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[scuba156]

When trying to flash my Benq drive (already has iXtreme 1.4 x8 on it but trying to update to 1.41 x12), no matter what i do, my PC freezes as soon as i turn on the DVD drive, except during post

If i turn it on when trying to flash, it starts off at status 0x73 and changes to 0x80 when i connect the DVD drive and again, freezes the PC. ive tried every thing, turning the dvd drive on at different times during bootup, using different ports on the sata card, and changing PCI ports on the Mobo. The only thing i havnt tried is flashing it manually using the tools folder on the boot USB stick, but i figure it wont work as it will just freeze DOS

using iPrep, it shows my sata card as a VIA RAID controller 3249, instead of VIA RAID VT6241. ive tried upgrading the VIA drivers but windows tries to tell me the the currunt version is newer than the one im trying to use and wont let me continue. it still shows the card as compatible though

This is the second Benq drive that ive tried to flash on this PC, the first one was a stock Benq, which also made DOS freeze up

im using:
AMD Athlon XP 1800+ @ 1.5Ghz
ASRock K7S41GX MOBO here
Via Raid VT6241 PCI card
128 USB stick
iPrep V006 1.01

Im not a noob to flashing or PC's, im just stumped on this and am looking for some imput from you guys

[out4it]

Try erasing your old flash first. The commands are in the read me.

[scuba156]

so you want me to erase the banks on the Benq first and then what? use a random DVD key for it?

i wouldnt be able to erase it anyway as it freezes as soon as the drive is plugged in

[out4it]

QUOTE(scuba156 @ Jan 24 2008, 10:54 AM)

so you want me to erase the banks on the Benq first and then what? use a random DVD key for it?

i wouldnt be able to erase it anyway as it freezes as soon as the drive is plugged in

 Well if the drive is flashed you should have the key. Sounds like a via driver problem if it locks up like that. Check to find the latest drivers. Also, you will have to erase on the drive thats already done to reflash it. You say it locks when you "reconnect" the drive. You shouldn't do that. You should just power it off when its flashing between x73 and 80. When it powers back on (turn off the power like normal in 360 and wait 2 seconds and turn back on) it should go to 0x80 and start to flash or read. You don't disconnect anything once its connected. pm me with an email and I'll send you the drivers. But its definetly one of the 2 things.

[Martinchris23]

Who flashed your drive originally? I'm guessing not you since from what you said you don't have the dvd key. I don't understand how connecting a SATA device is causing your machine to freeze whilst in DOS mode. The device isn't being polled and there are no drivers addressing it either. It sounds more like there's a short somewhere.

[out4it]

A short I doubt, it would have shorted long before you tried to flash it. What you should do is uninstall the drivers from your pc. Then install the other drivers you have. I don't use iprep, I use dosflash, works everytime for me. I would look in device manager and remove the drivers and re-install the new ones you have. See if that helps. As I've never used iprep, you may want to update the definitions to the latest.

[scuba156]

when i say connecting and disconnecting the dvd drive, i mean powering the xbox 360 on and off.

i do have the DVD key for this drive but as i said, i have another stock benq drive that im trying to flash also, so that method wont do me any good. i flashed my benq by myself, using a different PC which i no longer have access too, and yes i have multiple copies of the orig.bin

it could possibly be a short or something with the mobo as it is a new mobo (my old mobos capacitators melted) which has a power problem on bootup, where sometimes after 2 seconds off turning it on, it just shuts its self down. i know a fair bit about PC hardware but ive been stumped with the cause of it.

also, while attempting to flash it, i was originally using a connectivity kit, the Connectivity kit sparked after turning it on and started smoking. after looking at it, a metal pin on one of the parts snapped

QUOTE

You should just power it off when its flashing between x73 and 80

problem is, it shows 0x73 (good drive status) when the drive is off, and goes to 0x80 when i turn it on and locks up. even if i turn the xbox off, it stays at 0x80. the status should toggle between 0x51 and 0xD1, not 0x73 and 0x80.

ive tried uninstalling the drivers for the sata card and reinstalling other ones (ones i have on the OEM driver disk and from VIAarena) and it still says they are out dated drivers and reports it as a VIA RAID controller 3249, but its definatly detecting the sata card so it should not matter with iprep as the port and device id is still the same.

[scuba156]

im aware on the process of flashing a benq drive, but thank you for your input

under IDE devices, all that is shown is IDE Pri Master and IDE Pri Secondary which is my 20gb and 250gb HDD respectively

[out4it]

I told you, I have the correct Via drivers for that card as I have the same. I never used the disk because like you said,they were outdated. All you have to do is PM a email addy and I will send it. See if we can't rule that out. But since you know how to flash,you shouldn't need our help then.

[scuba156]

the drivers on the disk are the latest, they are the same version as the latest drivers on ViaArena.com (VIA's own website), i used them in the other PC with no problem and used them on my old motherboard with no problem

it is not a driver issue, windows drivers have absolutly nothing to do with DOS, the drivers are not causing the PC to freeze. im starting to think its a Mobo compatability problem with Sata card, but its a bit hard to tell. i might create a new partition on my 250Gb HDD and create a new installation of XP just to see if i get the same driver problems, if i do then it is definatly a Mobo/Sata card problem

QUOTE

But since you know how to flash,you shouldn't need our help then.

so only people who have absolutly no idea on how to flash the firmware are allowed to ask for help?

[Martinchris23]

QUOTE(out4it @ Jan 24 2008, 06:33 PM)

A short I doubt, it would have shorted long before you tried to flash it. What you should do is uninstall the drivers from your pc.

Maybe you should have read his initial post where he said connecting it in DOS mode freezes the PC.

Can you explain how messing around with drivers in Windows is going to affect booting from a DOS boot device, because I'm at a loss on that one.

[out4it]

doesn't the card have to communicate with the mobo? dos can't plug and play can it? What I'm saying is if its reporting as a different card in windows through iprep, would that not be a driver issue? from what I remeber dos still loads drivers. And even if its reporting as a different card,is that card compatible? Also remembering that only certain cards were compatible. Even if the card physically has the right chipset,does the one its reporting as have it as well? Maybe there is a conflict because of the cards. Is there a port listing in msinfo32?

[scuba156]

DOS does not use windows drivers, DOS does not communicate with windows at all, DOS is its own operating system

if you had a dual boot system with win 98 and win XP, win  98 does not use win XP's drivers, its the same with DOS

DOS communicates at a basic level with the hardware directly. if it didnt, then you would have no video on screen until windows has booted up

iPrep is showing that the VIA 3249 is compatible

[Martinchris23]

QUOTE(out4it @ Jan 24 2008, 11:29 PM)

doesn't the card have to communicate with the mobo? dos can't plug and play can it? What I'm saying is if its reporting as a different card in windows through iprep, would that not be a driver issue? from what I remeber dos still loads drivers. And even if its reporting as a different card,is that card compatible? Also remembering that only certain cards were compatible. Even if the card physically has the right chipset,does the one its reporting as have it as well? Maybe there is a conflict because of the cards. Is there a port listing in msinfo32?

Put windows drivers and compatible iprep SATA cards to one side for a second.

Connecting a SATA device to a SATA chipset whilst in DOS mode (with NO drivers loaded at this point, not even in the config.sys) should not halt the entire machine.

scuba156 - how are you getting power to the dvd drive? Do you have any other SATA devices you can try to connect to see if they behave the same?

[scuba156]

well at first i was using a connectivity kit connected via molex from the PC's PSU. PSU is 550W which is plenty to run my computer, but when i get time i was gonna swap that for my old 200W one to see if the PSU is the culprut of my PC issues.

once the connectivity kit blew, i had to start powering the drive through the 360's PSU, while having croc clips to balance ground. both halted the system.

the only other SATA drives i have is 3 360 hard drives which i tested on it also, just forgot to point it out in my OP. the HDD's work fine and are accessable in windows. i even tried having one HDD connected while powering the Benq drive which just resulted in the same thing.i even tried a hot swap after the system had scanned for RAID drives, which did the same thing too

and its not because its a RAID card, i have flashed plenty of MS25/28 and my own Benq (on a different system) on this card before