Problem with ATI Radeon 9700 Pro

[racerx43]

Hello,

I just purchased a ATI Radeon 9700 Pro, but can't get to work on my comp. I get to booting Windows 2000 and then get a blue screen stop error that says "Inaccessible Boot Device". If I switch back to my old graphics, it boots to windows with no problems. I updated the motherboard bios, AGP drivers, disabled the onboard video in the CMOS. Am I missing something in the CMOS? Can't get far enough to install the drivers for the 9700 pro. Called ATI and they said it was a hardware problem and not with the video card. They wouldn't help anymore.

Here are my specs:
Epox 4G4A+ motherboard w/ onboard video
P4 2.4Ghz
Win2000
430 watt Enermax Power
80GB Western Digital
2 40 GB Western Digital Raid 1
1 GB of RAM
CD-R
CD
DVD+R
Firewire card

Thanks,
Jeff

 

[LeoLeal]

Really Strange! :/
Vid Card do not have nothing to do with the Booting device (HDD)... anyways... did U tried to reinstall W2K??? It could be a harmed Windows Install...

I Had a GeForce3 Ti200 and changed just about 2 Weeks to the Radeon 9700PRO(Sapphire) and It Worked for me with no probs without formatting the PC...(Anyways I formatted it... but worked before the Formatting)

Abit KR7A-133
AthlonXP 1800+
256MB DDR266
Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9700PRO(Black PCB - New Edition)

 

[Sarke]

Try unplugging a few drives that you don't need and then try it. I don't think it'd work as you have a 430 W psu which should be enough. But no harm in trying, and unplugging anything you don't need is a good way to go to eliminate hardware conflicts.

Also, make sure that the onboard video is disabled (BIOS and jumpers).

 

[Ryan_Plus_One]

That is a very strange problem. You know that if you can see the POST then the vid card is working fine.

Are you able to successfully boot to safe mode? Your hard uses the primary IDE port? Try the secondary to avoid a conflict......I dunno.

 

[Sarke]

You know that if you can see the POST then the vid card is working fine.

Not quite true. If you get past the POST then you know that the initialisation of the card is ok and that it works in normal VGA, but the card might be physically damaged and have problems with higher res and colour modes (as well as any 3d) used by windows.

As I said before, try going back to basics. Also, are you booting from your RAID or not?

And make sure that you have any extra power connector (molex) that the card needs in place.

 

[Ryan_Plus_One]

Dang it Sarke, stop disagreeing with me!

 

[Sarke]

Hehehe, nothing personal!

It's just not good practise to eliminate any component (when it is still connected) as a cause when troubleshooting a computer. Often times I have found that the problem was with something I didn't even think of.

"What?! What the #$^$#%@ does that have to do with this problem?" - me, after I finally figure out why my computer hates me...

 

[racerx43]

Thanks for the replies.

I am not booting from the RAID. I just tried it in my other comp that has same motherboard and processor, but no RAID and it had the same problem. Could be damaged card?
I don't think so. I unplugged all cd drives and DVD drive and still didn't work. Tried moving to secondary ide. no luck. Any other suggestions? Do you think if I reinstall windows2000 with the card in the AGP slot and onboard video turned off, it might work? I don't want to go through the hassel if not.

 

[Willamette_sucks]

That happened to me too when i installed my 9800 Pro.
However, it was partly my fault.
The problem for me, and im sure for you, is with the driver install. When you install drivers for a component like a graphics card, it has to write data into the boot sector on your HD, if that data is corrupted youre screwed.

You WILL have to format your hard drive, just like I did.

I have a crappy cd drive, and when installing the drivers, when it got to the dvd codec, it screwed up, and i ctrl+alt+deleted the install.
This screwed up the temp files, and caused a major pain in the butt.

You should be able to take your HD to a friends house though, and have him backup the stuff you want/need.

Long live ATI.

 

[racerx43]

Hmmm. I not getting to the point of installing the drivers. I get stuck during boot up after installing the card. Maybe I should install the drivers before I install the card and boot? Does that make sense?

 

[Sarke]

That makes sense (bad boot sector), but I have also had a boot sector screw-up (due to windows hating linux) and you should be able to fix the boot sector without having to reformat. There is a tool on the xp cd that will fix this, but I forget what it is called... It runs in the recovery console, so no need to (as you can't) go into windows.