problems with: A7N8X dlx & Maxtor SATA 120Gb hd: drive constancy errors etc?

[Ben Pope]

Hi

I have a new system built around the Asus mobo with the 120 Gb SATA Maxtor
(with 8mb cache) attached via the SATA cable rather than using the IDE
interface. I installed the Silicon Image drivers, Windows XP Pro and chose
to format the disk as NTFS. I also chose to have two partitions.

Occasionally I saw 'drive consistency errors where windows didn't boot and
some form of auto check happened. This would often report an error, but
clear on resetting the machine.

Then the computer was left for a couple of weeks and after that it
couldn't mount the boot drive?( I think that was the error) I chkdsk'd
and reloaded the Silicon Image SATA drivers when given the prompt via the
Windows XP install procedure and things seemed to work fine. I also then
flashed my BIOS to latest version 1006.

Now it says there is an error in the config file. I have had to reload the
Silicon drivers yet again. I have tried the recovery console and chkdsk /r
but it reports unrecoverable errors. If I try and re-install Windows XP, I
get told there is an unrecognisable OS on the partition and having more
than one OS on a partition is not recommended!!

I have also noticed problems with the graphics getting corrupted after
powering back after the machine has gone into power saving mode.

So my questions are:
1) Will reinstalling over-write the existing files and cure any errors in
the config file?

Repair install.

2) Should I re-format and start all over again? with the new BIOS etc

Use the latest Sata Enhanced Uber, it has the latest SATA BIOS in it - no
idea of the fixes, but worth a shot.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/michael.mcclay/

3) What is causing the problems? Is this the SATA corruption I have read
about?

Hmm. The "Sata corruption problem" is with RAID and was fixed in BIOS
1004/5 depending on the revision. But look at the similar post 21 hours
ago.

Ben

 

[Dave]

Hi

I have a new system built around the Asus mobo with the 120 Gb SATA Maxtor
(with 8mb cache) attached via the SATA cable rather than using the IDE
interface. I installed the Silicon Image drivers, Windows XP Pro and chose
to format the disk as NTFS. I also chose to have two partitions.

Occasionally I saw 'drive consistency errors where windows didn't boot and
some form of auto check happened. This would often report an error, but
clear on resetting the machine.

Then the computer was left for a couple of weeks and after that it couldn't
mount the boot drive?( I think that was the error) I chkdsk'd and reloaded
the Silicon Image SATA drivers when given the prompt via the Windows XP
install procedure and things seemed to work fine. I also then flashed my
BIOS to latest version 1006.

Now it says there is an error in the config file. I have had to reload the
Silicon drivers yet again. I have tried the recovery console and chkdsk /r
but it reports unrecoverable errors. If I try and re-install Windows XP, I
get told there is an unrecognisable OS on the partition and having more than
one OS on a partition is not recommended!!

I have also noticed problems with the graphics getting corrupted after
powering back after the machine has gone into power saving mode.

So my questions are:
1) Will reinstalling over-write the existing files and cure any errors in
the config file?
2) Should I re-format and start all over again? with the new BIOS etc
3) What is causing the problems? Is this the SATA corruption I have read
about?

Many thanks for any help given
Dave

The rest of the system is:
Sapphire Radeon 9000 Atlantis Pro
1Gb of Crucial ddr 333 ram

 

[Dave]

Hi

Just a note to others with this problem. I followed Ben's
link:http://homepage.ntlworld.com/michael.mcclay/ and downloaded the Uber
files for my mobo. Had to reinstall windows XP but now it seems much
improved. The computer now goes in and out of standby fine, so I am now
assuming the corruption I was seeing was due to data corruption from sata
hard disk problem. Just keeping my fingers crossed that I have got rid of
all those 'data inconsistency's errors

Must say thanks to the guy that has done this Uber BIOS too. Amazing to
think its better then the ASUS one!

Cheers Ben
Dave