Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 + ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA + ASRock 775Dual-VSTA

[doubleOseven]

I've also read elsewhere about clearing CMOS as a way of getting things running but I haven't done that yet. My bios flash appears to have worked, the PC posts and I can enter bios, make changes, save and exit and, despite XP not loading, when I restart and go back into bios, the changes have taken. I don't know if clearing CMOS will help or not.
Thanks

Yes, you must absolutely clear the CMOS... unplug your computer, then with it unplugged, push on the computer case's power button (yes there is no power going to your computer, but by clicking the power button, it will discharge the residual power in the capacitors) THEN short out the cmos (jumper) for about 5 seconds.... this will clear the cmos / bios... then put the power cord back in, and switch on the computer (after the case is all close dup). Thereafter, when you boot it up, you'll get an error message (normal) and you'll have to reset the bios settings (once), save, reboot, and then it *should* work....

 

[meanscotsman]

Thanks for all the further advice.

I've cleared CMOS, reset my bios, still no XP. Did no harm, however, as far as I can see.

I'm reluctant to start taking bits of hardware in and out. BIOS is detecting everything it should on the POST screen. And the problem wasn't connected with a hardware change. So I'm coming to the conclusion that Hlafordlaes is right (if I'm reading him correctly) and I need to reset XP by doing a repair install.

If anyone has any more advice before I do that, let me know!

Thanks

 

[Deleauvive]

Tried to boot from my DOS USB stick and now it's not working for some reason!

That would bring us back to my advice about reflashing using rufus (or a standard XP made DOS bootable floppy, in case your computer is equipped with a floppy drive).

It would be a bit strange that flashing with a thoroughly tested BIOS such as PCtreiber's 2.20a would cause Windows to hang all of a sudden. At the same time, it is tempting to assume nothing went wrong with the flashing (no beeps or difficulties to turn on the computer).

At any rate, you may give a try to an XP based live bootable CD such as UBCD4Win (the Ultimate Boot CD) for diagnosing any problem your system may have (you may find ready-to-burn UBCD4Win ISO's if you search big G hard enough).

 

[zaoan]

All right, so my 2nd 2gb stick arrived today. Inserted the stick in and here we go, it booted just fine. Of course only 3.25gb can be seen, but i guess it's better than just 2gb.
Aida64 shows me that the sticks have the same specifications.
Is there anything i should change in bios or can i leave them like that, at auto?

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Hi Hlafordlaes and thanks for your help

Can you clarify what you mean by acpi/hard disk settings? As far as I know, I had default settings for acpi in bios and haven't changed them. But I'm not all that experienced with setting up bios (which is why most of my settings were default to begin with).

And do you mean I need to reinstall XP or reinstall the bios? If XP, I've done a repair install before (on another PC) and it worked fine, without losing any data. But it was a PITA and I was hoping I could avoid doing this if I don't have to!

Sorry if I'm being dense here but I want to take things slow and not do anything too radical if I don't have to.

My main reason for flashing the bios to 2.20a was to allow me to install more RAM. I then plan to upgrade to Windows 7. But I'm loathe to try Windows 7 until I've recovered from the current problem and ensured everything is running as it should.

Thanks

Don't have time to re-read latest posts, so may be repeating stuff.

After a BIOS flash, make sure you clear the CMOS by shorting out the two connectors found labeled CMOS on the mobo, with a little plastic bridge used for these things and which should have come with the mobo, or with a little screwdriver. Make contact for 30".

The board may refuse to boot after. Cycle through 1-5 (seems arbitrary) hard reboots (turn off, wait til HD spins down, turn on) until you get a BIOS recovery message asking you to hit F2. Hit it.

Choose BIOS optimal defaults, reboot, and go back into BIOS and turn off mem flexibility and set it to 266MHz, and then go to the BOOT section of the BIOS and set hard drives to Enhanced Mode, not Compatibility Mode. (The names might be diff on the SATA2.) This is the setting that can affect the ability to boot an OS installed in the other mode and render the machine unbootable.

You could try each and see which one your XP might successfully boot under, but if it is compatibility mode, best to set it to enhanced and re-install for much better HD performance under XP.

Make other BIOS changes found in this thread after getting your base install working.

 

[meanscotsman]

I am now beginning to think my bios flash maybe didn't work despite it appearing to do so.

Although I can get into set up with F2, and into boot menu with F11, when I select boot device, something odd seems to be happening.

Before I flashed the bios from my USB, I did a couple of dry runs. I could boot to the USB everytime. After flashing the bios, when I select boot from USB, it just won't work. I've completely reformated the USB with Rufus, checking for errors even (it was clear) - on my other PC obviously! - but when I reconnect it to my "broken" PC, although bios detects it, if I select boot from USB it just hangs up on a black page with a blinking cursor.

I want to try booting from CD with my XP disk to do a repair install but it seems to be doing the same thing - I can select CD but it then just hangs.

Oddly, however, it will try to boot from the HDD - it just won't succeed.

None of this makes any sense to me.

Would fitting a new 2.20 bios chip to the mobo help at all?

I will try Deleauvive's suggestion of UBCD but if I can't boot from my CD that won't work either.

In case anyone other than me finds this interesting, I'll keep posting. But if anyone can suggest anything else right now, feel free!

Thanks

 

[meanscotsman]

Hi hlafordlaes

Looks like I was typing at the same time you were posting!

I'll try what you suggest.

What I can say is that, after a few hard shutdowns and re-boots, I am getting the Windows screen that states there's been a problem and offering a boot into safe mode, LKGC or start normally.

What is the screen you are talking about? Or is it the same one?

I can also use F8 after the PC posts to get the other Windows screen offering a wider range of options than just safe mode etc.

Cheers

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Hi hlafordlaes

Looks like I was typing at the same time you were posting!

I'll try what you suggest.

What I can say is that, after a few hard shutdowns and re-boots, I am getting the Windows screen that states there's been a problem and offering a boot into safe mode, LKGC or start normally.

What is the screen you are talking about? Or is it the same one?

I can also use F8 after the PC posts to get the other Windows screen offering a wider range of options than just safe mode etc.

Cheers

Sounds like things are almost OK. Just go into Win using LKGC and see what happens. The HD is obviously now responding under Win, so now just need to make sure Windows is operating properly or would benefit from a re-install.

Use F2 to make your BIOS adjustments using this thread. There's a post of mine some 6-12 months ago herein with all my settings, and others more recent.

I have found F11 to be flaky for booting from USB unless I use the USB slots on the back, which are connected directly to the mobo, and not those connected from the PC case via wiring to onboard USB pins. Using the USB slots on the case works sometimes, but not always for me.

Back to the OS re-install: I think it's generally a good idea to do once one finishes fiddling with any important HW changes one makes. Especially XP, since the darn thing degrades so much over time in spite of all the TLC one might give it. (My Win 7 install is OTOH quite old, as it does allow me to keep it spiffy, even when tossing it from one disk to another as reported above.)

 

[Deleauvive]

3.25gb can be seen

That's good news. If you want to make sure everything should run fine with those two different sticks, I suggest creating a bootable USB stick with MemTest86+ on it. See if your system can pass two rows of the standard test. It will start up once the program is loaded, there's no need to make any modifications. Also, it's not a stress-test per se, it shouldn't raise your CPU core temps like crazy.

Aida64 shows me that the sticks have the same specifications.
Is there anything i should change in bios or can i leave them like that, at auto?

The memory bus corresponds to DRAM Frequency setting in the BIOS. If you want to overclock, even slightly, it's best to set the CPU (CPU Host Frequency) and the DRAM bus in sync. Disable Flexibily Option and set DRAM Frequency @ 266 MHz (DDRII 533).
Your timings are fine, but you can use the following slightly safer combination : 4-4-4-9.
A value I wouldn't leave to default even if I wasn't overclocking is PCI Latency Timer, as I already said.
Default / Auto values aren't to be entirely trusted with the PT 880 Pro / Ultra, at least I've managed to achieve the above mentioned mild overclocking since I've come to that conclusion.

There is a rather odd value in your readings : GPU Clock @ 165 MHz instead of 600 MHz.
Here are mine, if you want to take a look :





Can you confirm with GPU-Z that your GPU Core is severly underclocked for some reason ?
Did you order a new graphic card btw ?

 

[Deleauvive]

@meanscotsman
Did you know that using AFUWIN (4.22 being the latest version, apparently), it should be possible to flash the BIOS from within Windows ? If you still cannot recover after following Hlafordlaes suggestions, and have a suspicion that the flashing went wrong somehow, you can always give a try to AFUWIN IMHO. The good thing is that it won't require access to any pure DOS mode. The bad thing is that flashing from Windows usually isn't recommended, at least other methods should be favored when possible.

So a. Can you finally access your Windows desktop in normal mode ?
b. Are you still experiencing issues as to booting up from other devices ?

If the answer to these questions is yes, and you don't mind for the little risk involved, I would be OK to give you instructions on trying reflashing from within Windows.

 

[zaoan]

That's good news. If you want to make sure everything should run fine with those two different sticks, I suggest creating a bootable USB stick with MemTest86+ on it. See if your system can pass two rows of the standard test.

I did a memtest with the v-data stick, before my kingston arrived. V-data passed with no errors. Maybe i'll try in the weekend another test using both sticks. But there are no errors so far in my system, not sure if more testing is necessary

The memory bus corresponds to DRAM Frequency setting in the BIOS. If you want to overclock, even slightly, it's best to set the CPU (CPU Host Frequency) and the DRAM bus in sync. Disable Flexibily Option and set DRAM Frequency @ 266 MHz (DDRII 533).
Your timings are fine, but you can use the following slightly safer combination : 4-4-4-9.
A value I wouldn't leave to default even if I wasn't overclocking is PCI Latency Timer, as I already said.
Default / Auto values aren't to be entirely trusted with the PT 880 Pro / Ultra, at least I've managed to achieve the above mentioned mild overclocking since I've come to that conclusion.

Not sure if i trust myself with doing changes in that department. Will there be a noticeable improvement or stability? Don't want to mess something up right now and not be able to undo the damage

There is a rather odd value in your readings : GPU Clock @ 165 MHz instead of 600 MHz.

Can you confirm with GPU-Z that your GPU Core is severly underclocked for some reason ?
Did you order a new graphic card btw ?

Here's what gpu-z shows. It always was like that when the gpu was idle, it only goes up to 600Mhz when working the gpu, playing games or using dxva for movies.

And yeah, am waiting for the HD4770 to arrive, wrote it on previous page.
Went for this one mostly because it's unused, reviews showed that it should have significantly less power consumption than the HD4850. And besides the HD4850 was used and both were 40 euros.
So i chose new instead of used, for the same price.

Thanks for replying, Deleauvive. I would keep posting with every new thing i discover

 

[Deleauvive]

not sure if more testing is necessary

Well, not many tests are really necessary, merely recommended. In this case, both sticks initially run are different speeds, which IMHO justify for another test. As they say, better safe that sorry.

Will there be a noticeable improvement or stability?

I think it's worth the trouble, especially if you're still willing to reunite the conditions for a mild OC. Since you don't seem to be willing to perform the whole series of tests (3D Mark and such...), loosening the timings as I described is probably the easiest way to increase overall stability (same with PCI Latency Timer). Relax, when you want go to it. At this level, the changes are entirely reversible, what's more I've been testing those values for months.

Just make sure to install the latest version of either Core Temp or Real Termp. By doing this, you will be able to watch both CPU core temps in your system tray rise up when the serious business (actual OC'ing) gets going.

It always was like that when the gpu was idle, it only goes up to 600Mhz when working the gpu

Ah, I see. That's a pretty big delta, but since it's supposed to work that way...

 

[zaoan]

My C2D E6600 is running at 2.4Ghz now, how much would i be able to safely increase this value without causing system instability?
2.6, 2.8? Would that be of some help?

And of course the noob question, how do i increase that? Cause there are a lot of options for cpu in bios, not sure which one is it.

 

[Deleauvive]

By

• Decreasing Ratio CMOS Setting
• Increasing CPU Host (Actual) Frequency
• Preventing the AGP / PCI Clock to follow the same route
• Tweaking a few key voltage values (CPUv, DRAMv,...)

most notably.
Please refer to this post of mine.

Would that be of some help?

Of course it will (a few fps gained in games, more efficient multitasking...), to a certain extend.

2.6, 2.8 ?

It doesn't exactly work that way. As you can see on my latest AIDA64 capture, my CPU is not even overclocked by 1%, on the other hand, the FSB (CPU Host Frequency in the BIOS) is increased by 12%. Some people prefer a higher CPU clock, in that case reduce the ratio by 0.5 point instead of 1 (but you won't be able to raise FSB as high, see how it works ?).

With that in mind, I would say you should be able to safely increase CPU Host Frequency by at least 8-10%. Typically, it should be possible to raise it from 266 to 275 then to 280 and so on, until 290, a bit more if you're lucky.

Since you will have to decrease the Ratio (by at least half a point), and since it is recommended to overclock gradually, it will take a while before your overclocked CPU speed will surpass the base clock speed. Enter Futuremark's 3D Mark benchmarks and stress-testing tools such as OCCT (freeware), those programs are helpful to assess the overclocking ability of your system while maintaining stability.

Should 1 hour of OCCT / completing any (or all) of the 3D Mark benchmark(s) that (is) are compatible with your generation of GPU (check system requirements) give you the green light, it would indicate there's still some room for improvement. On the contrary, if these programs halt with an error or a BSOD, consider it's time to reduce the FSB clock a little.
Under full load, CPU core temperatures will raise by a few degrees, nothing to worry about, but you need to be careful the closer you get to the FSB clock (theoretical) limit of 300 MHz. It's better to prevent these temperatures from exceeding 66°C.

I have illustrated my mild overclocking with BIOS screen captures, don't hesitate to compare them with your set values along the way.


Hope I make myself clear.

 

[meanscotsman]

Just an update to where I've got to with my PC.

Although I could get to the Windows "do you want to enter safe mode etc." screen, if I selected it, the PC scrolled down a list of drivers, stopped at mup.sys and then just sat there doing nothing forever.

So I couldn't get into safe mode. Or LKGC or boot into windows in any other way.

I could still not boot from my USB, no matter which ports I used. And I could not boot from my XP CD in my CD drive. Oddly, however, I could boot from my DVD drive. Go figure?!

So, after 2 failed attempts, I managed to do a repair install from my XP CD using my DVD drive. It's only got SP1, and being OEM I've been unable to slipstream SP2 and SP3. So it has been a long hard slog - due to innumerable error messages after reinstalling SP1, I had to install SP2 in safe mode - but I have now finally restored my OS on my backup HDD and can access the data on my main drive some of which I hadn't (foolishly) backed up before flashing the bios.

All of which seems to suggest that the flash to 2.20a did work after all.

And my 4GB of DDR2 has arrived (transcend ddr2 667). I'll install that to check it is working.

Then I either repair install the OS on my old main drive and use it for a while. Or bite the bullet and install Windows 7 on another drive (I have a few hanging around the place) since you can't upgrade install from XP to 7, only clean install.

Why my OS died after flashing the bios I still don't know. Windows looked like it so wanted to boot but it just couldn't. I don't know if it was a ACPI/HAL problem as Hlafordlaes suggested but I suspect it might be.

My first attempt at a repair install hung up after loading drivers and would go know further. Digging around the internet, I discovered that, if you press F5 when Windows asks for F6 (for RAID drivers etc), you get a drop down menu of different types of PC. I selected ACPI compliant, as recommended pretty much everywhere and since this mobo is ACPI compliant. Ha! - XP failed to work.

Then I selected Standard PC and - ta da! - success!

Why selecting ACPI didn't work I don't know and, frankly, don't really care. From the pre-flash bios settings, all the acpi options were disabled anyway.

BTW, I'm posting all this so that anyone else having the same problems as me can see what I did in case it helps.

So finally, are there any suggestions for what I might do now to check that the bios, mobo etc is all working fine before I install Windows 7?

 

[Deleauvive]

I selected ACPI compliant, as recommended pretty much everywhere and since this mobo is ACPI compliant.

It is indeed. Even with each and every ACPI option from the BIOS disabled, there is absolutely no reason why Windows would fail to install as if your computer was a non-ACPI one.

Not being able to boot from the USB or from one of your optical drive has nothing to do with Windows, has it ? Hence I wouldn't bet that the BIOS update went fine, as you imply.

Since you managed to more or less reinstall / repair Windows XP, my proposition for a reflash of the 2.20a BIOS from Windows still holds. Or you could invest in a floppy drive. Even though you probably won't be using it much, it is IMHO the next best device to safely perform a BIOS update.

And my 4GB of DDR2 has arrived (transcend ddr2 667).

So that's 2x2 GB DDR2, nice! I had in mind 2x1 GB DDR2 sticks. Must have been thinking about someone else's upgrade. Good luck!

 

[meanscotsman]

Hi Deleauvive

Not being able to boot from the USB or from one of your optical drive has nothing to do with Windows, has it ? Hence I wouldn't bet that the BIOS update went fine, as you imply.

Indeed! The question is, other than reflashing, is there any way to tell? Are there any tests I can run? I don't want to install Windows 7 if there is an unresolved underlying issue.

There is, apparently, a way to change from a non-ACPI set up to an ACPI one (but not the other way round) through control panel. See step 4 here - http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;810903#top

But, frankly, it sounds risker than flashing the bios again!

I am however a bit reticent about flashing from Windows. Everything I've read (including some of your own posts) suggests this is risky. I haven't yet tested whether my PC can now boot from USB. I only got SP3 installed this morning before heading to work. I do have an old floppy I could use - there's no drive bay for it in my case however. No idea if I have any disks, though. Should be some lying around in the attic.

Another thought. Since you can boot from CD, why can't you flash the bios from CD? If I had a bootable Cd with asrflash on it, would that work?

Thanks again for all the information and help this thread and those posting on it have provided. It's good to know you're not alone!

 

[Deleauvive]

Well, flashing from CD could work. The problem being that depending on the flashing program set options, chances are the original BIOS will be written back to the medium (not possible with a CD) as a backup, thus the whole operation may produce an error.

Also, I think you may use the Amibios Flash Utility as an alternative to asrflash.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

.... I don't want to install Windows 7 if there is an unresolved underlying issue.

Install Win 7, See below.

There is, apparently, a way to change from a non-ACPI set up to an ACPI one (but not the other way round) through control panel. See step 4 here - http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;810903#top

Use ACPI for far better machine performance, forget Standard PC, trust me. So you need a re-install. So take advantage and go Win7.

I am however a bit reticent about flashing from Windows. Everything I've read (including some of your own posts) suggests this is risky. I haven't yet tested whether my PC can now boot from USB. I only got SP3 installed this morning before heading to work. I do have an old floppy I could use - there's no drive bay for it in my case however. No idea if I have any disks, though. Should be some lying around in the attic.

I don't like flashing from Windows either, as there is other software "alive and kicking" when you flash; never a good idea. You can just open the case and connect the floppy drive without installing it permanently. Absolute best choice for flashing your BIOS when you are new to the task.

Another thought. Since you can boot from CD, why can't you flash the bios from CD? If I had a bootable Cd with asrflash on it, would that work?

Yes, but you will need to have a copy of the BIOS on there, of course, along with the flash program, and note that no backing up of prior BIOS's is possible with CD.

...

Recommendations, IMHO:

You really need to get yourself into a safe situation with a good BIOS flash. Pre-req to that is setting up a thumb drive formatted as a floppy/HD and getting DOS onto it, or the floppy (best), or the CD (easy out.) Next ensure you can use F11 to boot from the device you wish to flash from, as well as be able to boot from the device chosen using the BIOS Boot section.

Next get the DOS flash util onto the device, and the pc-treiber BIOS.

[Optional: Set up a DOS bat file to automatically flash this bios after a CHOICE Y/N command. Normally, you'd have as default the BIOS that was installed before you updated as your auto-flash backup. At any rate, in case of a bad BIOS flash, if you left the boot blocks untouched (as you always should), you can reboot to the chosen device, hit 'y' on the keyboard, and have the backup or other preferred version restored even with a black screen. If you go this route, before the first flashing of any kind, recovery will depend on having set the Boot section of the BIOS to the chosen device as first choice. You then test the routine by having it backup a BIOS in the bat file, not flash a new one. Once it does everything perfectly right from a cold boot, change the flash command line to flash the good BIOS.]

At any rate, from all you've described, I'd go for one last flash just in case, but you may wish to move on.

Remember that after this and/or after new mem sticks to clear the CMOS and be patient with the 0-5 black screen reboots you may get until boot recovery kicks in and allow you to start up. Then do all the adjustments to the BIOS as described earlier in the thread. Do NOT select Compatibility Mode for the disks.

[Optional: Prior to OS install, I would suggest zeroing out the drive. WD and Seagate have tools for this, and setting them up is very similar to setting up your BIOS flashing device (except I think a floppy is too small; either a CD or thumb drive is needed for these utils.) Zeroing out not only completely does away with prior junk, it re-examines the drive and ensures any new bad sectors are properly marked and exclude. Note: Hour(s)-long process.]

If you need to use the drive housing XP now for Win 7, stick in a spare drive, back up your XP user data or whatever you need to keep, then zero out the primary drive.

Now go for a Win 7 install. It really performs beautifully on these machines, especially with 4GB and Win7x64. Do a prior XP install if you want to dual boot; installing XP after 7 is possible but horribly painful to the neck and seating regions of users. But if you only occasionally use XP, as I do, XP Mode under a virtual machine in Win7 is fine for most everything, and you can set it up to share files with the host OS.

Post has hit length limits for now...

 

[meanscotsman]

Thanks for all the help again Deleauvive and Hlafordlaes

Still not out of the woods. Had got as far as SP3 and could boot from one drive (my back up OS drive) and access the old main drive. Why I didn't just stop there and recover my unsaved data (mainly an old email archive that I want and a couple of docs) I don't know.

Instead, I tried to upgrade from IE6 by installing IE7 - all went fine until it wanted to restart. I foolishly let it and now I'm back to square one with nothing booting other than DVD drive. I'm getting depressed!

So I'm into the attic tomorrow to strip a floppy drive out of an old PC case to install in my main PC to try reflashing from floppy. I think a bat file is probably beyond me.

I'm also now wondering about the wisdom of all this. I thought I had the 4coredual-sata2 Rev 2 mobo which I understand can definitely run Windows 7. But I now have my doubts as, on checking the board itself, it states "G\A 1.02" which doesn't look like Rev 2 to me. But I could be wrong - I was sure I had a Rev 2 board and remember checking that G/A number before. But I can't locate my source.

If I have a Rev 2 board, what should it say on it to identify it as such?

It's late, I'm tired and I need to go to bed and forget about computers for a few hours!

 

[doubleOseven]

If I have a Rev 2 board, what should it say on it to identify it as such?

Well, the difference between a Rev 1 and a Rev 2 board is just the sound chip.

The Rev 1 uses ALC888 Realtek Audio.
The Rev 2 uses ALC662 Realtek Audio.

You can use a free program like Speccy to find out, or if you have good eyes, look at the actual chip on the motherboard.

 

[Deleauvive]

Well, the difference between a Rev 1 and a Rev 2 board is just the sound chip.

That's my man, thanks for him!


@meanscotman
Dude, you will have a hard time conducting these battles on so many fronts.

Focus on what's essential (writing down your results and theories, good or bad, on a notebook may prove helpful) :
First, use a backup tool, preferably from a bootable media (Paragon Backup & Recovery comes to mind, but there are plenty including freebies) to do all the backup tasks that were left undone.

After you have done so, immediately shred your current Windows XP installation to pieces (format c: or low level format, as Hlafordlaes suggested)

Next, boot in pure DOS from whatever device allows you to, and proceed to REFLASH. Don't just reset this time. Turn off the computer, unplug the power cord and the VGA / DVI cord, leave it that way one minute or so.

Back in the BIOS, do the required modifications accordingly to your hardware, at least the basic ones.

Check that the computer allows you to boot from each and every device (USB, both optical drives...). This time it should.

Finally, proceed to a clean installation of any of the major MS OSes. I use Vista SP2, but don't hesitate to go on using XP SP3 if you're comfortable with it.

There's a risk your CMOS chip got damaged, but you shouldn't waste the opportunity to reflash at least a few times in case it's simply a matter of data corruption during the latest BIOS update. Uncommon I know, but shit happens.

 

[meanscotsman]

Thanks doubleOseven

I have a rev. 1 board then. Would the audio chip make any difference as to whether this board can run Windows 7? I wouldn't have thought so if that is the only difference.

Thanks

 

[meanscotsman]

I'm getting more and more confused.

Fitted a floppy drive this morning - why did ASRock put the floppy connector on the bottom of the mobo about as far from the drive bays on my case as you can possibly get!? So, due to "shortage" of cable, the floppy drive is sitting on a book next to the case.

After that, booted up and it booted straight into windows on the HDD with the OS I'd repaired.

Shut down, connected up what used to be my old main HDD and - no joy. But I rebooted a couple of times and as if by magic it booted into XP again. So I was able to access the files on my old main HDD and copy them to DVD/memory stick.

That took a while, and the PC has been running all day without much problem (off the OS on my backup HDD), including shutting down and restarting a number of times.

Only problem is my graphics card driver has vanished - a result I assume of repairing XP. But every attempt at reinstalling it has failed. So while it's useable, it's sluggish, especially online.

And I've checked that the PC can boot from the floppy - success!

Now I just need to decide what to do next. I think I must reflash the bios. Do I try 2.20a again or try to roll back to 2.20? I feel like perservering with 2.20a.

What will happen to my OS? By rights, if the flash works and I follow the steps helpfully provided above, nothing. It should be fine.

I may call it quits for today and start this tomorrow.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

I'm getting more and more confused.

Fitted a floppy drive this morning - why did ASRock put the floppy connector on the bottom of the mobo about as far from the drive bays on my case as you can possibly get!? So, due to "shortage" of cable, the floppy drive is sitting on a book next to the case.

After that, booted up and it booted straight into windows on the HDD with the OS I'd repaired.

Shut down, connected up what used to be my old main HDD and - no joy. But I rebooted a couple of times and as if by magic it booted into XP again. So I was able to access the files on my old main HDD and copy them to DVD/memory stick.

That took a while, and the PC has been running all day without much problem (off the OS on my backup HDD), including shutting down and restarting a number of times.

Only problem is my graphics card driver has vanished - a result I assume of repairing XP. But every attempt at reinstalling it has failed. So while it's useable, it's sluggish, especially online.

And I've checked that the PC can boot from the floppy - success!

Now I just need to decide what to do next. I think I must reflash the bios. Do I try 2.20a again or try to roll back to 2.20? I feel like perservering with 2.20a.

What will happen to my OS? By rights, if the flash works and I follow the steps helpfully provided above, nothing. It should be fine.

I may call it quits for today and start this tomorrow.

Format a DOS floppy, checking the box to make it bootable and then immediately test to see if it can boot to DOS, with no tools on it. Repeat process until you have a fully working standard DOS boot floppy with nothing else on it.

Once OK, put the flash program, ASRflash.exe, and your target BIOS file onto the "A:\" root directory (no subfolders).

Now from Windows create a simple text file with Notepad.exe with the lines below and save it as AUTOEXEC.TXT, then change the extension to BAT in explorer:

@echo off
cls
echo Blind flash set up.
echo Hit CTRL-C to abort, enter to continue...
echo.
pause
flash.bat

Now create another text file in the same fashion, naming it FLASH.BAT, with this line, putting the exact file name instead of the brackets and false text below:

asrflash.exe <BIOSFilename> /-BC

The command switches say flash the whole chip (C) except the boot block (-B). For your very first trial, you might change the /-BC to /O, to generate a copy of the existing BIOS as a safe activity for all your testing.

My BIOS file is called 4cdvsta2.39a, for example, and if this were for me the line would read:

asrflash.exe 4cdvsta2.39a /-BC

Now put both bat files in the root directory ("A:\") on the floppy. Autoexec.bat will run the steps above automatically on every boot from the floppy, so you will always need to press CTRL-C to abort unless you want to flash the BIOS. If you abort, you just get the DOS command line and nothing happens.

Set the PC to boot from floppy.

This floppy will now always flash the BIOS on it automatically by booting the PC, waiting until activity stops, and pressing any key, regardless if you can see anything on screen or not (provided your boot block is OK.)

Once you have saved a BIOS copy and found all works, change the switches back to /-BC (if you tested with /O) and flash the BIOS.

Since you have your personal files on a thumb drive, now go ahead and install Win7, choosing to delete all partitions on the install drive and create new ones. Format them and proceed with the install.

Bob is now your uncle, hopefully.