an image of? I have a key but lost my CD a long time ago. Right now im on a bootleg copy of XP Pro on my mom's computer and it's not a geniune copy of course. But i need XP Home to install legit.

Daywrecker · Post by **Daywrecker** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 1:19 pm

Apperantly i don't have a key either.... When does Vista come out...?

Daywrecker · Post by **Daywrecker** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 1:54 pm

Hurray XP Key Recovery!
http://www.dagondesign.com/articles/win ... -recovery/