q***@salmahayeksknockers.edu
2006-09-15 17:28:58 UTC
Man I'm frustrated. I had a (new) SATA drive fail in my desktop. It
shouldn't be fucking rocket science to replace it, but it's caused me
more than a dozen hours of wasted time.
- After replacing the drive, the computer would no longer boot, due to
spontaneous reboots at the end of the POST. I've got 8 Hard
drives+1 cdrom, spread across the onboard SATA controller, the onboard
IDE controller, and a fasttrack ULTRA133 PCI card, all on an ASUS k8N.
I was able to get past the post by disabling some drives, but could not
get them all to work together. After much reading, I eventually concluded
the issue was bios-related, and spent many hours disabling/enabling various
combinations of bios functionality, with little change.
- Finally, I came across a single, dated reference to a similar issue, which
recommended ENABLING the on-board raid, but keeping it disabled for the
individual drives. To my surprise, the host is finally able to see all
drives and boot!
- But the battle's not over yet. Windows isn't booting now, remaining on
it's splash-screen, with the eternally moving color bar. Booting in safe
mode suggests a problem with "MUP.SYS" - A misleading "symptom" with 1000
causes. Booting to recovery mode, and reading the boot log points the
finger at "FastFat.sys" - An equally misleading indication. Just for
kicks, I disabled both from the recovery console, which, unsurprisingly,
didn't help.
- I've booted from CD, and done an installation "repair". I've booted to
the recovery console and tried it's various repair tools. Nothing has
worked.
- The bios on this Asus board SUCKS SHIT. I will not be buying another ASUS
board for many years. Abit always served me well, and for the life of me,
I don't know why I changed. Very tolerant, robust, boards, unlike ASUS.
- The fucking SATA cables that came with the K8N suck shit and keep falling
off of the drives. At first I thought this was a SATA issue, until I tried
a cable by another manufacturer, and it stayed on tight. Nice cheapass
ASUS cables.
- SATA *PISSES ME OFF*. Forced updgrades piss me off, and forced upgrades
that don't work piss me off more. I was happy with IDE, and resent it
being phased out in favor of SATA.
- Windows fucking pisses me off. I'm not usually into Windows-bashing, but
what kind of a suck-ass OS becomes inexplicably unbootable when you change
(non-system) drives around? The diagnostics suck as well: There is limited
diagnostic information available, and even that is ambiguous, and can indicate
any of of 10000 causes. Other's experiences suggest myriad solutions
through the unplugging or replugging of various bits of hardware - A desperate
ritual of trial-and-error, reminiscent of cargo-cults, executed in the hopes
that the gods will deliver a working system.
I'm pretty well outta fucking tricks at this point. Thanks for listening.
Any suggestions or commiseration appreciated.
shouldn't be fucking rocket science to replace it, but it's caused me
more than a dozen hours of wasted time.
- After replacing the drive, the computer would no longer boot, due to
spontaneous reboots at the end of the POST. I've got 8 Hard
drives+1 cdrom, spread across the onboard SATA controller, the onboard
IDE controller, and a fasttrack ULTRA133 PCI card, all on an ASUS k8N.
I was able to get past the post by disabling some drives, but could not
get them all to work together. After much reading, I eventually concluded
the issue was bios-related, and spent many hours disabling/enabling various
combinations of bios functionality, with little change.
- Finally, I came across a single, dated reference to a similar issue, which
recommended ENABLING the on-board raid, but keeping it disabled for the
individual drives. To my surprise, the host is finally able to see all
drives and boot!
- But the battle's not over yet. Windows isn't booting now, remaining on
it's splash-screen, with the eternally moving color bar. Booting in safe
mode suggests a problem with "MUP.SYS" - A misleading "symptom" with 1000
causes. Booting to recovery mode, and reading the boot log points the
finger at "FastFat.sys" - An equally misleading indication. Just for
kicks, I disabled both from the recovery console, which, unsurprisingly,
didn't help.
- I've booted from CD, and done an installation "repair". I've booted to
the recovery console and tried it's various repair tools. Nothing has
worked.
- The bios on this Asus board SUCKS SHIT. I will not be buying another ASUS
board for many years. Abit always served me well, and for the life of me,
I don't know why I changed. Very tolerant, robust, boards, unlike ASUS.
- The fucking SATA cables that came with the K8N suck shit and keep falling
off of the drives. At first I thought this was a SATA issue, until I tried
a cable by another manufacturer, and it stayed on tight. Nice cheapass
ASUS cables.
- SATA *PISSES ME OFF*. Forced updgrades piss me off, and forced upgrades
that don't work piss me off more. I was happy with IDE, and resent it
being phased out in favor of SATA.
- Windows fucking pisses me off. I'm not usually into Windows-bashing, but
what kind of a suck-ass OS becomes inexplicably unbootable when you change
(non-system) drives around? The diagnostics suck as well: There is limited
diagnostic information available, and even that is ambiguous, and can indicate
any of of 10000 causes. Other's experiences suggest myriad solutions
through the unplugging or replugging of various bits of hardware - A desperate
ritual of trial-and-error, reminiscent of cargo-cults, executed in the hopes
that the gods will deliver a working system.
I'm pretty well outta fucking tricks at this point. Thanks for listening.
Any suggestions or commiseration appreciated.