Finnkc Posted October 7, 2004 Posted October 7, 2004 like it says. I flash my BIOS and after I complete it (loaded optimized defaults in BIOS too) I get - "NTLDR missing press any key to restart" Wow ok ... reboot nope hmmm ... check BIOS again nope Alright ... boot windows 2000 from CD ROM do a repair install nope Ok then ... recovery console ... fixboot nope so now I am out of ideas so I say fine then ... format the drive and reinstall windows 2000 again on a brand new system . bingo!!! PC boots fine and Windows has no issues ... So why did this happen? I am flashing my buddies PC tomorrow and I really really would like to avoid this problem. Would it be a good idea to unplug the hard drive for the flash? This way no files will be corrupt or whatever the flash did to the windows boot sector? thanks Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Finnkc Posted October 7, 2004 Posted October 7, 2004 oh and I did contact DFI about this ... actually one of the reps I talked to uses this board as well. Anyway he said I used the wrong BIOS when I flashed. I used the 7282 version and not the 6192 ... however I have flashed my PC a few times ... I know I know if it works don't fix it. Now I know that the 6192 is the best for Athlon XP's ... so maybe this will cure my problem. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mott13 Posted October 7, 2004 Posted October 7, 2004 Did you flash the bios oc'd?you should load optimized defaults before you flash too:) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Finnkc Posted October 7, 2004 Posted October 7, 2004 ya I did flash OC'd hmmm ... didn't think that mattered. would that cause the windows boot sector to go bad? What I am really confused on is why a BIOS flash would be even touching the windows boot? but ya this time I will revert to defaults 1st before I flash ... see if that does anything. thanks. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RGone Posted October 7, 2004 Posted October 7, 2004 Hi man I see you made it to the forum alright enough. Now that you are posting rather that writing in a cramped-up email; I can see your question and situation much better. Things today are better and they are worse than the 'good old days' in computering of just say 4 short years ago. In those days people knew a little of DoS syntax and they could even read and heed warnings in bios download sections and a whole bunch of things were different. (note: not talking of a specific person here) Bios download sites would have simple enjoinder to 'not' flash unless the bios addressed an individuals specific problem and most driver sets and windows o/s systems could go a month or two without an update or the need to update pressure being felt. Win95/98 was not being violated by every hack known to man and well life was just plain more predictable and the urge to update at the drop of a hat was mastered more easily. Then fast forward a little bit and begin to use later boards and parts and windows o/s and guess what? You get chipsets that have so many bugs built in and such that bios upgrades are like leaves on trees and hackers and NT based o/s's have you downloading and upgrading before you can even get the old driver settled in and tweaked. Users have become more numb and know less of old faithful procedures and enter bios flashing from the internet and proggies that reside on your computer whose sole purpose in life is to check the bios date on your mobo against the bios date on file on the net and say to you> "hey mister we got a new bios and come and get it?". Right! But this occurred because of more numb users and the need to try and "do it" for them. Gone from bios sites are the "warnings" to back up all data before a bios flash as it could go bad. I have run nothng but raid setups for the last 5 years or so and orginally only using mostly HPT controllers and their site used to advise that flashing the raid bios could cause the array to be lost. THIS hardly EVER happened but the warnings used to be there. Nope not now. So we go faster and faster and faster and get more numb as time passes and then enter a bios flash that kills off NTLDR! I see that missing NTLDR many many times when I have overclocked too high or have memory timings out of adjustment. So we blithely flash a bios without regard to the bios and what it may do to our computer settings when in place and maybe even flash the thing overclocked which is in vogue with few warnings to slow the beech down before we flash into the guts of the computer. But hey life is finer and faster. Better? Each must judge the flavor of that for himself. I see one thing I would certainly change about your setup and I don't know how fast you are pushing your setup but 1.5Vcore is not enough for anything but an underclock on a desktop motherboard. I do believe I read that when I 'could see' your signature settings but cannot do so from here, while writing this. Few people use win2K today as much in the "old days" and win2k was very security concious if I remember anything about it. I tried it 2 or 5 times and 'never' personally liked it. Required too much stuff done just to change even a simple driver compared to 98SE or WinXP the joy of o/s's. Hehehehehe. So I went from 98SE to WinXP almost in a single jump. But just remembering a few of the quirks of win2k, I think I would load optimized defaults before a bios flash. Then in the bios set to UpDate ESCD and reboot and enter the win2k desktop again and see if all is well and dandy. Then and only then would I flash a bios using win2k. I would flash a 'known' or relatively 'known' good bios and after the completion of the flash would again immediately load optimized defaults and set the bios to UpDate ESCD and reboot and then re-enter the bios and make a few settings toward my personal favorites with a reboot and re-enter the bios in between and the last thing I would do before trying to boot the 'real' operating system is to make sure again that UpDate ESCD was checked before I took a chance of hammering my operating system up. When and if the o/s boots fine and all then you can re-enter the bios and uncheck or disable the UpDate ESCD as the DFI sister boards maintain the "update" setting thru more than a single boot as most bioses used to do and it saves a good 1 to 2 seconds in booting time. Got to have that quick bootup. Now I never could have brought all the background into the open nor taken this much email space to bring some information into the open about the missing NTLDR. There are many reasons that it might become missing. And it almost seems specific to your particular setup as I have seen some of the old heads that used win2k never mention losing NTLDR but then some just have better luck at not losing their stuff. Hehehehehehe. Long wind over with. You have all had a little insight into my view of history and how much better things are today. I love to flash stuff. Some of my relative that seldom speak to me because they live so far off but they do fool with computer> they ask me how is the bios flashing going? Hehehehehe. Almost the first words out of my brother's mouth when we communicate because he too is a little old school and did not run the computer that needed a bios update every two or three weeks. HEhehehehehe. Live and learn in the brand new fast lanes of puterdom, as you are safely returned to your regularly scheduled programming. Sincerely, RGone... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Finnkc Posted October 7, 2004 Posted October 7, 2004 once again you go above and beyond. I love 2k ... it's stable, reliable, and whenever I screw something up 2k seems to be forgiving enough to the extent I can quickly scramble back without much personal frustration ... anyway ... my 1.5v 11x200fsb setup is probably not ideal for what I am running ... this I know. When I 1st plugged the 2500xp Mobile into the UI it was running at 1.45v 8x100fbs lol needless to say I immediately bumped it to 11x200 and kept the vcore untouched. I haven't done much to it simply because this was my 1st OC'er so I am kinda taking baby steps with BIOS settings. But it worked and didn't give up a fuss so that is why my vcore is still the low stock setting the mobile come out of the box. anyway this little snipt of info is just what I am looking for. "But just remembering a few of the quirks of win2k, I think I would load optimized defaults before a bios flash. Then in the bios set to UpDate ESCD and reboot and enter the win2k desktop again and see if all is well and dandy. Then and only then would I flash a bios using win2k. I would flash a 'known' or relatively 'known' good bios and after the completion of the flash would again immediately load optimized defaults and set the bios to UpDate ESCD and reboot and then re-enter the bios and make a few settings toward my personal favorites with a reboot and re-enter the bios in between and the last thing I would do before trying to boot the 'real' operating system is to make sure again that UpDate ESCD was checked before I took a chance of hammering my operating system up. When and if the o/s boots fine and all then you can re-enter the bios and uncheck or disable the UpDate ESCD as the DFI sister boards maintain the "update" setting thru more than a single boot as most bioses used to do and it saves a good 1 to 2 seconds in booting time. Got to have that quick bootup. " I will see how things go tomorrow with my buddies flash ... and hopefully I can get this pesky 9800 Pro of his to behave under stress. (reason I am flashing in the 1st place) thanks again for your help. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RGone Posted October 8, 2004 Posted October 8, 2004 :cool: and is why I try to get the user that wants to gain the upperhand if possible to leave the email support only venue and travel here where even if I do answer there are at least 10 more that can answer with more and better information and if not better at least additional. The problem with all forums or let me rephrase that> the movers and shakers upgrade platforms fairly regular and that points the last hot setup as the back of the wave rider and the user has to learn search in forums and search in google to get the most pointed information that was handed out by the last great movers and shakers. It is tough to keep up and in one respect the DFI mobo company is way ahead in service to the customer simply because they are with two UsA techs in hand and AG foots the bill for this forum of helps to the user. You do not have that sort of situation for any other motherboard at this level anyway. ABit has a 'company' forum as do Asus; I think but it is not the same as here because the mods and such are not responsible to the company as AG is. Lot to grasp as the technology far outstrips the reality of use in many cases. But AG is forward thinking and he has good repoirte with those over him in "the" company. Good luck man and I wish you much success. Sincerely, RGone... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emil Posted October 8, 2004 Posted October 8, 2004 Rgone my friend.... I had the same problem a week or two ago and I almost threw my puter out of the window after spending 3 straight fruitless days trying to fix the problem. Athough I eventually cracked the problem, I can swear I was following certain basic requirements, namely: 1. Don't flash your bios while in overclock. I use 166 x 11 for my Barton 2500+ while flashing. 2. I use awardflash in a floppy with the Bios.bin file and the recommended switches. [awdflash N24ID728.BIN /QI/CC/Sn/Py] 3. On reboot I shut off, then upon restarting with INSERT key pressed, I load OPTIMIZED settings. Lo and behold...... NTLDR will not load in the boot partition. However if I use win98se or WinME, this problem does not occur. Howver each time I upgrade or even clean install win2k or xp... it is always...NTLDR missing. I must have installed and reinstalled more than six times. I finally decided to format, reformat and reformat, yes three times, and clean install XP....... NTLDR was finally written and no further problems. It is possible that the previous versions of win98se or win2k or win XP writes something in the boot sector which disallows the writing of NTLDR; whatever that was, it was cleaned by repeated formatting. Believe me, I checked and rechecked a mutltitude of things, like making sure that the access mode for the HDD was in LBA and not CHS. I also flashed reflashed the bios file numerous times to no avail. So my friend there must be a quirck in the Infinity which results in this problem ..... As always thanks !!!!! and BTW, there is life at fsb 244 x 10 in DC !!:nod: :shake: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RGone Posted October 8, 2004 Posted October 8, 2004 how goes it sir? If what you say is true then truly I was prudent in leaving the Win2K unmolested as I hate for the O/s to molest me instead. Hehehehehehe. N24ID728.BIN is a bios that I would never flash unless I had a sempron for sure. I have had personally nothing but trouble with it when flashing my UI board or my LpB when it was up as they both had mobiles on them. The bios was stated to 'enhance' sempron support and it is possible the problem can begin with that rejoinder. Do not know and am long gone and running on the A64 platform. Hehehehehe. I do see that the WinXP and formatting seems to have repostioned you for success and of that I am rejoicing. Perhaps this user can profit from your post as I have no desire to revisit Win2K. Sincerely, RGone... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emil Posted October 8, 2004 Posted October 8, 2004 Now, now, my friend ..... how does one molest the OS ??? For purposes of clarity, I will try to reconstruct my MISTAKES ! 1. With WinXP as the OS, I flash N24ID728.BIN. On reboot ...NTLDR missing. 2. Reinstall WinXP .... still NTLDR missing. 3. Install Win98se ..... "A" okay ..... install common devices. 4. Upgrade to Win2k ..... NTLDR missing. 5. Install WinME ...... "A" okay....install common devices 6. Upgrade to WinXP ...NTLDR missing....... 7. Clean install Win2K ....NTLDR misiing...... 8. Clean install WinXP .....NTLDR missing....... 9. Format, Reformat and finally format again Drive C.... 10. Clean install WinXP..... bingo !!!! "A" okay..... So I must correct my earlier statement that the OS must have written something in the boot sector to prevent the writing of NTLDR....... to ..... The bios flash must have written something in the boot sector to erase or make inaccessible NTLDR and to prevent subsequent reinstallation of WIN2k or WinXP. This could only be corrected by a reformat of the boot drive. Whatever was written, did not prevent a succesfull installation of WinME or Win98se. However on upgrade to XP or 2K the same missing NTLDR came up again. Any ideas my friend ?????? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RGone Posted October 8, 2004 Posted October 8, 2004 :nod: ole friend you are by far one who excels in the ability to remonstrate the particulars and symptoms of your dellimna. I have copied the entirety of your post upward in the corporate ladder in an effort to seek knowledge, understanding and failing any of that; certainly a plain resolution to the problem. Thanks and many thanks for clarity. As always, sincerely, RGone... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Finnkc Posted October 8, 2004 Posted October 8, 2004 would it make sense to flash the BIOS with the drive unplugged? this would prevent anything going into the Windows boot and changing it. But will the BIOS flash properly if you do this? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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