Gigabyte 7VAXP Ultra and Silicon Image 3112

gbuser3001

Hello,

I was reading through these fantastic forum postings and am finally hoping that this is the place where someone can help me. I have the Gigabyte 7VAXP Ultra mobo with the last posted BIOS update F7 -

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Motherboard/BIOS_Model.aspx?ProductID=1595

I have an IDE Drive and a large Bootable Seagate Sata drive which stalls everytime I switch on the computer (it usually just stops at "Verifying DMI Pool Data")

I am convinced that installing the latest Silicon Image 3112 Bios (http://www.siliconimage.com/products/product.aspx?id=63) will cure the problem but I have no idea how to combine these two bios files.

I will be so grateful if someone could please help as this is driving me crazy.
Thanks.

stoopid

The motherboard bios updates don't mention any controller support as part of their release, only adding compatibility with certain processors.

The Sil 3112 BIOS isn't on their site (says "n/a" if you click to find the bios). They're not offering a bios let alone a revised bios for that controller.

So it seems you're SOL, at least based on the info in those 2 links. There may also be some settings in your bios for boot priority, I would check the motherboard manual for guidance on setting them if you're not already familiar.

It's possible the hard drive is dying. You would need to run a diagnostic program available from Seagate as the first step in troubleshooting the cause. You can download the tool as a bootable CD image or as an application that will create a floppy for you:

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools/seatooldreg

gbuser3001

Hi, thanks for the reply. I was locked out of the system which is why I didn't post earlier. I have worked out how to do the BIOS update from a previous tutorial posted on this site. The Sata Bios now detects the Sata hard drive, but not always, so I'm going to try your suggestion of downloading the DOS tools and running a diagnostic on this disc.

I am still getting errors like "verifying DMI pool data" and then the computer hanging during boot up. I'll see what happens. Maybe this disk drive is history?

Snarkasm

Verifying DMI pool isn't an error, in my experience. My system shows it every time I boot, it's just a check for the OS, I think. If it halts at the end of it, that's an error, but the message itself isn't a bad thing.

stoopid

DMI:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_Management_Interface


Some troubleshooting from google:

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000474.htm
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=dmi+pool

gbuser3001

Thanks for the info. I've just completed the DOS tests and found no error.

My system hangs every time I boot. Sometimes it will hang at the Verifying DMI Pool data.

Often it hangs with a message like this:

cannot find file:
windows\system32\config\system (no file name) ( and then try Windows Repair installation)

I have two hard drives: one Samsung 80GB IDE drive (with WINXP SP2 Installed)... and a Seagate 250GB Sata 1 drive (with WINXP SP2 Installed).

I use the Sata drive exclusively to boot from and it contains most of my data. I bought it as a replacement a year ago because I thought that weird things were going on with the IDE drive. It should be simple to always have XP boot from the Sata drive but I think that it still looks at the IDE and there is some mis-match going on. As I now have the latest Sata bios, it is detected, although not always. I wanted to keep the IDE drive installed as a backup in case I can't boot off the Sata.

The thing is, when I tried the XP Repari installation, it only found 1 Windows installation.

gbuser3001

Also in the BIOS, I have am not using RAID at all, so I have it set to DISABLED for RAID/ATA but ENABLE for SATA BASE.

stoopid

So the actual error is "cannot find... windows\system32\config\system".

That's a common issue. The boys here have a great tutorial on trying to fix it. I've done this on a few systems and it works well. I actually printed it and carry it in my work bag (I'm a computer tech).

http://icrontic.com/articles/repair_windows_xp

gbuser3001

Thanks for the link. I thought it would be the solution to my problems but alas, it didn't work.

First off, the Repair window only found 1 windows installation. I have two disk drives both with XP installed. It found the corrupted IDE drive installation but not the working Sata one.

Ok, so I proceeded with the IDE drive and all was ok until BOOTCFG /REBUILD

Each time I did , this it eventually gave me: "Error: failed to successfully scan disks for windows installations".

The thing is that the IDE drive still works - all my data is on it, but the windows installation is somehow corrupt. However, I don't use it as my primary boot drive - that's the Sata disk. I just want my computer to always boot off the Sata drive and not get confused with the corrupt IDE drive.

Your-Amish-Daddy

You may have to just give up and format one of them. Why do you have two hard drives with Windows XP installations on them anyway?

gbuser3001

The first IDE drive was my main drive until it started playing up. I needed a bigger drive so I bought the Seagate Sata drive and installed that as well. I wanted the IDE drive to remain in my system as a backup drive for booting into XP as a last resort.

It seems to me actually that my problem is this - even with the latest Sata 3112 bios now installed, the Sata drive is sometimes found and sometimes not. I watch it going through the 3112 controller BIOS version bla bla and then it either finds it straight away, or tries to detect it and doesn't. That's when I get the error messages.

Is it a bad drive or could something lese cause it not to be detected?

Your-Amish-Daddy

Well if the drive's less than a year old, it's not the drive. I'd go with the board.

stoopid

Other possible cause is that in order for XP to see the drive you would need to load the SATA drivers (not uncommon). Did you need to do this to get XP installed on the SATA drive in the first place?

gbuser3001

I have the latest drivers installed. I also have the Silicon Image icon in the System/Hardware applet. It seems to randomly find the drive or not. I think that I did load the Sata drivers on first installation.


I do always have this message in my error log:

An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk0\D during a paging operation.

Any ideas?

gbuser3001

One thing I have noticed now, is that each time I switch on my computer, something is taking a long time to spin up to full speed. I don't know if this is the sata drive or my power supply fans. I switch on the computer and it makes that uncertain kind of noise (high - low pitches like when fans get going a little too slowly). It always comes up with an error, but now I just leave it for say three minutes, and then restart and it usually loads up. By this time there is no unusual noise from the computer.

Your-Amish-Daddy

Might be the hard drive failing.

gbuser3001

How can I check? I've tried the seagate tools and xp tools and both say the drive is healthy without problems. can this also be caused by a "bad" cable?

Your-Amish-Daddy

I doubt it. It could though, try changing the cable.