(A)bort, (I)gnore, (R)etry, (F)ail? does (F) cause CPU INIT?

[kaixx]

I have had this computer for about 3 months. I had XP on it at first and upgraded to vista. I was using vista and decided to go back to xp, because of some gaming prefenences.
I reformated and installed XP, no problems. Next I moved onto installing Striker Motherboard drivers - that came with the motherboard.
I got a menu screen much like this when the computer attempted to finish installing the drivers by restarting.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to Asus make disk for dos menu
1) Nvidia XP 32-bit32-bit SATA Raid driver disk
2) nvidia xp 64-bit sata raid driver disk
3) nvidia vista 32-bit sata raid driver disk
4) nvidia vista 64-bit sata raid driver disk
5) Freedos command prompt
please choos 1~5
(I chose 1)
Please insert your formated floppy to A:\
Press a key to continue.
Error reading from drive A: DOS area: seek error
(A)bort, (I)gnore, (R)etry, (F)ail?

Not know what I was doing and not knowing how to get out of this screen I chose (F)ail. I should have chose (A)bort.... I have no idea why I didn't
What does (F)ail do? It seems to have really messed up my computer.
My computer seemd to hang then crash, and now the monitor gets no signal.
My computer does not beep when I turn it on. on the back LED screen it says CPU INIT.
Any advice?

 

[ZootyGray]

I kinda wonder what you actually did to get to this screen.

It is offering to make a floppy for raid drivers - you chose to make item 1.
There is no floppy. So it asks for a floppy. You hit Fail. So the floppy drive is dead - do you even have a floppy? DO you want to use RAID?

I know that the intent to use RAID is dealt with EARLY in the xp install process. There's a (few seconds window that the xp-installer pops up and says press F6 or F7 or F8 to install RAID drivers.

It's weird stuff - but it results in the creation of a HAL = "hardware abstraction layer".

IF (heavy on the IF cos I am reaching here) IF your choice of item 1 triggered creation of a HAL then it is possible that the "type of hardware" or "type of computer" has changed.
So, in effect, you installed xp = a HAL was already created (cos that's what happens - people don't know about it.

BUT = you said on restart of mobo drivers install (WHICH IS A PROCESS THAT MIGHT GET BOLLOXED IF YOU TRY TO INTERFERE WITH IT!!!)
- you might have said instal a "NEW HAL" (=item 1, you chose)
- then xp is therefore saying to you - "wrongo, you lied to me, I am confused, I cannot continue - which HAL is correct?"

You might have to format and install xp to return to the original hardware abstraction layer - which might have been automatic, unseen, but it was there and you messed with it - and yes, that would be part of "mobo drivers" and now the cpu cannot "init" cos it doesn't know what to init to????????? cos the hardware changed (!) while hardware was being installed (!) and where is this hardware(!) - and how dare you interupt me(!) cos I am the driver for your mobo(!) - etc etc etc (- it's a messy place)

Basically you messed it up - start over - sigh - yes - I THINK (!) you need to reinstall xp cos you messed with the HAL.

Other to check - that there is no disk in the drive - that bios settings are correct. ALSO - can you reboot and actually create the stupid driver disk; even if you have no intent to use it. In otherwords, it is possible the beast is looking for a floppy and you are not giving it one, and it is still waiting for the floppy - TRY FEEDING IT A FLOPPY ON RESTART so it can complete the disk creation process (this makes no sense unless low level boot instrux are saying "get floppy" or "make disk".

But really = I think the HAL is altered during mobo drvs install = format = you lose = sorry

This is hard because I did not do this, and I don't have an instant replay of what you did.
The first question is always "What did you do?"
The answer is always the same. "Nothing!"

You might try to boot the xp-cd to get the thing to boot and begin install process, and then just cancel before it really does anything.

And then try to re-install mobo drivers - careful on reboot

But not getting thru post might mean catastrophic hardware failure - and that's not fun - more info might be useful. But at this point you have nothing to lose except an hour of xp install time (if it will boot at all) Try to enter bios!

Check "boot priority" in bios - set cd to be 1st boot device. Try to boot the xp-cd.

I dunno man - good luck.

Hard to say with little info - but that's all I got. It's been a while since I had to do a HAL. Older pc's and compatibility issues (re acpi specs or raid usually) HAL was an issue on older p3's when the number of irq's changed from 16 to 24+. ABITch sold a mobo that req'd that - I screamed at them - I will never buy Abitch again. Is this an ABITch?
(history of it - M$ warned the mobo mftrs and ABITch did a hdwe dump - I know = I checked the relative dates. They screwed me once = last time.)

I hope this helps.
out.

 

[outlw6669]

Yeah, ASUS driver Cd's have some weird siht on them. You have to eject the Cd after windows shuts down and put it back in when windows starts to load again. It will hurt nothing to press <Ctl> + <Alt> + <Del> when you forget to remove the disk during a boot. Just make sure to eject before it attempts to boot from Cd again.

 

[ZootyGray]

hey stranger - is this another hit and run?

any developments?