Would appreciate to if some would help me with the following problem my brother has recently experinced while attempting to start his computer.

He Keeps getting following error ...

ultra 100 bios is not installed because there were no drivers attached

... and windows 98 wont load. It just stalls when he tries to log in to windows 98 ... and there are no programs running at all when he attempts control-alt-delete. All he can do is shut down computer.

Computers about 3 yrs old and hes never had any problems in the past.

Would normally just do a reinstall using XP but hes got stuff on there he cant afford to lose (his girlfriend would go nuts).

If anyone could help and/or provide step by step instructions id reall appreciate it.

cheers,
steve

please post the spec of the machine.

is your borther trying to run a raid setup? because what you are posting is generally what happens when there is a problem with the raid controllers which are often on a seperate installed card. the first thing to do if he has a PCI card controller installed would be remove it. if there is no card installed then check the bios for a Raid option that is enabled and disable it this will prevent the raid bios from trying to load drivers that arent there.

thks iss,

specs are:
athlon socket a motherboard
amd athlon 900mhz cpu
128 mb pc133 sdram
20GB High spess 7200 rpm hdd
windows 98Se

as far as i can tell theres no PCI card controller installed
and there is no raid option in bios

tried disabling various options in bios (inc for ATI ulta but it didnt make any difference).

steve

That message definitely seems to indicate another controller card is installed (as iss has already pointed out - the controller bios is posting that message) and that the controller card cannot detect any drives attached and so is not loading the bios. This is not an error message.

I suggest you take a look inside the PC and see what cards are installed.

Also, try starting windows 98 again, and if you leave it long enough, say about 30 mins, you may find that windows will finally load. The apparent lock-up may just be windows searching for drives on the Ultra 100 controller, and this will take a long time as the bios was not loaded.

It could also mean that if a hard drive was attached to the controller, then it may have failed. Ask your brother how many hard drives he had.

Also, if possible please post the make/model of his mainboard (you may need to look inside the case for this info, unless you have all the manuals that came with the PC).

Open your computer, and first make sure that all cables are pressed firmly into both drive end and motherboard end. press them just to be sure.

If that does not work, try starting in safe mode (fold f8 before windows splash screen appears and select it. Try removing the offending device from device manager (right click my computer, properties, device manager) and then reboot, also try forcing it to reinstall a new driver (download IDE drivers from motherboard maker's website....)

Nic,

the motherboard is:

AFUS A7V Jumperfree PC133/VC133 200MHz FSB AGP Pro/4X socket a motherboard

cheers,
steve

The Asus A7V133 KT133A mobo DOES have onboard raid. you need to either disable the raid controllers in the bios or install the drivers.

does your brother have his hard drive connected to the raid hook ups rather than the standard IDE ones?

iss: you just beat me to the response. As you say, that mainboard is available with a Promise ATA-100 RAID controller.

The fact that the RAID controller is skipping the bios install suggests that there are no drives attached to the RAID controller, or at least no drives are detected. If this is the case, then you should disable the RAID controller in the bios setup, as iss has suggested.

There is no need to install a RAID driver as that particular controller does not require drivers in order to 'detect' any attached hard drives (I have the same controller on my PC), but drivers may be required to access any attached hard drives in windows, or to use RAID (I believe windows 98 SE may come with suitable drivers for that controller. It should also not prevent your OS from loading, but as I said, it will lead to a long delay while windows tries to find any attached drives, of which none were detected.

If no drives are attached to the RAID controller, then it should be disabled in the bios, as this will stop windows from spending a long time trying to query the controller. If you leave it long enough, windows should load, but it could take quite a while.

heres an update ... still havent got it sorted windows still hanging

NIC
Also, try starting windows 98 again, and if you leave it long enough, say about 30 mins, you may find that windows will finally load.
- tried leaving it for an hour or so ... this brought up a screensaver he had never seen before but tried clicking on it ..and it still hangs ...
- trying control alt delete again shows no programs
It could also mean that if a hard drive was attached to the controller, then it may have failed. Ask your brother how many hard drives he had.
- computer only has one hard drive

Phantasm66
If that does not work, try starting in safe mode (fold f8 before windows splash screen appears and select it.
- tried safe mode and all the other options that were available ... -- got same result windows hanging not loading

Iss
you need to either disable the raid controllers in the bios or install the drivers.
- couldn’t find “raid” controllers option in bios
- but did disable ultra 100?? contoller setting, also tried restoring default settings etc etc but still hanging

Thanks!!!
steve

Well you obviously have your own comp, pop his drive in there and get his files, then format it and re-install Windows...or you could just use these drivers I found:

http://www.promise.com/support/download/download2_eng.asp?productId=11&category=bios&os=100

The A7V had an onboard ATA-100 IDE controller from Promise because at the time, the VIA southbridge only supported ATA66. The A7V133 had the same chip with an added RAID function ( RAID 0 ) so you can use it as a simple IDE controller or a RAID controller ( there's a jumper on the board to chose between IDE/RAID ).

Picture of the ASUS A7V :



Picture of the ASUS A7V133 :



On both boards, the Promise controller powers the IDE connectors right next to the AGP slot & you're getting that message because there aren't any drives connected to the Promise IDE controller, that's all. Some BIOSes allowed you to disable the autodetection at startup, others don't.

Go to this site ( www.a7vtroubleshooting.com ) & look into their BIOS files available. They have a few "home-made" BIOSes such as this one 1003 that can remove the HDD detection at startup but remember that you try out those files at your own risk.

Taken from a7vtroubleshooting.com :

Otherwise you can just ignore the message & keep using that fine board.

Need help also...

I read the post y'all put up to solve the error message "ultra100 BIOS not installed because no drives are attached". I got a new Western digital 80gb drive, got it formatted, and had win2000 installed. It worked on my friends computer as a slave drive, but in mine I get the error message, and then the "Starting Windows" bar comes on the screen, fills, then freezes there. I have the ASUS A7V board. I've left it on now for 3-4 hrs., and nothing has happened. Could you walk me through any possible solutions, keeping in mind that I'm not a computer master. I've tried to change settings in the BIOS setup, but to no avail. I appreciate your time and anticipate your response.
Jwiddi

if I am reading your post correctly you are seeing the message during boot up but you boot into windows and everything is fine. if this is the case you dont have a problem this is normal. steves problem was that he couldnt boot into windows.

the message you see during boot up will be displayed if you dont have any devices attached to the promise raid controller. if there are no devices attached it does not load the bios/drivers there is no reason to.

iss...sorry for the confusion...it won't boot into windows. it freezes at the startup screen. the problem i have sounds exactly like steves. my mobo is the ASUS A7V. that's all i see on it. i've tried following all the advice given to steve through the threads posted, but i can't get it going. i would greatly appreciate any help...thanks