Epox 8K7A users: Has your data gone "buh bye" yet?

[celeritas]

Mine has. I'm not sure if it's the 8K7A's fault, but I hope to find out soon. On a completely fresh install of Win2k Pro (except for Nvidia 12.60's) I ran HDtach and Sandra 2001 (both previously installed) to benchmark my hard drive before installing any patches; e.g., VIA 4in1's, AMD miniports, Win2k SP2, etc. to see how much they either improved or decreased performance. Right after closing Sandra I got a nasty BSOD:

STOP: C000021a {fatal system error} The Windows logon process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0xC0000005

Has anyone seen this error? I did a google and dogpile search, but couldn't find anything very relevant... Anyhow, afterward I couldn't start up my system ("inaccessible boot device&quot, and I discovered that all 5 partitions were gone. Here's what I tried:

PowerQuest Lost & Found v1.06 - I let the recovery process run for a couple hours, but it hadn't found anything, so I canceled it.
PowerQuest Partition Magic Pro v6 (desktop & boot disk version) - it said all 60GB was "unallocated."
Norton Disk Doctor v2000 - asked if I was having trouble accessing the drive (duh); told it to search for partitions (hours later, it found none).
Ontrack Easy Recovery Pro v5.10 - had to tell it the HDD's partition sizes; it found a couple GB, but everything except a handful of internet shortcuts was corrupted.

I had a backup of almost everything, except I've lost e-mail, downloaded files, reorganization, etc. that I've done in the last two weeks. As Murphy's Law would have it, I was just about to make another backup...

Another thing... My BIOS password was gone after the partitions were wiped. Before I get a chorus of "virus!," I scanned my drive thoroughly, then completely FDISK'd/formatted the partition before installing Win2k in it. Since the only card in my PC was the Visiontek GF3 during/after Win2k install, no one could've hacked in, etc. Also, my PC is connected to a hefty UPS, so a power surge wouldn't have affected me.

I read a thread where someone mentioned data loss due to a ATA100 "problem" on the 8K7A. Does anyone have a link describing this? Could this have wiped out everything?

 

[AnimEva]

i heard and i always install all my drivers, all the via drivers and so forth right after a windows installation because if i dont everything goes wrong. so i think you should have installed those drivers before the benchmarks, because i dont even think the motherboard functions correctly without those drivers

 

[ledzepp98]

well, i'm not really sure about your specific problem...i haven't experienced anything like it with my 8k7a. however, here are my feelings on the driver issue...drivers basically tell windows what to do with the hardware, right?...sure windows might have a pretty good guess in the sense that "it has seen it done before" (i.e. the programmers tell it about basic hardware stuff)...but, trying to benchmark it without installing any drivers to tell windows how to deal with the hardware properly is like handing a 16 year old the keys to a dragster and saying "take it for a trip down the 1320 (dragstrip)", just to see how he does...then you'll teach him how to drive and "see if he impoves". hey, you're just asking for a crash (pun intended). that's just my opinion, i could be wrong if anything, maybe that was some comic relief, i amused myself writing that brainfart

 

[morriswindgate]

What would you expect to happen if you pushed your car off a hill with nobody in the driver's seat?
The very first thing that you install after the Operating System is the AmD Miniport and VIA 4 in 1 drivers.

 

[LostHiWay]

ughhh.......people!! you do not need the via 4in1's for the EPoX 8K7A. THIS IS NOT a VIA based MB. It has the AMD 761 chipset. All you need is the AMD miniport driver.

 

[whistleclient]

but doesn't it have the VIA southbridge?

 

[whistleclient]

"EPoX's EP-8K7A is designed to be the ultimate Socket A mainboard for home users and gamers designed for AMD Athlon and Duron processors. Engineered using the hybrid combination of the AMD 760 Northbridge and the VIA VT82C686B Southbridge chipsets the EP-8K7A is a high quality mainboard built using the ATX format."

 

[celeritas]

Yes, I was planning to install VIA, AMD, etc. drivers. Other than Win2k, nothing (I mean nothing) was installed other than video driver. Like I said, HDtach and Sandra were previously installed... I couldn't really benchmark performance without checking my system before and after applying VIA's, AMD's, etc. Win2k was literally only installed for ~5min before I lost 2 weeks of work. I applied 12.60, ran HDtach, I ran one Sandra test, then *POOF!*

Can someone please explain why VIA systems with Win2k are apparently so unstable that you have to rush to apply some 3rd party drivers or else risk losing everything? I'm sorry, but if this has been known issue for awhile I can't see how it still has gone unfixed. Some silly software patches that end users must apply on pain of catastrophic data loss is ridiculous.

Don't mind me, I'm just pissed.

 

[Mungla]

I had this problem when my Win2k install was fresh. I would run Sandra, then when I closed it I would get a terrible BSOD. But, my partitions were never deleted and Win2k booted back up fine afterwards. For some reason, I don't get this BSOD anymore. I apparently installed an updated version of a driver and it fixed the problem.

I would install Win2k SP2 and update your BIOS to the latest 1606.


BTW- LostHiWay, wake up please! The 8K7A has the VIA686B Southbridge. You must install 3 parts of the VIA 4-in-1 driver, everything but the VIA AGP miniport. The southbridge controls your HD controller I believe, how is it suppose to work without drivers?

 

[celeritas]

Could a VIA/Win2k FUBAR wipe the BIOS password too? BTW, I already have 1606. I downloaded 1607, but haven't applied it yet.

 

[IdahoB]

This does sound like a screw up with drivers - remember that the VIA IDE BUS Master tells the OS how to manage the ATA100 interface, and I'm not that surprised that, after running a high end disk utility, things went pear shaped. However, the loss of the BIOS password is another issue entirely and hints at a possible power failure to the BIOS chip - but this is very unlikely.

 

[Zuluwarrior]

According to Epox,

You need to install OS
install miniport driver off cd
install VIA Busmaster IDE driver off cd
install VIA USB Filter off cd

That's it, according to them, no 4 in 1, although i don't know
what it would harm????

 

[IdahoB]

Try contact SiSoft Sandra's support - remember that Sandra tests the harddrive at sub-OS levels too, they may know something.

 

[Mungla]

celeritas, do you have the BIOS Cacheable option enabled? If so, I would leave that as disabled. With it enabled, that allows programs to write to your BIOS level data.

 

[celeritas]

Mungla: Thanks for the tip. I'll check that when I get home in a couple hours. BTW, has anyone tried Winternals Disk Commander to recover data? I have an older version of their Admin Pak (nice), but it doesn't include Disk Commander. I would buy it, but besides the fact that it's $300, I have no idea how well it recovers stuff compared to other software. Has anyone ever formatted, etc. a hard drive just to see how much data different tools brought back? I'll do it and post the results after I get Disk Commander.

 

[celeritas]

Mungla: Have you found that the Promise PCI controller is better than the 8K7A's onboard ATA100?