Bad Driver

[richardd43]

My computer boots normal up to the point where it detects new hardware. Then it detecta a new 3132 Satalink controller. As soon as it detects the Sata controller I get a BSOD.

Safe mode does the same thing.

I put the OS disk in thinking I would just do a repair and take care of the problem.

The option to do a repair never appears. The partition says XP is there but it acts like this is a new install.

Am not sure but I think the problem appeared during a MS Satalink controller update that failed.

I need a flash of brilliance here so I don't have to reformat.

[ctjoyce]

Pop in your windows CD. Insted of hitting I or whatever to install, press the "R" key. You will get a DOS screen. Then type in these commands.

FIXBOOT

FIXMBR

EXIT

The computer will reboot, take out your OS CD and XP should boot.

Cheers
Cameron

[richardd43]

Tried that. The computer actually boots all the way up. But once it is booted it does the Found New Hardware thing then does the BSOD.

[NicksFXHouse]

Tried that. The computer actually boots all the way up. But once it is booted it does the Found New Hardware thing then does the BSOD.

so in other words... it starts a found new hardware run but does not prompt you for anything but simply crashes...

Can you disconnect the hardware involved or is this strictly a driver causing the problem?



BTW... if you ran the full Windows repair install all of your Windows updates went bye-bye so you may want to check and confirm that when you get the system running again.

[richardd43]

It is strictly a driver problem.

I would gladly run the repair option but it does not come up. It acts like a new install and never gives me the chance to repair the installation.

I have all the files backed up if formatting becomes the only choice, just am to lazy and was looking for a quick out.

[NicksFXHouse]

It is strictly a driver problem.

I would gladly run the repair option but it does not come up. It acts like a new install and never gives me the chance to repair the installation.

I have all the files backed up if formatting becomes the only choice, just am to lazy and was looking for a quick out.

Thought...

The SATA controller causing the problem... if you enter the BIOS and disable it windows should no longer see it allowing you the ability to get into Windows and do some type of driver uninstall or repair.

If the boot drive is located on the SATA controller you will need to move it to another controller.

[congo]

It's probably the silicon image raid controller enabled with no drives connected to it or some other incorrect configuration, no wonder it's throwing an error, just disable it, unless you do actually have an array on it.

The main array would be Raid on the NF4 controller.

The board has two seperate proprietry SATA RAID controllers. The secondary silicon image controller is meant to provide RAID5 support if desired.

[richardd43]

There are actually 6 drives hooked to Sata (2 HDD shuttles, 3 E-Sata drives and my optical drive). I will just have to play around and see if I can find a combination that will let me boot.

The problem started with a Sil update on the MS update page.

[richardd43]

OK, got past the brain dead problem, turned off the Sata Controller in BIOS and booted normal. Reloaded the drivers and all is well again.

Thanks Nick

[congo]

There is a lesson here perhaps.

Don't let microsoft load your system drivers.

Find the current drivers and load them yourself.

Only use MS update to load drivers if you failed to find a correct driver yourself.

[richardd43]

Find the current drivers and load them yourself.

Am not sure where you think MS gets the drivers from, but those  drivers are provided by the vendor.

They are the same drivers I would have gotten from ASUS/ Nvidia.........

[congo]

I'm sure they are, but after nearly two decades in managing PC's, experience has shown me that the same driver is often packaged differently, ie with varying installation routines depending on third party vendor/supplier.

Those install routines (or possibly the .inf's? ) are sometimes a problem, often being badly written or implemented. This situation has improved markedly over the last 3 to 4 years with nasty install routines becoming a fading memory, I'm still very wary of them.

MS auto update is there with "something for everyone".

You are trusting their programmers and script writers to write generic routines that cover all hardware correctly. It's inevitable that with all the different hardware configurations possible, that the routines used in auto-update will be erroneous on some installations.

You can trust them to do that if you wish, most people do and do so with little or no ill effect, but.........

Not on my machine thanks.