A puzzling problem

Aero · 24 Nov 2007 at 20:24

Well it is for me anyway.

I was wondering if anybody has any idea as to what is wrong with my brothers pc. Its basically my old pc (specs see below) however because he has a "magical way" with computer being 13 and all he has "borked" it. (it seemed the most appropriate word) All worked fine until I tried to do a fresh install of xp at which point I was having some serious issues with finiding the HDD for installation. I tried numerous HDD's I have but to no avail. I tried formatting them on other pc's then putting them in blank but still didn't work.
However I managed to find an old HDD I had used with that system so I installed that and the pc boots up fine and runs well, except for the graphics card a (x700pro) which in system manager seems to be displayed as a rage card with no drivers installed and whenever I try to download new drivers for it. The system cannot seem to detect it. This has had me stumped for weeks and I'm fed up with it :mad:

anyone got any ideas? Any suggestions are welcome! (as I'd rather not have him borking mine over xmas)

I feel the motherboard might have gone but I'm not sure.

Cheers

Aero

xp 2400+
3gb DDR RAM
X700 PRO 256mb (sapphire)
80GB WD HDD
(if any more info is needed just asked)

Aero · 25 Nov 2007 at 17:25

Sorry for the shameless bump

but I could really do with some advice to fix this for my brother for xmas.

Thanks

Aero

Yewen · 25 Nov 2007 at 17:28

What motherboard are you running, not an Abit KD7-Raid by any chance?

Delvis · 25 Nov 2007 at 17:33

The lack of detecting the hard drive during the O/S installation could be because you need an F6 raid driver, i needed that with my old setup cause windows wouldn't detect it.

Have you tried un-installing the graphics card while in safe mode perhaps, go back into windows normally and then install the driver. Don't let the O/S install any basic drivers for it either, if it asks, just cancel the installation and do the Catalyst installation yourself.

Aero · 25 Nov 2007 at 17:35

Its an ASUS A7V8X-X would I need a RAID Driver if the HDD is IDE though? I didn't think you could use raid with IDE (and thanks for the replies guys!)
I'll try re-installing the GFX card like you said quickly)

Delvis · 25 Nov 2007 at 17:37

Aero said:
Its an ASUS A7V8X-X

I had the A7n8x-deluxe

Try and download the F6 Raid drivers from the asus site for XP, only problem is you will need a floppy disk + drive...Then when the cd-rom boots off the cd, it will say something like "press F6 to install a RAID/Scsi driver".

Try the things above for the graphics card though.

Yewen · 25 Nov 2007 at 17:38

You can use raid with IDE, if you are using the RAID controller then you will need the drivers so windows can see it correctly, some of the early socket 462 boards only used the onboard RAID for all of the IDE functions.

Not sure on your board though, take a peak on Asus' website for floppy raid drivers and that may sort it all out for you on the hard drive side of things.

-Beaten to it, for the record the KD7 was where it was at pre NF7

Aero · 25 Nov 2007 at 18:20

LOL right now the pc won't boot up in safe mode freezes on mup.sys, which is weird and when trying to start normally it seems to go to the windows loading screen then it goes black so I'm thinking update the bios and install the raid driver then reinstall windows (fun fun fun) and fingers crossed it will detect the HDD and all will work well. I'll let people know how it goes!

Delvis · 26 Nov 2007 at 17:05

Just remember, you install the Raid driver 'while' your installing windows...Well, theoretically just before you install windows actually

When it boots from the cd for the first time it will say press F6 a the bottom of the screen

Make sure you don't miss it

Aero · 26 Nov 2007 at 17:22

I remember seeing it strange though as I've never had to do this with this system before just since my brother has had it. My family can break pc's at 10 paces.

Thanks

Aero