bios not installed / no drives detected!!!

**NooNoo** · April 9th, 2007, 03:14 AM

As an experment you could install xp on ide1 ... I don't know enough about avid to know whether you need the os on the raid array or not.

**danshepstone** · April 9th, 2007, 11:09 AM

i installed xp on ide1 last night with no trouble. i might just keep it here and make an image. i'll have to set up the Raid when i get another drive. i'm just happy to be working in xp again. will explore my Raid troubles later today. thanks.

**danshepstone** · April 12th, 2007, 03:42 PM

now i'm getting strange lines on my display and i'm wondering if it is because of my video driver. the lines dispay full-time while running xp, and show several funny characters when booting up. i have a PNY Nvidia Quado4 750 XGL. i donwloaded the lastes drivers, however, under device manager it is disabled. when i enable the card the system reboots. when i try to update the driver from device manager it askes for file nv4_mini.sys. when i point to this file on my hard disk (with the new files i download for the card) it load some files and then askes for the Nvida Windows 2000/XP Driver Library Installation Disk 1 into CD rom. I then point it to the same folder i pointed the other and it loads more files and then asks for Disk 4 of the Library. i look in the same folder and i can't find the file. it is looking for filename "dmcpl."
i should also not that when looking on the xp os disk i can find a nv4_mini.sys file there but i can't find it when i try to point the program to it. the folder that it is in is not displayed. which file is it looking for? Nvida file or ox file?
also, the driver i'm using is win2kxp 56.56.
this system used to work fine. i bought it from someone. and then i tried to update to sp2 and it was all downhill from there...
i also just flashed the bios with a new version and that didn't help.
i have a ACPI Muliprocessor PC (not quite sure if this is important.)
i'm using a gigabyte ga-8inxp titan 667 mobo. Intel E7205 based. Dual Intel P4 3.06.
thanks!
best,
danny

**NooNoo** · April 13th, 2007, 01:29 PM

Sounds like the driver has snarled up. Uninstall the driver package from add/remove programs in safe mode. Then uninstall the video card from device manager. Reboot to normal mode and try to reinstall it.

**danshepstone** · April 14th, 2007, 02:13 AM

I tried with no success. i also updated the video cards bios too. actually, it's not booting up with any drivers now unless i'm in safe mode, only after i delete the drivers will it boot up xp again. when i returned to safe mode this last time it gave the message: the driver for the display device was unable to complete a drawing operation. the display driver fo nvidia quadro 750 xgl seems to be responsible.
best,

**danshepstone** · April 14th, 2007, 02:17 AM

do you think that the card could be bad now? what the hell happened to this computer??

**NooNoo** · April 14th, 2007, 04:49 AM

Do you have a surge protector? Have you had any thunderstorms recently?
Where you poking around without first making sure you had discharged yourself?

**danshepstone** · April 14th, 2007, 12:37 PM

i have one now, but i didn't when this problem started (almost a couple weeks ago now.) and yes, it's possible that i poked around without first discharging myself.

**danshepstone** · April 15th, 2007, 12:00 AM

i'm starting to think the card is bad. i think your right about the static electricity. out of these two cards, which do you think would be best for editing video? (i'm using Avid.)
1. nVidia Quadro4 980 XGL 128MB 256-Bit 8X AGP
2. NVIDIA Geforce 6800 Ultra AGP 256MB

best,
danny

**NooNoo** · April 17th, 2007, 06:01 AM

That depends on the software you are using, best to experiment with a short piece and render it... whichever is faster!

**danshepstone** · April 19th, 2007, 11:19 PM

well, it seams that my video card problem was due to my agp slot. if i put pressure on it in one direction (with a piece of cardboard) it works. however, the DVI-I port doesn't work. I bought that GeForce 6800 and it didn't work. that only has dvi-i ports. so, after all those long hours, it seems i need to replace my mobo. i really don't want to upgrade everything. so are there any suggestions about which board i could get. it will need to be socket 478. Intel(r) E7205 MCH supports Intel(r) Pentium(r) 4 Processor at 3.06GHz or above with Hyper Threading technology
- Supports FSB 533/400MHz
- Supports AGP 8X
- Dual Channel DDR 266 memory support
- Dual Power System (DPS) support
- Dual RAID (IDE RAID 0, 1, ATA-133)
- Dual Cooling System
- DualBIOS(tm)

BEST,
danny