Help! - machine won't boot after BIOS update

AndyS · #1 12-21-2006, 10:29 AM

Can anyone give me some inspiration please?

On the advice of a couple of people I upgraded my CPU in my Sage server from a 3.2GHz HT P4 to a 3.6GHz Dual-Core Pentium D. So far so good. Everything comes right up.

I checked the Intel website and found that I needed to update the BIOS on my Intel D956GNT mobo so I ran the BIOS updater and got stuck with constant BSODs and automatic reboots. I got the same problem trying to boot into Safe Mode, and even Safe Mode with Command Prompt.

I tried various different BIOS versions and a couple of times I was able to get the machine to load immediately after the BIOS update but after that it went back to the same problem.

By updating the BIOS again I was able to get the machine to load, and this time I switched off the auto-reboot.

Now when I reboot I get a STOP 0x0000007B message which means that Windows can't find the boot drive.

The boot drive is a RAID-1 array on a SIIG controller (Silicon Image 3132-based).

I ran the recovery console and by installing the drivers for the SIIG using F6 I was able to see the boot drive. I ran FIXMBR and FIXBOOT but got the same problem. One thing I noticed was that the drive letters were reversed in the recovery console, so it found the \WINDOWS directory on the D: drive instead of the C: drive.

So it appears as though my boot loader is fine and is being found, because Windows attempts to start. Perhaps it's just the drive-letters being reversed? What can I do to fix this?

Any help appreciated at this point.

Andy.

ToxMox · #2 12-21-2006, 12:08 PM

Sounds like after you flashed the bios the boot order got changed. Look around in your bios for where to change the order or there may be a seperate bios for the siig controller.

rickgillyon · #3 12-21-2006, 01:12 PM

It may also be that the bios updated the bios for your raid controller if it's onboard. If changing boot order doesn't work, safest thing is to get the latest drivers for the F6 and do a repair install of Windows...

AndyS · #4 12-21-2006, 02:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ToxMox

Sounds like after you flashed the bios the boot order got changed. Look around in your bios for where to change the order or there may be a seperate bios for the siig controller.

The boot order is okay in the BIOS - it finds the bootloader. The problem I think is the drive lettering - the boot loader expects to find the \WINDOWS directory on C: but it's on D:..... Does that make sense?

Quote:

Originally Posted by rickgillyon

It may also be that the bios updated the bios for your raid controller if it's onboard. If changing boot order doesn't work, safest thing is to get the latest drivers for the F6 and do a repair install of Windows...

I do have an on-board RAID controller, which manages my SD storage drive. The curious thing is that that array wasn't affected. The problem results from an add-on controller card.

What can I do to change the drive letters?

Andy.

ToxMox · #5 12-21-2006, 02:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AndyS

The boot order is okay in the BIOS - it finds the bootloader. The problem I think is the drive lettering - the boot loader expects to find the \WINDOWS directory on C: but it's on D:..... Does that make sense?

Andy.

Where was your windows directory initially before the problem? On C or D? Also what is on current C and what is on current D?
Are you saying what used to be your C: drive is now coming up as D:?

ToxMox · #6 12-21-2006, 02:32 PM

I just noticed in the original post you mentioned they were reversed. Where/what are these physical disks for C and D and how are they connected to the system?

ToxMox · #7 12-21-2006, 02:44 PM

If they are swapped try running regedit from the windows dir via the recovery console and follow the instructions here:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=223188

AndyS · #8 12-21-2006, 02:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ToxMox

I just noticed in the original post you mentioned they were reversed. Where/what are these physical disks for C and D and how are they connected to the system?

C: (the boot drive) is a SATA RAID-1 array using an SIIG controller card. D: (the StdDef data drive) is a SATA RAID-5 array using the mobo's onboard controller (the board has an ICH7-R Southbridge.

It appears that the drive letters have been reversed by the BIOS update, and reverting to the earlier BIOS version did not return the letters to their original assignment.

I don't believe that this BIOS allows for hard-drive ordering. That would be too easy!

Andy.

AndyS · #9 12-21-2006, 03:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ToxMox

If they are swapped try running regedit from the windows dir via the recovery console and follow the instructions here:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=223188

Thanks for that, but that would make my boot partition D: - then I'd have all sorts of problems with stuff not working because it's pointing to the wrong drive.

It's definitely an option if I can't find another way to get back to where I was before. I have an email in to Intel support - we'll see how that goes.....

Andy.

ToxMox · #10 12-21-2006, 05:22 PM

Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm reading that what is usually C: and your boot partition is currently D:? Wouldn't making those edits take switch them back?

ToxMox · #11 12-21-2006, 05:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AndyS

C: (the boot drive) is a SATA RAID-1 array using an SIIG controller card. D: (the StdDef data drive) is a SATA RAID-5 array using the mobo's onboard controller (the board has an ICH7-R Southbridge.

Based on this info I have to go back to my original statement of it sounds like the boot order needs to be changed in the bios.

Usually in most bios(es) you can set the boot order/priority. It sounds like you have the onboard controller (which would most likely in bios speak equal "HDD0" or "Hard Drive") set to boot before your SIIG Controller card (in bios speak equal "SCSI device" or "RAID" or "External Controller" or something of the such). Just switch those two entries.

After that you may or may not need to fix the MBR again.

AndyS · #12 12-21-2006, 05:34 PM

Perhaps I should have said "The boot drive is a SATA RAID-1 array on an SIIG controller and was originally C: but is currently being recognized as D:".

Sorry for the confusion.

I'll give your suggestion a try. I thought what that fix did was allow Windows to boot using D: as the boot partition. Thus afterwards Windows would see the \WINDOWS directory as D:\WINDOWS instead of C:\WINDOWS which is what I had until yesterday.

Anyway I'll let you know how it goes.....

Andy.

doc · #13 12-21-2006, 06:07 PM

what happens if you disable the mobo's raid controller, will it then detect the raid card drive as C instead of D ?

AndyS · #14 12-21-2006, 06:19 PM

Maybe I'm dreaming - I could have sworn that the drive letters were reversed in the Recovery Console last night (well it was 1.30 this morning, perhaps that explains something.......).

Anyway, if I now go to the recovery console the drive letters are the right way around but the 'real' boot still fails.

I wasn't able to run RegEdit in the Recovery Console so I couldn't tweak anything there. Perhaps I could copy the Registry to a floppy and edit it using another machine, then copy it back again............

Quote:

Originally Posted by doc

what happens if you disable the mobo's raid controller, will it then detect the raid card drive as C instead of D ?

I'm not sure how to do this without risking losing my array. Thing are bad enough already

........... I wish the controller was a card, then I could just pull the card.

Really appreciate the help guys. Keep the ideas coming.

Andy.

rickgillyon · #15 12-21-2006, 06:25 PM

Just pull the cables on the disks you don't need for a boot, see what happens...leave only the boot array in for at least 3 reboots, and disconnect any cardreaders you may have connected to USB on the board too. If none of that works, leave the stuff disconnected and do the repair install.

doc · #16 12-21-2006, 06:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AndyS

I'm not sure how to do this without risking losing my array. Thing are bad enough already

........... I wish the controller was a card, then I could just pull the card.

yes good point, raid cards that I've seen have batteries on that save the settings so can be moved around quite happily.

My sage pc has 2 IDE drives in, and my 2003 server has mirrored SATA drives. They have identical motherboards. I swapped them over a few weeks ago, so the drives ended up on the other boards, and once the SATA raid was enabled on the other mobo, it saw the raided drive properly. This is fine to do when you're not worried about the data, things always seem to work when theres no stress there, but like you say I wouldn't like to try it for real with data that you want to keep, things have a nasty habit of going wrong don't they!

I hope someone else has some better idea's for you.

AndyS · #17 12-21-2006, 06:48 PM

I decided to repair Windows. The initial installation went fine and on reboot it found and started using the correct Windows directory. Right now it's doing something (not really sure what) but it has been telling me that the installation will complete for 39 minutes for the last 15 minutes!

Things are probably fine - I'm going to let it run for a while. I'll keep you posted.

Andy.

AndyS · #18 12-21-2006, 09:58 PM

Well the Repair finished and the box is running again, albeit with a few quirks that need to be ironed out (Win2K3 SP1 fails with a registry permissions failure for instance).

But at least we're running, so I'm hopeful this will end well!

Thanks hugely guys - much appreciate your help.

Andy.

AndyS · #19 12-22-2006, 11:48 PM

Okay - I'm officially miserable.

Yesterday was a good day - I got the server up and running, and also I installed a VGA cooler on my 6600GT in my client. For the first time I had full-screen HiDef on Sage with no stuttering.

Today, I start watching TV and my Projector starts going crazy. After a little analysis it seems as though my video card has died. And two days before Christmas......

But wait - there's more.....

I start watching something on another client, and suddenly I lose connectivity to the Sage server. For some reason the RCD on the circuit feeding the servers has tripped. I reset the RCD and restart Sage. Everything looks fine except the 900GB RAID5 array is "initializing parity". It's useable though so I'm okay at this point.
Back to watching a show in Sage for 10 minutes, then the RCD trips again.
This time when I reset the RCD the server doesn't boot to Windows. I look at the console and now I've got a "Cannot find boot device" message. A quick look at the BIOS utility of the SIL-3132-based SIIG RAID-1 controller card shows "Invalid RAID Drive". At this point I lose about a year off of my life...

So now I've got no HD client, and my server's OS drive is unuseable. The real shame is that I trusted RAID-1 to keep me safe, and my SageTV installation including all the copies of wiz.bin and the properties file are on that array.

So tomorrow I guess I'll see if I can recover anything somehow. Perhaps if I plug one of the drives into the SATA port of another machine I'll be able to recover some data.

Not a happy camper right now........

Andy.

ToxMox · #20 12-23-2006, 08:27 AM

Luckily it was a mirror. Chances are you will be able to retrieve some data from at least one of them.

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