[Buster Longwood]

For anyone who wants to put on their thinking caps and solve this, I'd be really, really appreciative.

I recently upgraded my computer. Kept my old IDE HDs, sound card, PSU, and CD drive. Specs on the machine are as follows:

-MGE XG Vigor 500W PSU
-Gigabyte 8GPNXP Duo mobo
-Kingston KVR533D2N4K2 2GB kit RAM
-P4 3GHz 530J CPU
-Maxtor 6L200MO SATA HD
-Three Maxtor 6Y080P0 HDs
-Samsung SW-252B CD-RW
-M-Audio Delta 66 sound card
-Sapphire Radeon X550 128Mb PCI express 16


Initially tried hooking it up with my old IDE HDs, but the existing Windows XP Pro install from my old machine wouldn't start properly with all the new hardware, even after doing a repair install. (Got close with the repair install, but it would hang up and give me this lsass.exe. Found a little bit of info on that on Microsoft.com and other places, although it's confusing in that this can either be a legitimate Windows problem or the sasser worm.)

So I got the SATA HD to install as my system drive. Figured I'd start fresh.

The motherboard is a Gigabyte, and it's got a slightly weird setup. It has a single true IDE port (IDE 1). It also has two more separate IDE ports (IDE and IDE 3) that are controlled by a separate RAID controller, so you can set up some IDE HDs in a RAID configuration or you can set it to ATA and have them all function normally. It also has four SATA ports.

Yesterday, tried hooking everything up. SATA was going to be the system drive. On IDE 2 had a master drive and a slave drive. On IDE 3 had my CD drive as master and another HD as a slave.

No problems in startup or in BIOS—it recognized all the drives just fine.

Ran Maxblast and partitioned and formatted the SATA drive (but not the others, I DO NOT want to lose any of the data on them). Maxblast had no trouble recognizing all the drives either.

Booted and went to load Windows XP Pro. Hit F6 during startup to add the RAID controller driver for those IDE drives and also the SATA AHCI controller, just in case.

No dice. After all the drivers finished loading, I got a BSOD. Googled the first error code number sequence inside the parentheses and got just one discussion on a forums relating to this problem. But this guy's solutions didn't work for me.
The error code was 0x0000007B (0XF78DA63C, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000).

I tried fiddling with things and nothing has worked. Tried clearing the CMOS with a jumper. Tried taking out the motherboard battery. Tried a couple times unseating the memory and putting it back in. Tried with the IDE drives disconnected and just the SATA hooked up and the CD drive connected to IDE 1 (the "true" IDE port without a separate controller).

Nothing worked. Tried zero filling (quick, not full) the first 63 sectors of the SATA drive to erase anything. I tried using an old Seagate 4 gig HD, with just that and the CD drive connected, to install windows to. Still the same BSOD crap.

Although I got a slightly different error code eventually. Though googling it still got me nowhere. And neither of the error codes return any hits when you search Microsoft's website (except for the number sequence outside the parentheses, i.e. 0x00000007B).

New error code was 0x0000007B (0XF78D663C, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

I figured next I'd try memtest86+ to see if the memory's OK. And I may try zero filling the entire SATA HD. Beyond that, I'm stumped.

But I can't figure out what else it'd be. Unseating the memory should clear it, so there can't be any way for the BIOS or the memory to be infected with a virus or a worm, right?

I tried all the various configurations in the BIOS, such as setting the SATA controller to RAID, then to AHCI, then to disabled (installing appropriate RAID or AHCI drivers at Win setup F6 phase each time). Tried BIOS defaults. Tried it with the GigaRAID ATA RAID controller enabled in ATA mode and disabled (also loading ITE8212 drivers at F6 setup prompt).

Anyone have any answers?

Thanks.

[Advertisements]

Did you follow these instructions:
ICH6R SATA(RAID) O.S. Installation Manual
http://tw.giga-byte......GPNXP Duo.htm

(skipping the RAID sections)

Did you download the latest driver from the gigabyte website (rather than the ones on the disk)

--just so we're on the same page

[gerryf]

Did you follow these instructions:
ICH6R SATA(RAID) O.S. Installation Manual
http://tw.giga-byte......GPNXP Duo.htm

(skipping the RAID sections)

Did you download the latest driver from the gigabyte website (rather than the ones on the disk)

--just so we're on the same page

[Buster Longwood]

Yep, downloaded the latest driver and followed the same instructions. F6, S, load proper driver, etc.

After setup finishes loading all the drivers, instead of moving on to the Welcome to Setup screen, I get the BSOD.

Note that when I disconnected the IDE drives and had ONLY the SATA drive hooked up to install XP on, I didn't bother loading the ATA RAID controller, obviously, as the CD drive was connected to the first IDE port, which is not controlled by the GigaRAID controller. But that shouldn't be a problem.

[dsenette]

http://support.micro...kb;en-us;324103 <---found that on the MS kb....referencing your 0x0000007B error... it blames either a boot sector virus (unlikely on a fresh drive) or driver conflicts

[Buster Longwood]

Thanks. I had seen that Microsoft help page already, but I started reading it closer this time.

I noted that my mobo's not listed in the Windows catalog of compatible hardware. That's not something I ever thought of checking before purchasing it, frankly. I don't know if it's a serious problem or if that makes it clear that there a driver conflict, or worse, incompatibility with the mobo. (I can't believe it'd be complete incompatibility, though, as I did perform a repair install twice with the old IDE drives and get to the point where Windows was loading, before a separate problem halted things.)

Is it worth updating my BIOS with Gigabyte's Q-Flash?

Is there a stripped down method of booting XP setup so that it doesn't load drivers that might conflict with my board's?

Or is it a matter of reconfiguring IRQ addresses in the BIOS?

Gigabyte offers the latest chipset driver on their site, but is that a driver that can be loaded during XP setup, like when it prompts you to hit F6?

Obviously, buying a new mobo isn't the most attractive option to me at the moment. . . .

[dsenette]

you could try updating the bios...never a bad idea

i was thinking maybe more along the lines of being a bad raid driver or sata driver that was being loaded...as that's the stage where the crap-out occurs...

[Buster Longwood]

I didn't have much chance to work on it last night. Though I did once again reset the CMOS, removed the mobo battery for a minute and reinstalled it, and did a low level format of the drive (at this point, only the SATA drive and the CD drive are connected).

In the BIOS I turned off anything I didn't immediately need (disabled onboard IEEE 1394, LAN1, LAN2, serial port, parallel port) to make sure there weren't any IRQ conflicts. Made sure the GigaRAID controller was disabled.

Still the same BSOD.

Even disabled the SATA controller again, so that it shouldn't even see the SATA drive, and loaded XP setup (without bothering with F6 and the SCSI drivers), and still the same thing.

Running out of options, I guess.

Didn't get to run Memtest86+. May still try that tonight, though it's a long shot.

If it's a bad RAID or SATA driver, as you mentioned, what's the solution to fixing that? I've tried both the latest drivers from the website and the older drivers on the disc that came with the mobo.

[dsenette]

after reading that kb further....it does suggest to update the bios...have you tried that yet?(not reset it..but download a new bios version and install it)

http://tw.giga-byte......GPNXP Duo.htm <---your bios can be found here...get the f7 version.....the giga-byte website....sucks

[dsenette]

http://tw.giga-byte....bios_qflash.pdf here are the instructions on using the qflash utility

[Buster Longwood]

Thanks for your patience, dsenette.

I downloaded the F7 BIOS version yesterday, but haven't had a chance to update the BIOS yet. I'll put that first on the list tonight.

And yes, the Gigabyte website blows.

I did a little looking around and was wondering whether setting the SATA controller in the BIOS to AHCI is a waste of time, because I'm beginning to wonder whether my drive can handle that. I was sticking with that because I only have one SATA drive and didn't think a RAID setup on one drive was the best option. Maybe I'm wrong (often the case) and that's where my problem is?

[dsenette]

well....a raid set up on one drive...is useless...in theory...you don't need to set up raid at all...or at least you shouldn't have to...

[Buster Longwood]

Right, which is why I was largely ignoring it. But the BIOS options are:

-RAID: Select onboard Serial ATA function as RAID. (Default value)
-AHCI: Support hotplug function under OS. WinXP,2000 only.
-Disabled: Select onboard Serial ATA function as ATA.

So far, neither the AHCI nor the Disabled options have worked.

Looking around, the Maxtor DiamondMax 10 line supports NCQ (AHCI), so that shouldn't be my sticking point here.

[dsenette]

well....if you're not planning on wanting to use that as hot swapable drive..then the ahci is useless

[Buster Longwood]

So you'd suggest setting the BIOS SATA controller to Disabled then, if RAID and AHCI are pointless? Does that setting still enable the drive to function at SATA/150 speeds?

AHCI seemed worthwhile, not for the hot-swap-ability, but because of the NCQ, which possibly offers modest performance gains.

[dsenette]

it's possible...that the ahci would be effective...but...if it's not working...then we have to try the other options.....since you say disabled isn't going...it might be best to attempt the raid set up....

i'm not familiar with the ncq..so i can't realy suggest anything on that...

but i do know...that any level of raid...on a single drive...is well...relatively pointless...as raid is for disaster recovery...if all the raid info is stored on one drive...well...you lose the disaster recovery functions because when that drive dies...so does the raid....but..in this case...it may be the only option out of the list that goes..

before going too far into that decision though...i would see what the bios update does