it reads like a book

Hi,
I bought a computer about five months ago with an Asus Motherboard (K8V SE deluxe) from a local computer shop. Over the last week, when I was switching the computer off the Raid program wouldn't close (program not responding). Then for the last couple of days another program called "wowexec" stopped responding as well as the raid. I decided to put the Windows disc through the computer to see if I could repair the problem, but after the repair the computer wouldn't reboot. I was adviced to reformat the hard drive and reinstall Windows XP and re install all my drivers disc's,Mother board disc, graphic card disc etc. After everything was installed and I restarted my computer, during POST I get a screen that flashes up saying "scan devices" it says something else but flashes up so quick I can't see what, then it goes to another screen that says "Sata 378 TX2 plus Bios Detecting, no devise found,Bios not installed" Once the computer starts I keep getting a message from the task bar saying "new device found" and the new found hardware wizard appears. When I look in the Devise Manager to see what the new device is,it's in the "other devices" and it's "Promise Sata console SCSI Processor Devise" I've also had a Via Raid Tool box appear a couple of times that says "no stand alone disc and no usable disc array attached,please check if any disc array is broken" I phoned the shop where I bought it, but they were no help at all, (although they were very helpfull when I gave them £650 for it five months ago) The only thing I got from the conversation was that for some reason the Bios had re set (the default for the Bios is Raid). He also said somthing about, I must have installed Sata Drivers from my Motherboard Drivers Disc and on boot up the computer's looking for a second hard drive which I don't have, but wouldn't tell me how to fix the problem. All the drivers on the disc were one click auto install but the "Promise FastTrack 378 Driver" is a read me file that I followed closely.I've lost 80gig of documents, software and other programs due to this problem, Any help would be greatly appreciated to get me up and running again.
Thanks,
Fangy.

 

Do you actually HAVE a RAID system?

If not then don't load the RAID drivers.

 

What kind of hard drive are you using, SATA or IDE?
You should be able to go into your BIOS settings and check the settings for the RAID and SATA.

As for the BIOS not installed it seems that the drivers either were not loaded or did not load properly for that. If you do not have a disk for this controller check the ASUS web site, they should have them there. You can just do a search for them by lookinh up the board. usa.asus.com

 

I've uninstalled the raid drivers, but this didn't fix my problem. The only thing I know about my hard drive is it's a Maxtor and I think it's an IDE. I went into the Bios, to the onboard devices Configuration, and disabled the "on chip Sata boot rom" and the "on board Promise controller". Once I re started the computer all seems to well. Do you know if this was the right thing to do?
Thanks for the help,
Fangy.

 

I probably would have tried disabling the Promise controller from within Windows first.

I know that on my PC that it will not boot at all with the Dual Channel RAID drivers attempting to load so I've disabled them through the device manager and everything then works fine.

But if you are happy with the way your PC is currently working then I'd leave it at that unless of course you really want to get to the bottom of the problem......

 

Could disabling the Sata boot rom and the on board Promise controller in the Bios cause any damage to my system?All seems to be ok with it.
Fangy.

 

Not as far as I'm aware. But disabling the controller MAY slow the PC down. It certainly does if I do that on my PC. Why don't you re-enable the Promise Controller and see if the problem recurs. If it does disable it again and try enabling the SATA boot rom. If it still recurs then disable both again.

 

I tried re-enabling both, one at a time but my problem came back each time so I've disabled them both again. I haven't noticed any slow down. I wasn't sure if what I'd done could do damage although my problem seem's to be fixed
Thanks for your help,
Fangy.

 

OK as long as you're happy and things are working it sounds good to me.