[sablefalcon]

I built a new system over the weekend and thought I have finally gotten all the bugs out. I've updated the drivers, BIOS, and the HD firmware; everything should be current. This is the hardware:

A8N-SLI with 1014 BIOS

AMD Athlon 64X2 4200+

2x Maxtor DiamondMax 10 SATAII 250GB drives 6V250FO

WinXP Pro SP2

2x 1 GB Corsair DDR400 CAS3 unbuffered

2x BFG GeForce 7900 GT OC

Last night as I was getting ready to transfer the files from the old computer, I get an error message telling me the target drive is too small. The both HDs are "gone"; they don't appear in the BIOS at boot nor can I see them with PowerMax.

Short of buying new HDs and mobo, any suggestions on what might be the problem?

[einstein2]

curropt file system? do the hard drive motors power on bootup?

[sablefalcon]

Not sure about a corrupt file, but don't think it's likely. When I try to boot from the Win CD and have added the correct drivers, I still don't see the drives.

I don't recall if the drives are spinning up. It was late and I didn't stop to check.

The odd thing is everything was running fine until I started the transfer.

[sablefalcon]

Things are getting stranger.

I booted and entered the BIOS setup and both drives are showing up. I try to boot and get "Error loading OS" message. I then installed a PATA drive and that booted fine.

From there, I'm able to explore both SATA drives without any problem. I can write and retreive data, etc..

I reformat the drives, transfer the files from the PATA, disconnect the PATA, and try to boot. Still get the "Error loading OS" and the BIOS is only showing one of the two SATA drives.

Any ideas?