I'm in installation hell!

[Helevitia]

Specs:

Asus A7V266-E
1.2GHz Athlon 100MHz FSB
ATI AIW Radeon 32MB DDR
512MB Mushkin PC2100 DDR
SB Audigy Platinum
Intel NIC
2xIBM 40GB RAID(Striping)
1xIBM 15GB
HP CDRW 10x4x32 9300i
Samsung DVD
Mistubishi DP 2040u 22"


Quick note: Win98se installs and works just fine


Problem:

I reformatted all HDD, installed WinXP, upon reboot, I got a STOP message:

"A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer."

"STOP: 0x0000007B "

Now, a lot has happened before I got to this point but it is too much detail. Since this has happened, I have tried everything from removing all of the hardware, to changing memory slots to reseating all of the cards, to redoing my RAID setup a billion times, to re-installing the OS 500 thousand times, etc...
I have checked all of the A7V fan sites that I know of, check all of Microsoft, but nothing leads me to a true resolution. I have tried different BIOS, etc... IF anyone has ever had any experience with this stop message or you have some advice, I would be most grateful. Let me know if you need more info.

Thanks,

Dave

[Ali]

The damage to your computer thing sounds temp related.

Does your mobo have temp readings, and or fan speed readings? If you have your CPU fan plugged into the wrong fan header, XP might be reading your CPU fan as not spinning, and be shutting off.

Are you sure your CPU isnt getting a little hot? did you bump it, and move the contact area with your heatsink?

Ali

[birdy]

I had this problem recently. Turned out to be the CD rom not liking XP(or vice versa). Once i unplugged it went on fine. Ended up using an old generic CD rom that i had laying around

gotta be worth a try

[Dilitante1]

I assume you read M$ statements on this being an inaccessable boot device...
The Stop 0x7B message indicates that Windows XP Professional has lost access to the system partition or boot volume during the startup process. Installing incorrect device drivers when installing or upgrading storage adapter hardware....etc

So check the RAID drivers for XP that you are using, and the XP drivers for the controller onboard DL them again if needed and try again?

my $0.02

[Helevitia]

Originally posted by Ali
The damage to your computer thing sounds temp related.

Does your mobo have temp readings, and or fan speed readings? If you have your CPU fan plugged into the wrong fan header, XP might be reading your CPU fan as not spinning, and be shutting off.

Are you sure your CPU isnt getting a little hot? did you bump it, and move the contact area with your heatsink?

Ali

All temps look good in the BIOS. But thanks for the help Ali

Dave

[Helevitia]

Originally posted by birdy
I had this problem recently. Turned out to be the CD rom not liking XP(or vice versa). Once i unplugged it went on fine. Ended up using an old generic CD rom that i had laying around

gotta be worth a try

I removed everything. I have two CD-ROMs and I tried both, one at a time, and none at all. Only thing I haven't tried yet is a new video card. hmmm...Wish there was a new video card coming out that I want to buy that I could try out Thanks for the help birdy

Dave

[Helevitia]

Originally posted by Dilitante1
I assume you read M$ statements on this being an inaccessable boot device...
The Stop 0x7B message indicates that Windows XP Professional has lost access to the system partition or boot volume during the startup process. Installing incorrect device drivers when installing or upgrading storage adapter hardware....etc

So check the RAID drivers for XP that you are using, and the XP drivers for the controller onboard DL them again if needed and try again?

my $0.02

Hi Dil,

I did read all of the info re: the 0x7b stuff. Definitely seems to be pointing to my RAID setup or partition or mbr info. I have been concentrating in this area. I have tried the default XP drivers(which have worked in the past), I have tried newer rAIS drivers from Asus, I've recreated the RAID array in stripe and mirror mode. It's weird since XP has been running fine since September and Win98se installs just fine. I even tried FDISK /mbr command just for grins but that didn't help.

Currently, I am removing RAID, FDISKing, Partitioning, and re-formatting each disk seperately hoping that maybe something was just a little screwy with RAID. If this doesn't work I might have to resort to replacing one thing at a time to see if I can fix the problem. Sucks though because I am kinda broke right now. OH yeah! one more thing! At one point, the promise controller complained that I had some kind of IRQ problem. At that point, I removed all devices, and juggled some IRQ's around in BIO but still no luck. I have promise on 10, ATI on 11, IDE on 14/15. sigh...one HDD is almost finsihed formatting and then I'll do the other. Thanks again everyone.

Dave

[Rags]

Try installing it without using the RAID.

Rags

[Rags]

Oh and use the recovery console if you suspect a boot sector problem.

Rags

[Dilitante1]

OK, I have run into this issue under Win2K Pro. Only way was to install Promise card AFTER OS is up and running. I istall the Promise card, reboot, verify, then shift over to Promise card for next boot.....might be worth a shot


-Dil

[Helevitia]

Problem with that is, once you setup RAID, you have to reformat. I guess I could instll everything, ghost it, RAID it, and pray. Well, I'm almost done formatting the second HDD. After that I will try a normal RAID again with nothing else in the system except the HDDs, video card, and one cd-rom.

Dave

[Dilitante1]

what kind of RAID? 0,1,5?

if RAID is software via OS, Win2K handles it as dynamic drives which are not bootable.(I am assuming XP handles it the same way)

If the RAID is hardware with a dedicated controller, the RAID is configured prior to OS installation.

So what you saying confuses me a bit Dave.


-Dil

[Helevitia]

It's hardware RAID. I have a promise chip on my motherboard. I can either do raid 1 or 0. I am getting ready to try striping(again).

Dave

[Snake-Eyes]

It definitely sounds like a RAID driver problem. Have you tried downloading the Promise drivers from the Promise website . I've found that those usually are more up-to-date than the drivers provided by the motherboard manufacturers. Also, recently I've started using the Promise FastTrak TX2000 drivers. These seem to have support for nearly all previous Promise controllers built-in, and provided a minor performance boost over what I was using (from MSI). I'm pretty sure the FastTrak100 controller on your motherboard would be supported by the same driver set, if you would like to give them a try.

Good luck figuring this one out.

[Paddy]

I get the same message whenever I forget to hit F5 (or whatever) to install a specific SCSI adaptor driver.

From reading your posts, i'd say that you did have an inaccessable boot device.... odd how it worked before.... have you changed the BIOS on the RAID controller??? I guess that might make it want different drivers....