Here's the scenario:

I have a PC with a Gigabyte KT133 mobo, running win XP pro on a new Seagate Barracuda IV HD. This setup has been running perfectly fine for the last 6 months.

This weekend I installed a K7S5A with an XP 1500 and 2x256 DDR RAM. When I boot, the mobo correctly indentifies the CPU and the HD by type. Then it stops with a blue screen that tells me that windows couldn't be started. When I start with a boot disk, it turns out that the C:\ partition seems to have vanished. The mobo designates the D:\partition as C: and, naturally, doesn't find windows there. When I re-install the old mobo, everything works just fine. What would cause a new mobo not to recognize a c:\ partition on a perfectly good HD?

Thanks for all the help.

Ed

Gigabyte KT133 = VIA chipset

K7S5A = SiS 735 Chipset

The IDE/motherboard drivers for the K7 board are not the same as for the KT133...you will not get it to boot until you reformat/reinstall the OS (or at least remove all references to the VIA drivers first, even the native XP drivers.....)

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

All drive cables connected with their pin 1's(red stripes) properly oriented and to the correct IDE channels?
Was the hard drive auto detected in BIOS?

Thanks for the quick responses.

ski: yes, the cables are correct connected and yes, the HD was auto-detected in the BIOS.

mjc: I realize that these are different chipsets but shouldn't the mobo boot at least into save mode to give me a chance to install the new drivers? I wouldn't expect it to work great but isn't making the entire c:\ partition disappear a bit crass? As regards the re-format/re-install of the OS, how do you do that if you can't find the c:\partition? How would I remove the VIA drivers or the native XP drivers?

Thanks for the help, I really appreciate that.

Ed

When you install XP did you go to NTFS for the file system?

You may be able to get in by using the XP CD to boot and try repairing the existing install (in which case you can then remove the references to the VIA board), or you could possibly boot with the old board and then remove all the current hardware from DM, then power down and swap to the new board, if PnP works correctly you should boot and XP will automatically detect the new hardware and install the needed drivers...

But the above methods do involve a fair amount of risk...plus there is a chance, depending on how much other hardware you changed that you will have to reactivate XP, so why not go all the way. Wiping the drive and repartitioning it will give you back your C:...

Not quite sure if the disappearing C: partition is the fault of XP, the VIA drivers, the SiS chipset, DMA or some combination of all of them. But I do know that these are some of the problems when making major hardware (especially motherboards) changes without a fresh install of the OS.



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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

The c:\ partition is NTSF, the D:\ part. is FAT32.

I have swapped probably half a dozen mobos over the last two years and every single one has booted, at least in safe mode.

I am willing to wipe out XP and create a new c:\ part and re-install windows. But my D http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/tongue.gifart has about two dozen apps installed and I am not willing to wipe that out just to accomodate a crappy mobo; nobody can even guarantee that it will work then. There must be a way to tell it that there is a C:\part with windows on it. Unfortunately, the ECS tech support doesn't seem to exist, at least they're hiding very well.

Anyone else any ideas?

Cheers,

Ed

Try the recovery from the XP CD, you may be having a problem with the MBR (that isn't exactly what NTFS uses but is serves the same function...the recovery should fix that).

What where the other versions of Windows.....on the other boards?

XP is a somewhat different critter, I'm not even sure that M$ knows how it will react in some situations, and yours is probalby one of the ones where it won't react well. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif

If you have another machine handy, and some space on the drive you could slave the problem drive to it and copy the D: partition to another folder and then return it after you have reformatted the drive...


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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

Ed....

Welcome to the ECS K7S5A world of many problems.

Here is a link to a BBS for help with this board. The
guys there are pretty sharp with the K7S5A.

http://pub65.ezboard.com/bk7s5amotherboardforum

Luck.

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