I have been using a self-built PC based on an Abit KV7 RAID motherboard (Athlon XP CPU) and dual SATA drives in RAID (mirrored). The hardware is 6 years old. Last night, the machine froze on me. This morning, I switched it on and went through the normal BIOS screen OK with the usual single beep,but when it got to the RAID screen it said something along the lines of 'BIOS appeared not installed'. I am guessing that the motherboard is frogged now, and destined for the bin.
Questions:
1. What can I do to test it further and see if I can coax it back into life? The BIOS battery must be OK as the time and date in the BIOS are correct. Not sure how to try and boot into the RAID part of the BIOS.
2. If the MoBo is frogged, it looks like rebuild time. So AMD or Intel is the bigger question? Who offers the best bang per buck at the moment. Last time I looked it was intel. Guess its time for a quad core machine whichever make.
3. I am not that keen on going for Vista. I still have an XP licence so could use that on a rebuild for now. I am also aware that Windows 7 is being launched in October, so there is some logic in skipping Vista and going straight for that. Would that sound wise?
4. In the meantime, if I extract one of the hard drives from the dead machine, which has the XP OS and a load of data and programs on (backed up yesterday fortunately onto an external), would it "work" if transplanted into a new rig running quads and 64 bit. That would I know, not be ideal, but it would get me up and running very quickly without having to reinstall everything right now (could then do all the software and program install when Windows 7 is out).
Help!
Thanks
Bryan
Questions:
1. What can I do to test it further and see if I can coax it back into life? The BIOS battery must be OK as the time and date in the BIOS are correct. Not sure how to try and boot into the RAID part of the BIOS.
2. If the MoBo is frogged, it looks like rebuild time. So AMD or Intel is the bigger question? Who offers the best bang per buck at the moment. Last time I looked it was intel. Guess its time for a quad core machine whichever make.
3. I am not that keen on going for Vista. I still have an XP licence so could use that on a rebuild for now. I am also aware that Windows 7 is being launched in October, so there is some logic in skipping Vista and going straight for that. Would that sound wise?
4. In the meantime, if I extract one of the hard drives from the dead machine, which has the XP OS and a load of data and programs on (backed up yesterday fortunately onto an external), would it "work" if transplanted into a new rig running quads and 64 bit. That would I know, not be ideal, but it would get me up and running very quickly without having to reinstall everything right now (could then do all the software and program install when Windows 7 is out).
Help!
Thanks
Bryan