Formatting problems

vroom_skies

vroom_skies

VIP Member
Well I reformated my computer yesterday, or atleast attempted.

What happened was that after I formatted the drive and started to installed the os, it took FOREVER. As in 6 plus hours. (I don't have a slow pc either).

The only thing I can think of right now is that I cleared the cmos before I formated. It almost feels like there are no drivers installed for the harddrive, or that something is blocking the flow of data down to a crawl.

I know it's not the cd (tried a few).

This is all I can type now, if you have any questions just post them.

All help would be great.
Thanks.
 
If you cleared the cmos the OS2 support may be disabled in the bios. Make sure the PCI/PCI-E setting is set to PCI-E as well. Remember that clearing the cmos brings everything back to their default settings. If you made any changes in the boot order or hardware configuration section you will have to set those to where you had them before.

Just reformatting a drive won't clear the cmos. That has to be done by moving the shant back and forth on the three pins along with removing the battery. No drivers are installed for the hard drive if it is an ide type. SATA/RAID requires drivers for the onboard or controller card used.
 
Well the thing is. I have reformated before on this system many times. All thoes times beign on a sata drive. However this was the first time i cleared the cmos before I reformated. I guess what happened was that the basic 'drivers' became corrupted or erased?? I also guess my only chance of brinning this back would be to flash my bios?

Well on that topic I couldn't find the files to do that on thier website.
My bios are: Phoenix- Award bios.

any hlep finding thoes files or anything would be great.

Thanks
Bob

Ps-Any tips on flashing your bios, i've never done it before. And it flashing doesn't work then is my mobo done (needing to be sent back to the manufactuer)?
 
O, also. When I get this back up and running I'm gona to most likly be using a 64bit windows. Are their any drivers out of my mobo or sound card and what nto. I would search my self, but don't have a pc I can use.

Thanks.
 
The bios updates and awdflash.exe utility are readily available at the Asus support site. Your board can practically update itself with ease. I had downloaded the 1014 version for the A8N SLI board here waiting for a time to upgrade it from the 1010 version for support for the FX60 or Opteron 185. All of a sudden the post screen shows the 1014 version is already there.

For a manual flash of the bios a pair of 3 1/2" floppy disks iwll come in handy. The first thing you may want to do is backup the current bios in case you see a bad flash. That will safe on one of the two disks there. With the newer version at the root of the hard drive like C:\ and not in any folder you prepare the floppy by copying the update there along with the awdflash.exe tool.

When booting from the floppy the name of the current bios version will come up. In the small text line you simply type in "rename" before the name of the update just as it seen and press enter afterwards. Awdflash does the rest. The user's manual for the board has a section on this. The main support page is found at http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

I hope you see better times with that model then someone else did when I was asked to look over a new build in late spring. That person saw two in row doa when the first and replacement were put in. That case has been running good with the other model chosen while those were returned. Those two never even powered up at all.
 
Well I still have not been able to get back up and running. So I have a few questons.

The file on the floppy needs to be a .exe right?
And I can get windows up and running, but as you know it's exremely slow. However I tired to to update from that asus update programs. However when I tell it to search for the files on line i doesn't find any. Also it will not take the file that I dl'ed either.

Thanks
Bob
 
One way to see what bios version you are running is to go to the system tools in accessories and click on the system information link. On the right side of the window that opens the bios version will listed along with everything else. That will let you know if the latest is already being used.

Upon looking over the options for updating there you don't have to worry about the floppy method. The link here will bring you directly to the list of Windows run updates for that model board. That is the best method to use there. The floppy method is geared for the older models apparently no longer used. http://support.asus.com/technicaldocuments/technicaldocuments.aspx?root=198&SLanguage=en-us

One thought here besides a bios update is a run of memtest. Memtest would point out any faults found with the memory installed on the system there. If the memory was found error free the next thing could simply be the battery on the board itself is now growing weak or the bios chip is going. I would suspect you now have a hardware problem seeing this. What brand on memory is that anyways? It wasn't in your sig.
 
Hello All,

I have run across a similar situation in the past. It could be a couple of things causing the problem, one being bad sectors on the drive, the other being corrupt data remaining after formatting.

To check for bad sectors, boot from your XP CD, and run CHKDSK /R from the Recovery Console.

To ensure there is no corrupt data left over on the drive, use a disk wipe utility like Killdisk to wipe the drive clean.

When you format a drive, the data is not actually removed, and neither is the partition table, or the NTFS boot sector. If you are using the same partition size(s), you may be encountering lingering data from the old build in either, or both, of these locations, which can cause this type of issue.

You mentioned in one of your posts that you have formatted this drive many times:

"Well the thing is. I have reformated before on this system many times........... "

so this may be the issue.

You can find Killdisk here: http://www.killdisk.com/

Make a bootable floppy disk (or CD), using their utility, boot up and wipe the drive clean. Killdisk will write "0"s to every sector of the drive, ensuring there is no data left over.

Hope this helps,

Jimmy
 
Well at least someone else is familiar with zero filling a drive. And Active Killdisk is not new at this end by any means. The problem there seems to be the lack of detection of the drive rather then anything on it. But A.K. will insure that nothing is left to cause other problems later. A flaky bios or loss of cmos information will cause a number of problems like this.
 
I am almost positive it's not the hd, due to the fact that I have tried two (one ide and one sata).

My memory brand is Mushkin and pretty sure it's not that. Mainly due to the fact that this is very consistent in the problems that I am having.

I haven't had a chance to try any new tricks that you guys mentioned, but I came to ask:
How do you make a flashdrive bootable. I was looking for some online but couldn't find a good one.

Thanks for all the help,
Bob
 
vroom_skies said:
I am almost positive it's not the hd, due to the fact that I have tried two (one ide and one sata).

My memory brand is Mushkin and pretty sure it's not that. Mainly due to the fact that this is very consistent in the problems that I am having.

I haven't had a chance to try any new tricks that you guys mentioned, but I came to ask:
How do you make a flashdrive bootable. I was looking for some online but couldn't find a good one.

Thanks for all the help,
Bob
Click to expand...

Maybe you just didn't come across the right guide? http://www.weethet.nl/english/hardware_bootfromusbstick.php
Anyone for a Key boot utility? http://h18000.www1.hp.com/support/files/serveroptions/us/download/23839.html

How about a flashboot tool? http://www.prime-expert.com/flashboot/features.php
 
PC eye- I forgot to thank you.
I just wanted to tell you that with your help I was finally able to get back up and running. I can't thank you enough.

Thanks
Bob
 
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