System Hangs on maxblast3 partition software and xp installation disk

[IslandBoy]

I hope you can help me out here. I just finished building my first cpu.Boots up into bios, however when I try to partition and format hard drive system freezes on me.All accesories are recognized.The build is made up of the following:
Aopen Ak86-l
Amd Athlon 64 3000
Maxtor 120gb ATA133 hard drive
GeForce 5500 OC PCI 256 graphics card
450 Watt Power supply
256mb ddr400 pc3200 Geil
Sony crx320e cdrw/dvdrom
Floppy
I have the Maxblast3 software from Maxtor - but it freezes on reboot
Tried to use fdisk.exe however dos says it is the wrong version.

Should I upgrade the Phoenix Bios?
Any help you could offer would be appreciated.

 

[jpmkm]

What operating system are you trying to install? This is the wrong forum, btw.

 

[Fireplay5]

That is weird that it happened to you. The exact same thing happened to me today also. I put in the maxblast cd and it boots up and recognizes everything then loads the cd driver then freezes. hmm. Not sure how to fix it so I instead booted up to a win98 boot disk and fdisked the drive then formated it. Of course it took forever and formated using fat32 but then when I installed the WinXP cd I deleted the partition and formated again with NTFS. That was a long way about doing it but it got the job done. Good luck.

Oh yeah, you might get more responses to post in another forum. just fyi...

 

[IslandBoy]

Trying to load xp, sorry about post though-new to forum. Tried booting with fdisk.exe but I get the wrong version ms-dos error.

 

[jpmkm]

So you can't partition from windows setup?

 

[IslandBoy]

I get through the bios and can edit bios.It recognizes all acessories but come time to try to partition and format-starts up and freezes on maxblast3/xp boot disks/xp cdrom.Gonna try again tonight.Hopefully

 

[unhappy_mage]

Try a bootable linux cd like knoppix (or damnsmall) and partition it with that. first, 'dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=8k count=4', then 'fdisk /dev/hda'. If you need help, stop by the OS->Linux subforum.

 

[IslandBoy]

Thanks guys - gonna try to load with win98 first(try the long route) then hit the linux route if that does not work. The mission continues.

 

[IslandBoy]

Also Cannot adjust motherboard time and date in bios?The only thing I could not adjust in bios. So I figured if I load xp on the new drive on my old pc then I could do a swop to new system build. Successfully loaded xp onto new hard drive.Transferred drive to new build and still no interaction between new system and os on hard drive. Recognizes every piece on the system but will not relay information. I think I may have a bad motherboard. What do some of you guys and gals think.

 

[jpmkm]

Also Cannot adjust motherboard time and date in bios?

Are you asking us or telling us?

When you say no interaction, what exactly do you mean? Why do you feel there is no interaction? What messages do you get on boot? I say try a different IDE cable before doing anything drastic.

 

[IslandBoy]

On Boot this is the first screen info before heading into Bios options:
Phoenix Award Bios v6.00 PG
An Energy Star Ally
Copyright(C) 2003, Phoenix Technologies Ltd

Ak86-L R1.13 July 14 2004
Main Processor : Amd Athlon 64 Processor 3000
Memory Testing : 262144k OK
Default/Setting Default/Setting
CPU 200MHZ/200MHZ 1.500V/1.500V
DRAM 400MHZ/400MHZ Auto/Auto
AGP 66.67MHZ/66.66MHZ 1.53v/1.53v
PCI 33.33Mhz/33.33Mhz 3.30v/3.30v

Primary Master : Maxtor 6y120PO Yar41BWO
Primary Slave : None
Secondary Master : Sony CD-RD Crx 320E NYK5
Secondary Slave : None

Cmos Checksum Error - Defaults Loaded

Then you get the F1 to continue Del to enter Bios
I have it set to boot from cdrom first/a/c. Cdrom drive starts spinning saying windows is checking configuration then just dies down.I Will head out and get some new cables to try and see whether this is why it continues to die down on using floppy/c/cdrom. Should I be able to change the dat in the bios?(I can select every other option in there and change defaults except for the date/year/time? Seems like I have everything in place for it to start up? So close yet so far.
Aopen Ak86-l
Amd Athlon 64 3000
Maxtor 120gb ATA133 hard drive
GeForce 5500 OC PCI 256 graphics card
450 Watt Power supply
256mb ddr400 pc3200 Geil
Sony crx320e cdrw/dvdrom
Floppy

 

[jpmkm]

Have you even tried to boot without the cd in the drive? What happens when you try to boot straight off the hard drive?

 

[IslandBoy]

It hangs just like cdrom option. I am hitting the Aopen forums to check up on this.Hopefully an option will arise otherwise I will have to replace motherboard. WIllbe checking on updating bios.

 

[IslandBoy]

Just to update you guys that tried to help me. I went out and bought an MSI k8t800 motherboard, sent the Aopen board back to NewEgg. Put everything back together in 20 mins flat. Booted with floppy xp disks and the SOB loaded windows with no issues. Added 512 DDR400 PC 3200 (One Stick) and a dual layer dvd burner to the arrangement. Now all I am missing to make this baby complete is a Sweet graphics card , stick of 512 to make it one gig and one last fan to add some extra cooling. Thank you all for your help.
MSI K8m Neo V socket 754 Motherboard
Athlon 64 3000
512mb Geil ddr400 pc3200
Sony Dual Layer DVD burner
Sony Cdrw/CDRom
Mitsumi Media Floppy
Maxtor 120gb ata 133
Seagate 40gb in External USB Casing
Antec Server Case/450 watt PSU(Messy cabling) will get Xconnect to clean up
3 80mm case fans and cpu cooler(so far stable at 34-36 deg)
32mb Radeon just to get started(Had a geforce 5500oc 256mb pci but it caught on fire)

 

[Fireplay5]

Sounds like everything worked out in the end. Too bad it was such a rough road to travel. Congrats!