Abit AV8-3rd eye...Can't even install Windows...

I tried turning RAID off, and both my hard drives are normal IDE
drives... even with this, it freezes when I don't press anything, when
I select my HAL, even when I try loading the drivers (that it shouldn't
even need)...

The drive is a formatted FAT32 10 GB drive, it doesn't work with my
FAT32 6GB either. NTFS doesn't work for some reason...

On 10 Mar 2005 12:01:13 -0800, "Nite" <> wrote:

>I tried turning RAID off, and both my hard drives are normal IDE
>drives... even with this, it freezes when I don't press anything, when
>I select my HAL, even when I try loading the drivers (that it shouldn't
>even need)...
>
>The drive is a formatted FAT32 10 GB drive, it doesn't work with my
>FAT32 6GB either. NTFS doesn't work for some reason...
>

Is the disk identified correctly in BIOS ? Does the disk ID show up on
the boot screen ?

John Lewis

I built a sempron 2800+ last night on a socket 754 board. I got windows
installed up until the first reboot. Then it wouldnt initiate the graphics.
To resolve this prob I had to set cdrom as first boot device and ignore the
"hit key to boot" message. It then proceeded to boot normally from the hard
drive. After windows was fully installed it booted as normal! And no, there
is no option for delay hdd in this bios.


"John Lewis" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On 10 Mar 2005 12:01:13 -0800, "Nite" <> wrote:
>
>>I tried turning RAID off, and both my hard drives are normal IDE
>>drives... even with this, it freezes when I don't press anything, when
>>I select my HAL, even when I try loading the drivers (that it shouldn't
>>even need)...
>>
>>The drive is a formatted FAT32 10 GB drive, it doesn't work with my
>>FAT32 6GB either. NTFS doesn't work for some reason...
>>
>
> Is the disk identified correctly in BIOS ? Does the disk ID show up on
> the boot screen ?
>
> John Lewis
>
>

HD is detected without a problem.. here's something though

I discovered something last night: The reason Windows 2000/XP setup is
freezing is because the computer seems to halt when it scans the PCI
bus. Windows 98 setup does not do this pre-install, and thusly I was
able to copy its files (it does freeze when it detects hardware). I am
100% sure scanning the PCI bus halts my system, because I was using a
Win98SE boot disk last night, which loads multiple files, one which
scans PCI devices. The boot kept freezing, so I needed to REM out a few
lines in the config file - sure enough, after I did this, it booted off
the floppy perfectly.

I'm suspecting the low power supply is not giving enough power to the
PCI bus, and that's why its freezing? Is it possibly a defect?

Also, I'd like to thank everyone who's replied, this is my first
home-built computer, and I'm learning a lot of lessons... it's a bumpy
road, but all the help I'm getting is really assisting me in the
learning process...

On 11 Mar 2005 11:43:57 -0800, "Nite" <> wrote:

>HD is detected without a problem.. here's something though
>
>I discovered something last night: The reason Windows 2000/XP setup is
>freezing is because the computer seems to halt when it scans the PCI
>bus. Windows 98 setup does not do this pre-install, and thusly I was
>able to copy its files (it does freeze when it detects hardware). I am
>100% sure scanning the PCI bus halts my system, because I was using a
>Win98SE boot disk last night, which loads multiple files, one which
>scans PCI devices. The boot kept freezing, so I needed to REM out a few
>lines in the config file - sure enough, after I did this, it booted off
>the floppy perfectly.
>
>I'm suspecting the low power supply is not giving enough power to the
>PCI bus, and that's why its freezing? Is it possibly a defect?
>
>Also, I'd like to thank everyone who's replied, this is my first
>home-built computer, and I'm learning a lot of lessons... it's a bumpy
>road, but all the help I'm getting is really assisting me in the
>learning process...
>

Sounds very like a PCI-interrupt conflict.

Have you tried moving your video board to another PCI slot ?
Some of the on-board motherboard peripherals share
interrupts with particular PCI slots, and some of the older
video cards refuse to share interrupts with anything, resulting
in the type of freeze you describe.

You can also try temporarily turning off any peripherals
in BIOS ( " Integrated Peripherals") not essential to
booting the system ... this will shut down their interrupts
and help narrow the scope of the problem.

John Lewis