Strange BSOD on boot

[smackdab]

Well, I ran into a strange problem today. It is BSOD stop 0x000000A5, "BIOS is not fully ACPI compliant" related.

Background: I am running an Asus A8N32-SLI deluxe mobo with BIOS version 14.05, a x2 4400+ processor and 2GB of RAM. I have 2 seagate 320GB SATA hard drives, one with XP pro and one with Vista ultimate installed. This is all powered by an Antec 550W power supply and displayed through an EVGA 8800GT. The rig runs very smoothly.

Today I picked up a seagate 500GB SATA hard drive (firmware up to date), installed it into my rig and loaded up Windows 7 (64 bit). The install went well and windows 7 is up and running.

When I went back to check my other OS's, I encountered a problem. I could boot into Vista with no issue but when I tried booting into XP I encountered a blue screen of death. I found that if the 500GB SATA drive is disconnected, XP boots fine.

At first I thought it might have to do with the disk assignments (I had not set XP to halt on the BSOD so it flashed by without me getting to read the message). My XP disk has always shown up as Disk 0 (located on SATA 1). After installing the 500 GB drive (onto SATA 3) I found my XP disk listed as Disk 1 and the 500 GB drive listed as Disk 0. I switched SATA ports, making my XP drive Disk 0 again but I still got the error.

I set XP up to halt on the error, giving me a chance to record it.

In summary, 500 GB drive connected produces a BSOD when the 320 GB XP disk tries to boot. 500 GB drive disconnected and XP boots fine. (Vista does not react either way, it always boots).

By the way, I use F8 at boot and select which drive/OS I want to start.

Any suggestions?

 

[vladtepes]

Check if you are using Nvidia chipset SATA and/or SIL SATA: Maybe the new disk is hooked to the Sil ATA port an XP goes bezerk

 

[smackdab]

Thanks vladtepes,

I confirmed the new disk is on the nvidia SATA with the other drives.

I did a little experiment and found that the new drive itself is not causing XP to have problems. I found that if I have 3 SATA hard drives connected, XP will BSOD on boot. I disconnected my Vista drive and left the Windows 7 and XP drives connected. XP had no problem booting. I tried putting the drives on different SATA connectors but XP reacted the same way. Vista and Windows 7 work no matter how many drives are connected.

For now I have disconnected my Windows 7 drive. Your reply got me thinking that I should at least enable the Silicon Image SATA port and hook up a drive there. It would be interesting to see if XP will have a problem or not. However, I don't know if I can make the Silicon Image port bootable.

smackdab

 

[vladtepes]

Thanks vladtepes,

I confirmed the new disk is on the nvidia SATA with the other drives.

I did a little experiment and found that the new drive itself is not causing XP to have problems. I found that if I have 3 SATA hard drives connected, XP will BSOD on boot. I disconnected my Vista drive and left the Windows 7 and XP drives connected. XP had no problem booting. I tried putting the drives on different SATA connectors but XP reacted the same way. Vista and Windows 7 work no matter how many drives are connected.

For now I have disconnected my Windows 7 drive. Your reply got me thinking that I should at least enable the Silicon Image SATA port and hook up a drive there. It would be interesting to see if XP will have a problem or not. However, I don't know if I can make the Silicon Image port bootable.

smackdab

Of course it will bootfrom the SIL port, just install the drivers( if needeed) and try it out. Also you sohuld you use a bootmanager like EasyBCD

 

[smackdab]

Thanks again vladtepes,

I did a couple of things today. I once again flashed up to the Bios 14.09 (did not fix the issue) and I tried the USB flash disk fix that I have seen others post about.

When I inserted an 8GB USB flash disk (pre boot), windows XP loaded without any BSOD. I had all 3 drives connected to the Nvidia SATA ports.

As an experiment, I tried a smaller USB flash drive. I had read that the drive needed to be at least 2GB. I can tell you that a 512MB USB drive did not do the trick. Windows XP gave me a BSOD. When I put the 8GB USB drive in, Windows XP booted clean with all 3 drives connected.

I am fortunate enough to have an extra USB port and a very cheap USB flash drive I can leave connected until a better solution is found.

 

[vladtepes]

Thanks again vladtepes,

I did a couple of things today. I once again flashed up to the Bios 14.09 (did not fix the issue) and I tried the USB flash disk fix that I have seen others post about.

When I inserted an 8GB USB flash disk (pre boot), windows XP loaded without any BSOD. I had all 3 drives connected to the Nvidia SATA ports.

As an experiment, I tried a smaller USB flash drive. I had read that the drive needed to be at least 2GB. I can tell you that a 512MB USB drive did not do the trick. Windows XP gave me a BSOD. When I put the 8GB USB drive in, Windows XP booted clean with all 3 drives connected.

I am fortunate enough to have an extra USB port and a very cheap USB flash drive I can leave connected until a better solution is found.

Its a problem of that specific model of Asus. If you want to try the sil port, just unplug one of the other drives, enable the SIl port and boot W7, then it will recognize the Sil chip, Shutdown the Pc and connect the W7 drive to the SIl port. I've found that some people disabled/enabled paralelld port and USB legacy support to fix thix problem

 

[Guest]

I had a similar problem. I removed an old ide drive from this board and installed a fresh copy of Windows XP SP3 on a new sata drive.

It wouldnt boot, even after setting correct boot order in bios (i also have the latest asus bios). I could boot ok with just the new sata drive but not if i added in the two older sata drives (they have no operating systems, just storage for photos music etc). I could get past the bsod by selecting the boot drive using F8 key.

I found the only way I can boot into windows with all 3 sata drives is to have a 4gb usb drive plugged in. Then everything works fine.
Without it: bsod

Just weird.