a7n8x-e deluxe drive detection

[joiaefw]

I just replaced my old crappy soyo k57-whatever with an asus a7n8x-e deluxe.
I'm pretty sure all my connections are correct (first time installing a
motherboard). Anyway, when I go into the bios I can detect both of my Maxtor
HD's (a 20 and a 40) and both cd drirves. When I start the computer it will
either say that windows wasn't shut down properly and gives me the option of
starting in safe mode or it will boot to an A prompt if I have a floppy in.
If I boot with no disk in and choose start normally/safe mode/with command
prompt it will load a list of drivers and then restart. When I get to A
prompt the windows 98 boot disk will load drivers for both cd drives but not
the hard drives. This confuses me because the bios detects both hard drives.
If I start the computer with a windows XP Pro cd it will take me to the
installation process, loading setup files but freeze on 'starting windows.'

Summed up, the problem is that the bios can see my hard drives but DOS
can't. Any suggestions.

 

[peter]

you do realize that changing a MOBO under XP requires a "repair" installation to
correct the HAL???
XP REPAIR
.............................................................................

Boot from the CD or you can insert the CD while at the windows desktop but
when the setup screen appears, exit setup and reboot. If your system is set
to be able to boot from the CD, it should detect the disk and give a brief
message, during the boot up, if you wish to boot from the CD press any key.

Once you have pressed a key, setup should begin. You will see a reference
asking if you need to load special drivers and another notice that if you
wish to begin the ASR (Automatic Recovery Console) depress F2. Just let
setup run past all of that. It will continue to load files and drivers.

Then it will bring you to a screen. Eventually, you will come to a screen
with the option to (1) setup Windows or (2) Repair Windows Installation
using the Recovery console.

The first option, to setup Windows is the one you want and requires you to
press enter. When asked, press F8 to accept the end user agreement. Setup
will then search for previous versions of Windows. Upon finding your
version, it will ask if you wish to Repair your current installation or
install fresh. Press R, that will run a repair installation. From there
on, follow the screens.
peter

 

[SPRITE1001]

Will running the repair option delete any settings or file assotations?
Otherwords will it do anything funky?

 

[peter]

No...it just corrects the HAL or at least it should in your case
It will check other XP files to see if they have been changed and correct them
peter

 

[joiaefw]

Heh, wow... I'm pretty embarressed right now and people are going to thing
bad of me... but I reset the cmos and now when I turn on the power there are
no system beeps and the monitor never changes from 'brown' to 'green.' I
imagine I can claim it was DOA (I'm still not entirely convinced that it
arrived in working condition, it was refurb and some problems with the bios
flash utility where there from the start), but is there anythign I can do to
fix this?