Bios Setup Hangs Due To Harddrive Issue

[welo]

Hi guys! This is a tough one!

While troubleshooting a friend's computer I disabled SATA support in the Bios. Now the bios hangs on startup and it would not let me enter the bios setup screen to revert the change (Keeps hanging at 'Entering Bios Setup...' after pressing DEL).

Clearly the Bios fails to initialize the attached harddrives (to be more precise: a SATA hdd and a SATA dvd). The obvious solution is to detach the drives, then enter the Bios and revert the change, BUT... this would damage all those nice little warranty stickers

The computer is a Lemel desktop and has 3 years warranty. The mobo is an ASUS P5GC-MX/1333 with AMI Bios rev 0312.

The bios option I changed had to do with PATA+SATA support (3 options: PATA only, SATA only, PATA + SATA) and I switched to PATA only since I wanted to disable the SATA controller.

Does anybody know a way of resetting the bios to defaults by software means only? Obviously I cannot set a jumper on the mainboard (warranty void). Is there any key combination to enter the bios prior to initializing the harddrives? Or to reset to bios defaults?

I thought about flashing the bios but the computer will probably hang before booting from USB.

Any other ideas?

Anybody has experience with LEMEL computers and warranty issues?

Thanks,

welo

[Wash]

Why even try to fix it? If it is warrenty take it back for fix.

[welo]

Basically you are right, but I assume you don't have too much experience with PC warranty issues, right?

Depending on the company you have to deal with warranty issues with PCs are mostly a time intensive and often frustrating experience unless the faulty component can be pinned down precisely and easily (for example a faulty DVD drive).

That's why I usually try to fix the problem myself and during this process check whether it is a software or hardware issue. If it's a hardware issue will find the exact problem to speed up the replacement process. Otherwise you might not see your computer for weeks and/or get lame excuses why they don't fix it (virus, software, blabla).

In the case of a faulty harddisk they will usually not recover the data on the drive when replacing it, or - in this special case - maybe just fix the bad blocks on the drive and NOT replace the drive since the Seagate Tools don't report the drive as faulty. I can easily do that myself in a fraction of the time.

The problem I have now could be easily fixed in 5 minutes by opening the case and temporarily detaching the hdd cable, but I don't want to void the warranty in case my friend needs the company support in the future. In Europe those stickers have actually become meaningless, the law does not allow to limit warranty in such a way since the owner is allowed to add hardware to the computer (another harddisk, RAM) if he has enough expertise. But I guess in Thailand the company will welcome any excuse not to fulfill the granted warranty. This is of course just an assumption and this is why I asked whether somebody has experience with Lemel support issues (since I see a lot of these PCs around).

welo

[Supernova]

Newer motherboards have a CMOS reset button on the I/O panel (at the back of the case). You could also try soft key combination (ALT-F) to reset the BIOS. Some boards support this function, some don't.

Unless you had one of these hooked up, I don't see how the BIOS can be reset except a BIOS flash or manipulating the CMOS jumpers on the motherboard itself.

[A_Traveller]

Real issue here is by, apparently, not setting the BIOS to hunt for boot devices or checking if USB was an option since the DVD is SATA not IDE as well as the boot HDD. Anyway, with the more expensive Asus MB's one can access the BIOS by Ctrl+Alt+Del immediately after POST. This might work, another option is Alt+F2 but that often requires a BIOS CD or a Diskette to continue.

HTH

Regards

/edit typo//

Edited November 5, 2009 by A_Traveller

[welo]

Yes, guys! That's what I want to hear!!!!

Just tried your suggested key combinations, so far only ALT+F2 works. Problem is, how do I provide a BIOS CD if my DVD-drive is not recognised. The PC does not have a floppy. I don't have a USB floppy or CDROM to test if that works.

CTRL+ALT+DEL does not work. I am not sure what 'immediately after POST' means, so I tried at several different points. I think POST would be when the keyboard lights flash up, right?

ALT-F does not work either. Didn't find a CMOS-clear switch anywhere accessible from outside the case.

welo

[welo]

OK, guys, you are great!

I am just in the process of updating the BIOS from CDROM. The EZFLash Tool couldn't find my USB thumb drive, but it detects the SATA DVD-drive. Hope that will reset the invalid setting, too.

...

Well, flashed the BIOS successfully, but EZFlash doesn't load the default configuration. Still cannot access the BIOS. Mpf...

I guess I will just open the case tomorrow and risk voiding the warranty. Most components have manufacturer warranty anyway, I doubt Lemel would add much to that anyway.

welo

[A_Traveller]

POST = Power On Self Test. Depending on the exact BIOS configuration, the 'three finger salute' can work directly after the beep(s) but before the keyboard flash. In the real world this situation is ultimately hit & miss without some disk support. You could, of course set up a bootable USB [no OS] and see if that gets caught as a 'non system disk'. That might mean you could download and reflash the BIOS without needing an OS using the USB route.

Regards

Edit Typing this and then on the phone so submitted it without seeing the most recent post.

Edited November 5, 2009 by A_Traveller

[NHJ]

you don't have any other choice but to open the tower, if you're afraid for the warranty sticker, heat them with a haidryer for few minutes then you'll be able to remove them without any damage.

[welo]

Will try the CTRL-ALT-DEL again tomorrow.

I like the hairdryer solution, will definitely try that.

Will report back tomorrow.

Thanks, guys.

welo

[Eureka]

Will try the CTRL-ALT-DEL again tomorrow.

I like the hairdryer solution, will definitely try that.

Will report back tomorrow.

Thanks, guys.

welo

BEFORE opening the case there is one last thing to try with ASUS mainboards.

Disconnect all power from the case (do not just turn the rear switch off) and wait approx 5 minutes. ASUS have BIOS recovery but the power cable MUST be removed as any current detected does not set the default mode.

This normaly works everytime if the computer has been OVERCLOCKED incorrectly and may work for the SATA settings as well.

Remember to remove all cables for 5 minutes as any electical activity sensed will stop the recovery setting from working.

Go straight into the BIOS and reset the configuration as the recovery mode DOES NOT load default or safe settings. It retains your settings but uses the defaults for the initial Bootup and POST.

[RKASA]

Press the front panel start button with the power cable unplugged or rear switch off and you won't have to wait 5 minutes.  You'll see the front panel button flash as it drains the power supply caps.

[welo]

Thanks guys. Going to try that ASAP.

welo

[welo]

Status Update

Reboot after (complete) Power Disconnect (5 minutes and longer) did not work. Maybe it worked, but it didn't reset the problematic setting. I didn't see any message either indicating any reset.

CTRL-ALT-DEL didn't work for me either, couldn't get any speaker output to time the key acrobatic better, but didn't bother too long with it. Not sure why somebody would implement this key combination for entering the bios since it restarts the computer if not hit at the correct moment.

Used the hair-dryer to remove the stickers and open the case. 2 out of 3 stickers survived undamaged. While tampering with the stickers I found out that the PC has only 1 year warranty despite the big 3 year warranty sticker on the front.

Detached the SATA cables and power cables to HDD and DVD, but PC would still hang.

Removed the bios battery and used the onboard jumper to reset the CMOS data. Hurray! Bios hangup fixed! Entered Bios to reset the culprit setting.

However, Windows would not boot any longer. Shortly after the Windows Logo the PC just reboots. Awesome! Retried several times, also in Safe Mode, same same.

Loaded BIOS default settings, no change. Thought that maybe Windows is confused about the reshuffled hardware configuration data and disabled most devices in the bios. No change.

I am a bit pissed off now. All the troubles just because I wanted to disable SATA support to see whether the devices are really SATA and not PATA. Argh!

How come a simple setting like this can cause the BIOS to fail!?

Possible next steps:

• Reflash the original Lemel Bios (which is a way older version and has a Lemel startup logo), maybe there is an issue with the new Bios version
  
• Do a Windows Repair install. Problem: The PC used a modded Windows Setup CD (BunnyX) which I don't have at hand.
  

I would like to get Windows running again so my friend's daughter can backup her data. Of course now that the case is open I could attach the HDD to another computer for backup and check - have to use a external HDD case though since I only have laptops.

The situation is a bit annoying

Appreciate any input for the shortest way out of this mess!

welo

[welo]

Used the "disable automatic restart on system failure" feature in Windows Boot Menu (F8) and got my blue screen:

*** STOP: 0x00000024 (...)

hurray, didn't see a BSOD for quite some time.. so happy to have them back

This actually indicates a problem with the NTFS file system. Since I started working on this computer because of a failing harddisk, this might not have anything to do with my BIOS issues after all..

welo

[A_Traveller]

If you can access the HDD have you considered running software such as Spinrite?

Regards

[NHJ]

you should see in the bios an option called "AHCI" related to SATA, you need to put it to IDE or compatible.

the error you get is because the compatibility mode for SATA is set to native and your windows doesn't have the drivers for it.

compatibility mode is used to make the installation easier, basically the bios reports your hardrive as an IDE for windows and thus eliminates the need of the diskette driver.

[welo]

I am running a Long Test with SeaTools right now. Will take another 3 hours or so until finish, so I cannot follow on your recommendations until this is finished.

Never heard about the AHCI option before. In the beginnings of SATA I used to supply a driver disk during setup and later I used streamlined install CDs that would have the SATA drivers included - at least so I thought. Maybe those later computers supported the feature you mentioned.

I booted up with a rescue disk and interestingly the C partition is wiped out (data is luckily on another partition). No idea what happened, but I don't believe anything I did could have wiped the first partition's content and leave the partition table working. So I assume it's just another symptom of the faulty harddrive albeit a strange one.

However, how can Windows boot to the Windows logo if there is no data on this partition!?! Have to check again...

I had fixed some bad blocks on this drive about 4 weeks ago (using HDD Regenerator) and had the owner already prepared that the drive is quite likely to fail soon. However, since the SeaTools didn't report a FAILED test I advised against sending it to Seagate for replacement.

Does anybody know about Seagate's policies on warranty replacements? I mean if I keep getting bad blocks on this drive it is obviously faulty.

Anybody with specific experience in Thailand? Where to send, how long to wait, etc.

welo

[JetsetBkk]

<snip>Never heard about the AHCI option before. In the beginnings of SATA I used to supply a driver disk during setup <snip>

I came across the AHCI/IDE setting for hard drives when installing XP. The XP setup process would copy all the files from the CD to the hard drive, then say "Starting Windows" and then give a BSOD.

Once I'd changed BIOS's setting to IDE, Windoze would actually start.

[JetsetBkk]

<snip>

Does anybody know about Seagate's policies on warranty replacements? I mean if I keep getting bad blocks on this drive it is obviously faulty.

Anybody with specific experience in Thailand? Where to send, how long to wait, etc.

welo

It's not a 1 TB, series 11 is it?

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/seagate-7...iling,6844.html

[welo]

<snip>

Does anybody know about Seagate's policies on warranty replacements? I mean if I keep getting bad blocks on this drive it is obviously faulty.

Anybody with specific experience in Thailand? Where to send, how long to wait, etc.

welo

It's not a 1 TB, series 11 is it?

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/seagate-7...iling,6844.html

No, it's a 250gigs drive!

The drive has always been detectable, and the BIOS hangup was definitely a BIOS issue not caused by the HDD. Even with HDD detached the BIOS would still hang.

Thanks anyway!

The screenshots show the BIOS options for IDE.

If I remember correctly it was set to SATA+PATA before, I changed it to PATA which caused the BIOS hangup.

Now I set it to SATA since there is no PATA device.

Interestingly if I set it to SATA+PATA the computer would not boot from a bootable CD, with setting SATA it does.

SeaTools dropped out of Long Test at 4x%. Saying the device does not respond. HDD Regenerator never has any problems like this. Maybe they use a different method to test the surface (built-in SMART vs generic)

welo

[welo]

Forgot to add one screenshot...

[Mopfog]

I think my laptop uses AHCI. This is the first computer that I've had that has that setting in the BIOS. Then again, I usually build AMD PC's, and this laptop uses an Intel processor instead. Not sure if that has anything to do with it without doing some research that I'm just not motivated to do right now.

Anyhow, have you tried the SATA & PATA setting without a bootable cd? Just trying to boot normally? Also, if you flashed your BIOS, other settings may have changed? Doesn't flashing usually return the BIOS to factory defaults?

Since the case is now open, have you tried booting without anything connected to the mobo? Then connect the HDD and try to boot. If there isn't success, then you at least know the DVD drive isn't interfering. That's a fairly important thing to eliminate.

Also, was the Windows install on the partition, or was it with the other stuff? Make sure it isn't elsewhere on the HDD before assuming it disappeared. I've seen PC's that have Windows with everything else, and an empty partition that is used as virtual ram space, or not used at all.

If the HDD won't boot after trying some more things, set the BIOS to use the DVD drive as primary boot device and stick the bootable cd in it. It should boot to the cd. If it doesn't, there is a problem somewhere else. Possibly recheck connections and everything.

[welo]

Had a little read on the AHCI feature. It's actually a specification developed by Intel so it might be possible that Intel chipsets supported this feature sooner. From what I understand it's a standardized way for an OS to communicate with the SATA controller ("The specification describes a system memory structure for computer hardware vendors to exchange data between host system memory and attached storage-devices" source:wikipedia).

Windows has built-in support for AHCI as of version 7.

AHCI is fundamentally different from the 'legacy PATA' emulation. This is what you described as the IDE controller emulating a parallel-ATA to connect an attached SATA drive. To the OS it appears to be a PATA device which should make installation without suitable driver easier/possible. Just as like you said.

However, there seem to be issues when switching between modes after Windows has been installed. I know Windows can be pretty picky when you mess with the system drive/partition. I will look into that.

The interesting thing is that I can access the HDD and partition D and E are readable, but partition C seems to be wiped out. I see two explanations for this:

1. Some issue with the controller not accessing the harddisk correctly due to the mode switching. Maybe this only affects the boot partition since the BIOS might be interfering here. Seems a bit unlikely to me though.

2. During mode switching and/or when doing the surface test the filesystem of the boot partition got damaged.

> Anyhow, have you tried the SATA & PATA setting without a bootable cd?

> Just trying to boot normally? Also, if you flashed your BIOS, other settings

> may have changed? Doesn't flashing usually return the BIOS to factory defaults?

I tried all three settings and neither worked to boot windows. I used the bootable CD only to access the filesystem and check, and to run the HDD surface test from a rescue CD. My basic concern was to get the installed Windows booting.

> Since the case is now open, have you tried booting without anything connected to the mobo? Then connect

> the HDD and try to boot. If there isn't success, then you at least know the DVD drive isn't interfering. That's

> a fairly important thing to eliminate.

Will try to detach the DVD, and try again - just to make sure.

> I've seen PC's that have Windows with everything else, and an empty partition that is used as virtual ram space, or not used at all.

That's a good point. I used a bootable disk for a disk imaging software (I wanted to make a backup of the system partition before messing further with the Windows installation).

> If the HDD won't boot after trying some more things, set the BIOS to use the DVD drive

> as primary boot device and stick the bootable cd in it. It should boot to the cd. If it

> doesn't, there is a problem somewhere else. Possibly recheck connections and everything.

Booting from DVD drive is not a problem with SATA-only setting. It just didn't work with SATA & PATA setting.

Thanks for your hints. It's just a lot trial and error again, which is tiring

welo