HELP! windows crashes with new BIOS, and old!

[DaveGOD]

I flashed my BIOS with an updated one, being absolutely careful to follow the manual instructions to the letter. Everything went according to plan until i got into windows. it loads up about everyhting in the system tray but the cursor does not change from the pointer+timer icon and wont click on anything (still moves around though), and
the keyboard has crashed, even clicking on numlock or capslock wont toggle the LED on it. The keyb works fine in
moving around the BIOS etc, just went it gets into windows.

I tried the flashing procedure again, same problem. Having a Gigabyte board i have Dual BIOS, so i went into
BIOS and hit F8 and told it to boot from backup bios. On restart it showed it was loading BIOS 7VTXH-F2, which is
what it was before i flashed (booting from MainBIOS it says 7VTXH-F4, the new version). However, SAME PROBLEM!

Note, it appears to always crash about the time InCD program loads into the system tray, usually this loads last
but a couple of times the antivirus has not loaded up, the crash is when InCD loads. No idea if im seeing things
that arent there or if InCD maybe is a possible problem, and the BIOS flashing is pure conicidence.

I never like to mess with BIOS, only did it this time as there was some biggish bug fixes. I really need my
computer up and running by late tomorrow, not just because i want to use it but my flatmate(roomie) needs to do
the finishing touches and burn to CD his research project because his comp cant handle it, and needs on CD for
the printers (i thought he was finished with that or i'd have waited to flash my BIOS )

system:
Motherboard: GA-7VTXH
BIOS: (AMI) original, 7VTXH_F2. Updated, 7VTXH_F4.
VIA 4in1: most recent.
OS: Windows 98 SE
CPU: AMD XP 1600+
RAM: 512mb (2*256mb) Crucial DDR PC2100 CL2.5
rest in 'my rig' link in sig.

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[mbetea]

bout the kb. is it a usb? do you have the "legacy support for usb" enabled? i had this enabled recently (had to use dft). with it enabled when i got back into windows i had no usb functionality.

[insert philosophical statement here]

 

[DaveGOD]

no the KB is normal (PS2?) connection but the other day i DID turn on DOS support for the USB modem from within windows... dont need that anyway, any ideas how to turn it off from a DOS prompt? anything worth a try, im about to get out the screwdriver and hunt for clear CMOS points, last time i put the case on i swore that i'd make sure i never have to take it off again

just to continue, I tried renaming the InCD files by putting an '_' before them, InCD didnt load up but still crashed I also tried flashing with earlier versions of the BIOS, F3 and F2. always same problem. Im just confused because if the flash was faulty the BIOS wouldnt tell me it passed on the check or more likely the thing wouldnt POST properly. arg

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[mbetea]

why were you flashing it in the first place? just curious. it was crashing before you flashed it? i thought there was an issue with the atapi driver in the nero package? if you're getting to windows i wouldn't think it's a bios problem, unless there is some kind of power management that's conflicting. i can't remember (been a long time since on win9x) but does it have any kind of error log? like in w2k if you crash or something, you can go into management counsole and view error reports from the system, software and security issues. safe mode gives you the same results? (crash) i would try that and get rid of some things (eg. incd, all nero sw) by chance do you have ez cdcreator on there? there are known conflicts between their drivers. that cause the same problems.

[insert philosophical statement here]

 

[DaveGOD]

I was orininally flashing for two reasons, principally i was having some minor problems with my dial-up connection through USB modem (generally was being unreliable, DUN crashing and random disconnections), and also there is a known problem with the previous BIOS versions that i was experiencing in that if there is a system fan plugged into the board the hardware monitor thing in BIOS (and other programs that detect sys fan rpm etc) would crash. That is all though and was always recoverable, only the hw monitor thing would cause total crash and that was easy enough to aviod. Absolutely everything else worked just great.

it doesnt crash per se, it just stops doing anything! no blue screen of death, just nothing is happening, KB locks up like i said, mouse cant click on anything (though pointer moves around, odd), no HDD activity... left it for quite a while and no change.

i dont know how to get into safe mode, because windows doesnt know about the crash, it only brings that option up if it thinks windows has crashed. it just assumes it has been turned off without going through start menu > shut down. on restart ScanDisk runs, then tries to get into windows again... come to think of it, scandisk only checks C: drive, not partition D:! it used to check D: too i think! I'll boot to DOS and see if DOS see's it... nothing important is on D: though, just some games (RTCW, HAlf Life) plus my word docs.

dont have ez cd cdreator, just nero...

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[DaveGOD]

DOS see's the D: partition just fine, but when using "dir *.txt /"p and doing the same with *.log, i came accross scandisk.log, notably, the older log files include scanning D: but the ones after the problem (i know because they are dated to the other BIOS's so date incorrect) ONLY SCANS C:.

didnt find any other plausable log files but i think there is one, maybe theres some option you have to turn on to get it (no doubt you have to turn the option on from within wondows too 8( )

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[DaveGOD]

I'm trying to go into Windows Safe Mode, but i hit Ctrl+Alt+Del twice both at the 'network logon' and right after it says 'Starting Windows 98' in the DOS type screens, but it just wants to run ScanDisk, anhy ideas how to get the menu up? a F key maybe?

[edit: i found out, hold down CRTL key during boot][edit2: er not happening?!]

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[DaveGOD]

Yay got into safe mode and that works ok. Going into Device Manager, some really odd things:

CDROM - TWO creative CDROMs (only have one) in addition to my CDR.

DISK DRIVES - "Generic IDE Disk Type47" appears 3 times!
plus, "generic IDE Disk Type80" appears once, I think this is new, dont remember seeing it (could be mistaken). Only the first 'Type47' has anything in 'current drive letter assignment', and that is "C,D".

HARD DISK CONTROLLERS - hadn't noticed "VIA Bus Master PCI IDE Controller" before, though I might not be remembering and only installed newer VIA 4in1's a few days ago. The "Dual IDE Channel Settings" is set at "default".

MODEM - shows my modem but says "Cannot read port address from registry", probably not a problem as had already pulled it's USB cable from the connector.

SOUND, VIDEO & GAME CONTROLLERS - gets interesting here, im pretty sure most of these werent here before, ive put a * beside the ones i think didnt used to be there, btu again im not entirely certain.
BDA IP Sink *
BDA MPE Filter *
BDA Slip De-Framer *
Closed Caption Decoder *
Creative Gameport Joystick - 3 times!
Creative Soundblaster PCI128 - 3 times!
Microsoft Streaming Clock Proxy *
Microsoft Streaming Service Proxy *
Microsoft Streaming Tee/Sink-to-sink controller *
Microsoft Streaming Tee/Sink-to-sink converter *
NABTS/FEC VBI Codec *
Soundblaster PCI128 Legacy Device - 3 times!
Wave device for voice modem
World Standard Teletext Codec *

SYATEM DEVICES - not even remotely sure what used to be i here, but notably "ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering" appears 4 times!

note: I can access the D: drive within Safe Mode too.

Well from my eyes something just isnt right there surely! Any ideas what to do about it?

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[DaveGOD]

anyone???

im beginnign to think about windows reinstall... over itself or clean install? clean install an awful lot of work + time... and im not sure if that would work in any case, it WAS working properly before...

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[mbetea]

well if you got to that point. go into safe mode and get rid of the 2nd cdrom, the extra disks. the codecs should be fine as is. and see how it goes.

[insert philosophical statement here]

 

[Freeway]

Hmm don't know if you want to hear this, but here it foes; After installing incd last week i lost my sound card, modem and my ethernet card. Tried just about everything to recover them! Alas had to do a clean install. I got all but my sound card to work normally again. Don't know why my system didn't like it but i'm dam sure not going to put it back on to find out. Thank god this system was an old HP 4550z. I use it solely for testing purposes so no biggie.

 

[DaveGOD]

Its not InCD, i used MSCONFIG and turned it off. It's also worked perfectly fine before, though thanks i will try an uninstall before i reinstall windows.

I went on a bit of a spree with MSCONFIG and the DEL key in Device Manager, turning off all the taskbar items plus EM_exe (says its from logitech folder so mouse driver) and Load_qm (WTF that is i dont know), plu sanything norton. in Device Manager i hit the DEL key on ALL the things that appeared more than once. reboot, "windows has found new hardware and is installing the device" (something like that)... anyway didnt work

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[DaveGOD]

installing windows over itself didnt work, looks like a full clean install.

one question, will i be able to format ONLY the C: drive and not the same drive's partiotion, D:? I want to make sure because all my backup is on that drive, i had been intending on downloading one more upgrade before i burned it all to CD - doh! BTW, i will be using Seagate's diskmanager again.

I will be waiting until tomorrow and will check the post before i do, so any other comments and suggestions most welcome!

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[mbetea]

yes. \format c will only format c: if you wanted to delete/format the whole drive you would have to fdisk, delete the parts. then redo c as the whole drive. and win9x setup will only recognize c:

[insert philosophical statement here]

 

[DaveGOD]

ok cheers, clean install it is. thanks for the help

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[DaveGOD]

Its never simple is it. Major problems.

booted to DOS and ran "Format C:", it was taking an awfully long time, about 30 seconds to go up each %. When it finished, it said something like "Bad partition table, format cancelled". DIR/P shows there are no files on the drive and only around 1gb free space, should be more like 23gb!

D: partition doesnt seem to have any files missing, but it shows free space at just around o.5gb, should be around 10gb free. I do recall seeing in the logs SCANDISK was correcting the free space size previously, not sure if it was just C: or D: too.

I NEED to keep the files on D:, I have a CD-Burner but it all went bad when i was waiting to DL one more crummy update before i burned a backup, current backup CD is like 6 weeks old and lots of stuff done since then... scale of 1-10 importance, i rate the files about 5.

I'm wondering about sticking the drive as a slave into my old comp, which still has a fully working drive with W95b on it, and also installing my CD-Burner too. When i installed the burner on it before it worked after a load of attempts + crashes, not sure what it'll make of this duff HDD though. Then after burning the backup stuff onto cd, ship it all back to new comp and do a complete reformat, new partitions the lot. ah heck. I just think the W95 comp wont like the new HDD, especially since the NEW comp doesnt like the OLD hdd, even then NERO and a p200mmx+48mb RAM is a bit optimistic.

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[DaveGOD]

Well thanksfully my old w95 comp sees the disk fine (well it didnt first time, until i realised i hadnt plugged in the power, oops!) and at the moment its burning my important files to CD

weird though, that computer sees the HDD perfectly fine, right-clicking on them in My Computer even shows the partitions are the correct size... I'll run SCANDISK once the CD is burned, but I dont think that is going to do anything, I ran SCANDISK off the W98 CD when i booted from it before, on the old comp and it didnt see any problem either.

so anyway next im going to put the parts back into my new comp, and try using Seagate Diskmanager to do a complete format of the HDD, new partitions the lot. If that doesnt work, god knows. new HDD or new mobo?

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[DaveGOD]

seems solved. Full format + reinstall seems to have done it, though things feel a little buggy... if i try and change CD for example, the icon for E in my computer still shows it for teh old one, and double clicking on it makes it ask for the location of the exe that was on teh old cd, i have to right click & use explorer... also i turned off teh modem volume but its still screeching during dialiup and hndshake, kind of odd.

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