Abit NF7-S Rev. 2 SATA Problems... Get Smiley figures at bootup....

[Trance_Allstar]

Hello.

this is a long problem, so I am going to take the liberty of copying the mail I sent to Abit support. If anyone has ever had anything like this happen to them, let me know what u did to fix it...


"Hello.

I'm from Sweden, and owner of a NF7-S Rev. 2 Abit Motherboard. It was
purchased in early july.

Early on, I had problems with data corruption on the board. Several
reinstalls of WindowsXP did not rid this problem. After a couple of
days of work I managed to get a stable install of Windows that didn't give me data corrupt messages. The solution at the time seemed to be to avoid installing Windows RAID drivers. (I could avoid it since Windows warned me during installation that unsigned drivers were about to be installed. I decided to not install them to see if it helped,
and it seemed to). Before that I was set on the assumption that it was
the system harddrive that was malfunctioning.
I have 2 harddrives. 1 Western Digital Raptor 36GB as system disk and
a Maxtor 160GB as general storage. Both of these are S-ATA and are
connected to the built-in Silicon Image S-ATA controller.

Then everything worked fine, up untill today. Today I had set out to
replace an old 256-MB stick of RAM for a pair of 512 PC4000 ones.

I opened my computer, and removed the 256 stick, and replaced it with
the 2 512 sticks, turned the computer off, cleared CMOS. I was
intending to use them in Dual Channel. This memory replacement routine
I have done many times before, and there have been no problems. But
now, when I booted my computer again, It froze during boot. I tried
several times to boot, and I tried different RAM latencies, voltages
etc. to find one that would boot.
I also tried changing back to the original RAM, and running that with
the exact same settings as before (meaning it theoretically should
work). But the same behaviour continued.

All the time when attempting to try and boot into Windows, I noticed
some very weird behaviour on the S-ATA Raid Screen (where you can
press Ctrl+S to access the RAID area of the Silicon Image Chip).

Normally, this has been the display there:

0: WDC blabla 35893MB
1: Maxtor blabla 156000MB

It probably looks familiar

However, now I would get all sorts of things.

Initially, it would look like this:

0: WDC blabla 35893MB
1: Maxtor blabla 131000MB

The wrong size of the Maxtor disk was displayed. One time it was
stated at 300MB.

Then, the error just seemed to progress:
I got this error a while later:

0: WDC blabla 35893MB
1: "Smileyfigures" 0MB

Not sure what they mean, but there were smileys instead of the Maxtor
HDD. Sometimes there were lots of smileys, one time there was just
one.

They didn't look like this ":-)", but resembled an ordinary face. It
was 2 dots for eyes, and a mouth that seemed to have a smiling
expression.

I also got bluescreens when trying to boot, or during boot.
The stopcode had this description on Microsoft's website:

"The purpose of this behavior is to prevent potential data loss due to
the use of an incorrect IDE cable for the faster UDMA modes or due to
continued access to a drive on which the file system is damaged."

Since I use S-ATA the first statement doesn't apply. So there must be
a file system damage.

This statement was reinforced when I eventually managed to boot and
got a message that a file (Verdana font) was corrupt. Windows also
tried to initiate an Inconcistency check on the C: harddrive. These
Inconcistency checks on the C: Harddrive were what initially (when I
first had problems with corrupt data) thought it was caused by a
faulty harddrive.

However, I now noticed in Windows that the Maxtor harddrive wasn't
detected at all.
That doesn't exactly seem like something a faulty C-drive would cause.
And after a reboot i noticed that only the C-drive (the WD Raptor
disk) was detected on the S-ATA screen at startup.

I then decided to test something. I opened the computer and simply
swapped the S-ATA connectors so that the Maxtor was now attached to
the connector that the WD Raptor occupied, and vice versa.

I started the computer, and looked at the S-ATA-screen. Now only the
Maxtor showed, and the Raptor was nowhere to be found. It seemed one
of the S-ATA channels was lost.

I swapped again, to see if the Raptor would emerge again. But now, no
harddrive at all were detected. I also tried the WindowsXP install
disc. I started that, and installed the S-ATA drivers from the S_ATA
driver diskette that came with my board, so that the Windows Install
program would be able to identify my drives. But no drives were found
there either.

I have removed all harddrives, reconnected them, tried different
combinations. They are definately getting power and running when u
start the computer, but they just aren't detected.

This is where I am at. Not being able to Reinstall Windows.

I am using the D25 BIOS. I have also tried the D26 BIOS, but there was
no change in the state of the computer. Both of these are using the
S-ATA driver 4.2.47.

When I first got the Data Corrupt problems, and before i skipped the
RAID drivers to fix it, I looked around for a fix, and I found a note
on the Silicone Image site that said that the newest BIOS would fix a
glitch that could cause data corruption.
At that time, since my board was brand new, It already had the lateast
BIOS at that time (D25) installed. So the data corruption problems at
that time were caused by something not related to the BIOS. I am very
confident that is the case now aswell.

I am also pretty sure there is something really wrong with my board.
Especially the fact that one S-ATA channel after another just stopped
working. I can access the BIOS with no problems, and everything at
startup works fine up untill it starts to prepare for the boot."



Like I said, I need other opinions. Getting smileys at the S-ATA screen isn't something I am used to...


/ Victor Lantz

[torix_ro]

i know is to late now but i'v got the same problem on my computer.. the problem seems to be the motherboard bios. when u get that message first boot device is the flopy disk and the sacond HDD0 or 1 (nevermind..) (when boot try SCSI) when u try to first install Windows XP use first, second, third {...} device un CD-ROM and will work... i had this problem for some hours but i didn't gived up...

As i sad, i'v got the same problem the same the corrupt data on my 160Gb HDD Maxtor. I think is a maner of incompatibility between HDD and motherboard.

now i have other problem : the transfer rates between partitions is about 20Mb/s. I have the latest drivers instaled the last bios version, the HDD is set to UDMA-6. When i KiLL SataRAID.EXE from task manager the rates fall down to 1Mb/s. this is far form normality.

So, if u can help me i'll be glad.

the corrupt data problem is still not solved.. i cant use the last partition of hdd, did u?

cant wait hearing from u!
bye !

[aljaro]

Originally Posted by Trance_Allstar

Hello.

this is a long problem, so I am going to take the liberty of copying the mail I sent to Abit support. If anyone has ever had anything like this happen to them, let me know what u did to fix it...


"Hello.

I'm from Sweden, and owner of a NF7-S Rev. 2 Abit Motherboard. It was
purchased in early july.

Early on, I had problems with data corruption on the board. Several
reinstalls of WindowsXP did not rid this problem. After a couple of
days of work I managed to get a stable install of Windows that didn't give me data corrupt messages. The solution at the time seemed to be to avoid installing Windows RAID drivers. (I could avoid it since Windows warned me during installation that unsigned drivers were about to be installed. I decided to not install them to see if it helped,
and it seemed to). Before that I was set on the assumption that it was
the system harddrive that was malfunctioning.
I have 2 harddrives. 1 Western Digital Raptor 36GB as system disk and
a Maxtor 160GB as general storage. Both of these are S-ATA and are
connected to the built-in Silicon Image S-ATA controller.

Then everything worked fine, up untill today. Today I had set out to
replace an old 256-MB stick of RAM for a pair of 512 PC4000 ones.

I opened my computer, and removed the 256 stick, and replaced it with
the 2 512 sticks, turned the computer off, cleared CMOS. I was
intending to use them in Dual Channel. This memory replacement routine
I have done many times before, and there have been no problems. But
now, when I booted my computer again, It froze during boot. I tried
several times to boot, and I tried different RAM latencies, voltages
etc. to find one that would boot.
I also tried changing back to the original RAM, and running that with
the exact same settings as before (meaning it theoretically should
work). But the same behaviour continued.

All the time when attempting to try and boot into Windows, I noticed
some very weird behaviour on the S-ATA Raid Screen (where you can
press Ctrl+S to access the RAID area of the Silicon Image Chip).

Normally, this has been the display there:

0: WDC blabla 35893MB
1: Maxtor blabla 156000MB

It probably looks familiar

However, now I would get all sorts of things.

Initially, it would look like this:

0: WDC blabla 35893MB
1: Maxtor blabla 131000MB

The wrong size of the Maxtor disk was displayed. One time it was
stated at 300MB.

Then, the error just seemed to progress:
I got this error a while later:

0: WDC blabla 35893MB
1: "Smileyfigures" 0MB

Not sure what they mean, but there were smileys instead of the Maxtor
HDD. Sometimes there were lots of smileys, one time there was just
one.

They didn't look like this ":-)", but resembled an ordinary face. It
was 2 dots for eyes, and a mouth that seemed to have a smiling
expression.

I also got bluescreens when trying to boot, or during boot.
The stopcode had this description on Microsoft's website:

"The purpose of this behavior is to prevent potential data loss due to
the use of an incorrect IDE cable for the faster UDMA modes or due to
continued access to a drive on which the file system is damaged."

Since I use S-ATA the first statement doesn't apply. So there must be
a file system damage.

This statement was reinforced when I eventually managed to boot and
got a message that a file (Verdana font) was corrupt. Windows also
tried to initiate an Inconcistency check on the C: harddrive. These
Inconcistency checks on the C: Harddrive were what initially (when I
first had problems with corrupt data) thought it was caused by a
faulty harddrive.

However, I now noticed in Windows that the Maxtor harddrive wasn't
detected at all.
That doesn't exactly seem like something a faulty C-drive would cause.
And after a reboot i noticed that only the C-drive (the WD Raptor
disk) was detected on the S-ATA screen at startup.

I then decided to test something. I opened the computer and simply
swapped the S-ATA connectors so that the Maxtor was now attached to
the connector that the WD Raptor occupied, and vice versa.

I started the computer, and looked at the S-ATA-screen. Now only the
Maxtor showed, and the Raptor was nowhere to be found. It seemed one
of the S-ATA channels was lost.

I swapped again, to see if the Raptor would emerge again. But now, no
harddrive at all were detected. I also tried the WindowsXP install
disc. I started that, and installed the S-ATA drivers from the S_ATA
driver diskette that came with my board, so that the Windows Install
program would be able to identify my drives. But no drives were found
there either.

I have removed all harddrives, reconnected them, tried different
combinations. They are definately getting power and running when u
start the computer, but they just aren't detected.

This is where I am at. Not being able to Reinstall Windows.

I am using the D25 BIOS. I have also tried the D26 BIOS, but there was
no change in the state of the computer. Both of these are using the
S-ATA driver 4.2.47.

When I first got the Data Corrupt problems, and before i skipped the
RAID drivers to fix it, I looked around for a fix, and I found a note
on the Silicone Image site that said that the newest BIOS would fix a
glitch that could cause data corruption.
At that time, since my board was brand new, It already had the lateast
BIOS at that time (D25) installed. So the data corruption problems at
that time were caused by something not related to the BIOS. I am very
confident that is the case now aswell.

I am also pretty sure there is something really wrong with my board.
Especially the fact that one S-ATA channel after another just stopped
working. I can access the BIOS with no problems, and everything at
startup works fine up untill it starts to prepare for the boot."



Like I said, I need other opinions. Getting smileys at the S-ATA screen isn't something I am used to...


/ Victor Lantz

your problem is too much long to read and solve
first thing to do is to take out the maxtor HD out of your computer
make the first boot from western digital
and see what happen
change the bios to defualt setting
than reboot

[oddsocks]

not sure if this helps, but i have a similar problem - with a single maxtor 76gig SATA disk. Symptoms are either the PC fails to boot (gets stuck in the RAID detection area and doesn't seem to find the bootable drive) , or gives the random characters instead of the disk info in the RAID disk info.
I solve this by removing all power to the PC (mains out or psu switched off) and then removing the SATA cable from the disk and reapplying it - it's as if the motherboard CMOS battery keeps whatever corruption is there even with power off. Removing/reappying has worked in all but two cases...these were when it started to boot and gave a cannot load .../systemced error. This is a win2k issue caused by too big a system hive (google search on systemced for fix!).