boot problem

[Sandwich]

My system= gigabyte 7dxrMBw/TB1200mhz--GeForce3 w/64mb--SoundBlaster live mp3-- 2 80Gb IBM's@ATA100 in raid stripe 0--Realtech 8139 chip10/100 lan to the internet thru a hub router cable modem-- ohh and 512mb crucial ram-40x12x48 liteon cdrw-pioneer16x dvd.
This system has been working like a dream with windows 98se. I tried a (10 to the sixth) number of times to install xp pro on this system but it will not work in raid that way.The promise chip's drivers do not work when I try to install it. That's a whole different issue, but it gives a hx of this machine.
My more recent seems to have begun a couple days ago.
When I tried to boot I got no monitor-- orange lite not green. Yet I'm sure the darn thing booted up to windows.
I poped the case open and jiggeled the video card-- all it's connections. It still booted with a blank monitor one more time. Then started booting normally????
Ok today!I turn on the computer but get an error message that a VKD device could not initialize due to a windows protection errorand to reboot. cntl alt del would not work. After hard bootiting it goes to setup, I f10 out of it and it comes back again to setup---- soooo I look around, but change nothing and f10 out of it again. this time I get the same error. X's3!!
I decide it must be my video card. I put in an old agpx2 4mb eontronics card I had on hand-- but got the same message? So I put myGF3 back in-- and who and behold IT BOOTS
Safemode first-- but I couldn't even do that before!!

It's seems compeletly normal now. That VKD device could have been VXD, but I'm pretty sure it said VKD Anyone know what this could be?

:rolleyes:

[Platypus]

Could certainly be VKD, that's the Virtual Keyboard Driver.

There's a thread about a similar thing here:

http://forums.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/wd/showthread.php?s=&threadid=46534

[confus-ed]

I think the keyboard things a red herring ... however I'm oft wrong ! :rolleyes: ;)

I think the answers in an updated bios for the motherboard ... I've had/seen a rash of problems that all seem to have video issues with Geforce cards at their root.... been visiting windows update recently ...?

Just after post but before actual windows boot have you seen a message like 'updating DMI pool...' ? Sometimes, often in fact, windows clears the screen before you see this & starts its stuff ... so it can be hard to spot.

98 isn't supposed to reference the bios in terms of altering it according to MS ... but quite blatantly it does by writing startup info to a thing called the MS specification table which in turn is enumerated via bios (the aforementioned DMI pool) to sort out all the device timings & memory & IRQ settings which obviously have a huge impact on boot. This isn't necessarily a one pass thing, that is it might take a few 'boots' to finnish its sums ... All that swapping bits will have eventually reset this particular table to what it ought to be ...

I don't know if you are a bios tweaker and have things like video caching & bios caching turned on .... the other favourite with geforce cards are the 'fast read/write' options on(there's also zero wait states, but not all bioses have these shown) ... any of that stuff on while not causing immediate problems often causes problems eventually ... any arbitary crash (they always happen sooner or later) makes the processes involved in boot have a rethink and in attempting to compensate for that actually make things worse resulting in no boot or BSOD or the pre-windows equivalent 'cannot load blah-de-blah'...

The very fact that you can't load xp speaks volumes ! That tells me something in bios isn't working exactly as it should. If 98 will run, xp ought unless the compatibality wizard says otherwise & specifically tells you what won't work ....

[Sandwich]

Thankyou Platypus and Confus-ed!
Confused you said,

I think the keyboard things a red herring ... however I'm oft wrong !
" Ok, but if it happens again, I will surely play with the ps2 socket a little!!"

I think the answers in an updated bios for the motherboard ... I've had/seen a rash of problems that all seem to have video issues with Geforce cards at their root.... been visiting windows update recently ...?
"Yes I visit Windows update too much. I'm compulsive about being updated. It's caused problems before!!" However, I've got next to the latest bios for this MB. Gigabyte claims only that the update will allow for more XP processors to be used. Still think I should update it?"

Just after post but before actual windows boot have you seen a message like 'updating DMI pool...' ? Sometimes, often in fact, windows clears the screen before you see this & starts its stuff ... so it can be hard to spot.
"Oh Yeah!, generally says "success" before it boots. Right???"

98 isn't supposed to reference the bios in terms of altering it according to MS ... but quite blatantly it does by writing startup info to a thing called the MS specification table which in turn is enumerated via bios (the aforementioned DMI pool) to sort out all the device timings & memory & IRQ settings which obviously have a huge impact on boot. This isn't necessarily a one pass thing, that is it might take a few 'boots' to finnish its sums ... All that swapping bits will have eventually reset this particular table to what it ought to be ...
"I see!"

I don't know if you are a bios tweaker and have things like video caching & bios caching turned on .... the other favourite with geforce cards are the 'fast read/write' options on(there's also zero wait states, but not all bioses have these shown) ... any of that stuff on while not causing immediate problems often causes problems eventually ... any arbitary crash (they always happen sooner or later) makes the processes involved in boot have a rethink and in attempting to compensate for that actually make things worse resulting in no boot or BSOD or the pre-windows equivalent 'cannot load blah-de-blah'...

"I used to have trouble with my old video card a gf2gts w/32mb, when trying to run with all the performance choices enabled. However, with gforce3 card I've been able to run my games with everything enabled and no crashes!! However I leave the caching options at the default setting."

The very fact that you can't load xp speaks volumes ! That tells me something in bios isn't working exactly as it should. If 98 will run, xp ought unless the compatibality wizard says otherwise & specifically tells you what won't work ....
" I suppose a bios update makes good sense and a retry! THANKS!!!! Confus-ed!

[Sandwich]

The very fact that you can't load xp speaks volumes ! That tells me something in bios isn't working exactly as it should. If 98 will run, xp ought unless the compatibality wizard says otherwise & specifically tells you what won't work ....
" I suppose a bios update makes good sense and a retry! THANKS!!!! Confus-ed!


Well I updated tp 10a but I still get the same eroor when trying to load the raid driver
File\winxp\FastTrak.sys caused an unexpected error (18) at line 2108 in d:\xpclient\base\boot\setup\oemdisk.c.

Press any Key to continue



I think it's an incompatibility with my chip. I've tried with 2 different cd's.

Any suggestions would be appreciated

[NooNoo]

Exactly how are you trying to load the raid driver? What driver version are you using?

[Sandwich]

I'm booting from the xp cd and hitting f6 when it asks to load other drivers. I'm tring to load the drivers I D/L from gigabyte 20265r_130.

[NooNoo]

Are you sure your motherboard is not the 7DXR+ ?This uses a different driver.

Just to confirm you downloaded the driver, unzipped it and put the XP driver on the root a: (no folder) ?

It might be worth trying the 2k driver too.

[Sandwich]

Yes I just have the 7dxr not r+. MY self made floppy has been made invarious ways: but no folders on a: the file names on the floppy are:Evian.sys
Fasttrak--------a windows file
Fasttrak-------a security catalog
Fasttrak-------a txt. file
Fasttrak.sys
Txtsetup.oem
They all came out of the xp folder I D/L from the big G.
Funny you should suggest the 2000 drivers. I get quite a ways that way, but I eventually cannot do the first rebbot. Windows gives me a blue screen message about saving my machine from damage and suggests a reboot. It just does the same thing over and over at reboot.

[Sandwich]

Well thanks for trying guys. I gave up the idea and backed everything up and went to just the promise ata100 mode instead of raid. Thanks again!!