TechSpot - PC Technology News and Analysis

Hello everybody,
I have a big problem with my computer.
The mother board is an A7N8X-E Deluxe, and I have 1 HD which is an Hitachi Deskstar 250Go SATA.
I bought it in november, and it worked fine (with XP) till last wednesday.
I had several blue screens at the start of windows, and after that the computer didn't want to reboot. It stopped on the message :
"Press Ctrl+S or F4 to enter RAID Utility" and didn't want to go further.
After a few visits on several threads, I decided to flash the Bios Version of my SiI 3112A, which was at the version 4.2.27 . I installed the version 4.2.47 .
Now I can pass this stage, and try to reinstall XP.
I boot on the XP Cd, and Press F6 when asked (to install Raid drivers). I have a floppy where I have the good drivers (version V1.0.0.40), and I choose the Raid for XP.
Later, Xp asks me if I want to repair it or make a new install. I can choose one or the other, but after that I have the message :
No hard drive detected. Press F3 to quit Windows Installation.
I don't know what can I do now.
Is the hard drive dead ? (it doesn't make any 'tic tac')
Is it the mother board ? Is therean option in the Bios ?
I wait for your answers...
Thanks in advance
Gens

what a coinsident my wifes computer had the same problem ,on the same day with the same mother board with the same sata driver!!!!
I had to flash the bios to get as far to use the floppydisk drive so I can install windows new.To cut the story short because you have the same story I had to give the hard dist a low level format AND (Dont forget before you try to install windows because if you do that means 2x low format )to fdisk the main boot record TEN TIMES MINIMUM. After that you shouldn'd have no more problems if you use a GOOD firewall AND a GOOD antivirus program.The funny thing about this virus is it seams to effect only asus nvidea boards as far to my knolledge goes.Have fun with the low level format because with my wifes harddisk was 80 gig and it took 8 hours

hello
thx for your information. happy to see that i'm not alone having this pb.
but if i boot on a floppy disk, i can't see the c: drive.
so how can i make the fdisk/mbr and the llf ?
furthermore, with the version 4.2.47, when i have the msg press ctrl+s or f4 to access raid utility and i press f4 or ctrl+s nothing happens.
what do u think of this ???

I used a boot floppy from my win98se and fdisk the mbr .

I also used the software called Acronis Disk Direct Suite9 Boot cd to see if the hard disk is working. it was only with windows it wouldn't work,

you can also try another computer and give the harddisk a llf.

And also did you flash your Bios yet??

i already flashed the bios, and i'm going to try this hard disk on a friend's computer -not everybody has sata controllers....
:knock:
do you know if there's any way to recover the data ???
i tried a CD provided on hitachi website to check the hard drive but it didn't work (it was only for scsi and IDE disks).
about your acronis cd, i downloaded a trial version on their website but they don't propose the utility to check a hard drive, and that's not a bootable CD.
:bounce:

Last we went to our supplier and the hard disk was out of order. (we checked it before on another computer).
No way to save the data...
They changed the disk and we reinstalled ev'rything.
See you
Gens
:eek: