DFI LanParty NFII Ultra B booting problem

Eye

Hoping that someone out there might be able to help out a bit here and get my pc booting into windows.

Bought the NFII Ultra B board last thursday, spent pretty much all weekend trying to get this board working.
The problem is that when i switch on the machine it goes through the normal BIOS steps and thats all well and good but then just as it goes to load windows, we should be seeing a faded windows logo on screen, i get 1 of many errors. it's as if it's ignoring and not even trying to read from the hdd at all, no hdd activity after verifying the DMI pool.

The errors range from a quick BSOD flash up on screen and then a reboot, the odd the the BSOD will stay on screen and it's talk about a stop error 0x0000007B which i looked up on the MS site to no avail, other times it simply says it's an invalid system disk.

Now, the funny thing is that i have tested pretty much everything i can think of, have tried 2 cpu's, 2 different lots of ram, 2 different psu's, am trying to boot from any of my 2 OS hdd's (both Win XP Pro) and still the same thing happens, and both hdd's get detected in the BIOS fine on the DFI board. All my hardware works fine when i have it on my old ABIT board but the DFI board just don't like it

Anyways, following that i brought back the motherboard thinking that it was at fault and got a replacement board which was a slightly different model it was the DFI Lanparty NFII Ultra, brought this home and smack, bang , wallop....same problem. Having talked to the "tech guys" in PC world they thought at first it was the board but now they just got another machine in with the same board and same problem so they think it maybe something in the BIOS. I've gone through the BIOS myself but cannot see anything obvious that would be stopping windows from loading up. Has anyboday else out there got the NFII Ultra, or Ultra B boards that has had this saem problem but got it sorted? was it a BIOS setting or how was it sorted?

I've heard lots of great things about these boards but i'm afraid so far things are not looking too good here :-\

Any and all help is much aprreciated, cheers

Ebonyks

Those 2 HDs you got with WinXP, has the OS been installed with your present hardware (DFI mobo etc.) or are they from other systems? WinXP can be choosy about where it goes not like other previous versions.

Basically, have you installed WinXP from scratch with this system?

Eye

No that's about the only thing i have'nt done, tbh i did'nt think that it would be necessary to reformat for a new board, guys in pc world said that it would'nt really make any difference coz it's not even trying to read from the hdd after it verify's the dmi pool, the machine they got in has the very same problem, they said they would look into it and will let me know tomorrow, just hoping i could find some sort of solution for it before then :-\

Ebonyks

I know you said that the system is "not even trying to read from the hdd after it verify's the dmi pool". But check following links

http://www.qdi.nl/support/dmipool.htm
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000474.htm

I recommend a fresh install though, that should be your probelm.

lynchie

Are your hard disks connected to a ide/sata raid controller on the mb, if so, xp may not have the drivers loaded for it, hence the stop 7b message. If this is the case, only solution is a reinstall, not sure a repair will do the job but i could be wrong.

Eye

cheers for the reply's,

both hdd's i'm connecting are going through the bog standard IDE channels, have also tried them through the raid channels on the older model board.
is it just me or do you not think it's strange that a full reinstall is needed for installing a new board, i have changed boards before without the need for a full windows format and reinstall? install the drivers and all that is fair enough, obviously i'd expect that but a reformat is a bit drastic

thanks for those links, if i thought that the mbr was damaged or corrupt in some way i'd try repair it but like i said in my original post all the hardware worked fine if i put it onto my abit board again, i mean does everyone who buys a new motherboard have to format and reinstall windows? that just sounds totally bizzare and unnecessary to me, if that is the case i'll end up getting my money back coz i can't backup what i need from any of the hdd's to reformat...would need a new hdd for that *sigh*

anything else?

Ebonyks

Well it depends on the type of system the HD's were in previously. Did the other mobo have the same chipset as the DFI (nForce2)? If you really can't backup your HD's, try partitioning one, and install OS on it, even just to see if it works. HD's are pretty damn cheap these days also.

Eye

well the hdd's were previously in my ABIT KG7-RAID board so no it was'nt the n-force2 chipset.

as for hdd's, they may very well be pretty damn cheap but i'm also pretty damn unemployed so for me the new board was to be my upgrade for the year :-\

could possibly try and squeeze a partition onto one of my hdd's but tbh i don't see the point coz if that works then i'm still gonna need to backup stuff to reformat which i still can't do so it would be a catch 22 situation

well bugger it anyway, looks like i'll end up sending back the board and getting a refund if that's the only way out of it

Eye

One final question for ya before i head off for the night...

would there be any point in setting up the hdd's in the old Abit board, then loading all the software that comes with the dfi board and then trying them again in the dfi board?

at this point i'm running out of ideas fast, will try almost anything that does'nt involve a refomat at this stage

daywalker

A friend of mine has that motherboard and he had the same problem, the solution that he came accross, was to change the access mode for the hard drive in the standard cmos features from auto to LBA mode, as the default for auto is CHS mode which can cause problems.

Eye

cheers for that daywalker gonna give thata a try now in a min and see if that helps

*me crosses fingers*

Eye

Well thanks for the info but alas it did'nt do anything for me :-\

guess i'll wait till tomorrow and see what pc world have to say about it and if they managed to contact dfi or anyone about it to get it sorted with the machine they had.

thanks for the reply's anyway guys, much appreciated