I think my HD controller is fried. Need some help

Fuzz

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Well, here's the deal.

I have a 3 year old Asus A7V266-E running an Athlon XP 1700+. Left it running overnight, monitor went to sleep, when I tried to wake it up, nothing. Rebooted, got to the WinXP splash, then said the HD needed to be checkdisked. Did the scan, everything was fine, went back to trying to load and BAM, supah-fast BSoD that I couldn't read, because WinXP brilliantly resets.

So I tried Safe mode. Same thing. Tried to reinstall XP+SP1 and doing the Repair install... after the License Agreement, when it polls the HDs, I get a Page Fault error. Checked the Knowledge Base, said it was SP1 install related, or a vidcard issue after driver change. Thing is, I installed XP with SP1 on disc, and my vidcard drivers are the last time I installed Det3's was like 4 months ago. (using a PNY GF4 ti4400 atm) So I'm thinking HD error, even though the checkdisk reported nothing. (could have happened post-check)

Tried unhooking that HD and setting the second drive (Maxtor 80gig) as the primary, installing a new XP install, then loading up the original WD 250, backing up, wiping the C partition (which I set to only 30 gigs to facilitate OS formats) and reinstalling to that. I've had to do that before. Twice. Similar bootup problem in both cases, except I never had WinXP setup crash on me. Ever. The first time was power surge related (though I have a Belkin surge prot) and the other was heat related, I think.
Anyway, XP starts setting up, copies the files over, but then during the GUI setup after restart, it pops up about 25 errors, all hardware polling ones, ranging from "Cannot find DISPLAY." to "Cannot find NET." etc etc... basically every component.

I thought maybe it was a RAM issue, so I ran memtest86. Nothing. This also excluded the CPU being fried, since memtest runs its instructions through the CPU. Did a BIOS wipe, let it sit unplugged overnight with all components removed, then repeated all of the above the next day. Same thing. From my limited hardware knowledge, I'd narrow it down to a HD controller or FSB issue. Aka my motherboard is completely useless.

So, a couple questions:

1- Anything else I can try, and is my hypothesis sound? I'm figuring I'll go for a new mobo. Which leads me to question 2...

2- I have 3 options, in the case of replacements...
A- Buy a replacement mobo (probably an A7N8X) for like 30 bucks off NewEgg, swap out the board and just hope it all runs off that. Problem there is what if the CPU IS messed up, or what if the HDs are both messed up... I'm still SOL.

B- Get a whole new core rig. This has it's own issues. Mainly, I was thinking an A64 3500 on a Gigabyte GA-K8NSNXP-939 board with new RAM (brandname, of course... Corsair 512x2) and just reuse my secondary components. Thing there is what if the video error was part of it, or, again, the HDs are messed up. Also, nforce4 is out in a month, and I was told by some guy on Tom's IRC (Xeen) that nforce 3 ultra isn't really "that great" with Socket 939. Also is the price issue, since the holidays are coming up, so the prices could all drop really soon, right?

C- A guy with a reliable eBay rating on Tom's IRC (KayserSoze) has the first Asus 266 MHz FSB board that came out before the A7V with an Athlon XP 1500, selling for $40 plus S&H. Lower speed, but it can tide me over until nforce4 is out, if it's really worth the wait, and has a CPU, so that eliminates my possibly fried CPU from the risk equation.

So, to summarize:
1- Anything else I can do, if so, what? Is my guess correct in what's wrong?

2- If I was right, or if it's some other Mobo issue, requiring a replacement... which should I do? Is nforce4 worth the wait, and will prices be dropping anytime soon? (A64 FXs coming out soon and such, too) I haven't kept track of all the benchmarking and tech advances in the last 3 years, really, so I'm pretty much out of it with the relative speed differences and what each tech entails.

Addenda info:
Antec Sonata with 380W True Power PS. (standard one)
SB Live! Value card
3Com 10/100 NIC
2 Crucial PC2100 RAM DIMMs, 1 256, 1 512. Third DIMM is a Samsung PC2100 128 DIMM.
Samsung 16x DVD Drive. Works fine as it read the WinXP CD.
Plextor CD-RW, which is slaved to the Samsung. Would assume it also still works.

Thanks.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and time IS an issue here... need a computer up and running by next week, DEFINATELY, because I have a lot of work and such to do. :|

Someone also suggested I just buy a PCI HD controller card on eBay for about 15 dollars, and make do with that, but that's assuming it's solely a HD controller error, which I kind of doubt.

Thanks.
 

Fuzz

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No.

Wasn't planning on copying partitions with any program, just figured I'd boot off the other HDs primary partition, backup the old main drive's primary partition (which is only a few files on hte desktop) and then reformat and boot off that partition.
 

snotling

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Oct 10, 2002
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It may sound silly since you tested your RAM, but try "clean" installing again using only one stick, then only the other one if it failed.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by snotling on 11/05/04 03:42 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
 

Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
Sounds like the board dying OR the power supply. Do the standard voltage checks and look around the board for damaged capacitors (domed tops or leaking).

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snotling

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Hum, I wouldn't bet on capacitors this time because he wouldn't get "that" far through setup. but it doesn't cost a penny to check them out.

His PSU is pretty powerfull and recent as well, plus Antec is a good brand.

I still place my bets on bad RAM at this point.