Drives can't be accessed Options

[rastamandan]

I'm pretty sure that this is my exact motherboard.

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec...._Lite3&class=mb


Daniel

[Leurgy]

On that page you linked to, in the top left it says "MSI Live Update 3". Click on that and follow the instructions. Looks like a pretty safe way to flash the bios.

Having said that, you need to get drivers for those USB sticks.

my usb stick is working fine in the uni computers

Talk to the tech guys. I'm sure they have all the drivers, cause they know you people use them.

This post has been edited by Leurgy: Jan 14 2005, 09:40 AM

[rastamandan]

To clarify, if a cd, floppy disc or usb device are in the computer before it is started then the drive recognises them and you can access them as normal.

The problem occurs when you insert a new cd, floppy or usb drive. In all cases the message "Please insert disc into drive" is returned.
I have been having trouble with the cd drives for a while but I recently added a new usb PCI card to my pc, since then all drives and usb ports behave in the manner described.

The device manager does not report a problem with any device or port.

I have today tried to flash the Bios of my computer by following the link on the MSI website. When I tried this the programme required a floppy disc backup to be made before allowing the bois flash. When I inserted a disc the programme attempted to format the disc but then returned an error message and then when I continued to try the bios flash without a backup disc creation the message "To Flash the BIOS in DOS mode, you must ahve a floppy drive and a diskette".

I then tried turning the computer off and inserting a floppy before tunring back on but received the same messages.

I have tried to find the MSI files on my computer without success. Are there any extensions which might be common to find in the file name as I retrieve many files when searching for just MSI, none of which seem to be for the mother board.

Daniel

[Leurgy]

Go to the flashbios site, click on "bios Q&A" and look for "Question: is there an universal Flash-program available ". That might work.

Before you do the flash, look on the same page only farther up for CTBios. Download and run that. Then you can be sure you get the right flash.

This can ruin your motherboard very easily if not done properly so please be careful.


This is the flashing procedure from MSI website:

Download the latest BIOS for your motherboard from the MSI website.
• Extract the BIOS files to a blank formatted floppy disk
• Boot the system with a bootable floppy disk l
• A Windows 98 or ME startup disk can be used, or you can create an MS-DOS startup disk under Windows XP.
• To create an MS-DOS startup disk under Windows XP, right click on the 3.5” floppy drive icon under my computer and select format. On the format dialog box check the box next to “Create MS-DOS startup disk”

• Replace the boot disk with the floppy disk containing the BIOS files
• At the A:\ prompt, you will type in the following command
A:\FLASHUTILITY BIOSFILE.VER • The flash utility will be the .EXE file included in the BIOS download
Example: ADSFI712.EXE =BIOS FLASH UTILITY
• The BIOS file will end with the version number
Example: A6728ims.210 = BIOS file version 2.1

• To update the BIOS using the example above you would type the following command
A:\ADSF712 A6728ims.210
Follow the onscreen prompts to update the BIOS
• Reboot the system once the BIOS update has been completed
• DO NOT TURN OFF THE POWER or RESET/REBOOT the SYSTEM before the BIOS update is completed, stopping the BIOS UPDATE before it is completed will cause the system to become non-functional



VIA Chipset 4in1 Drivers

Get these here. I think it is much more likely you have a problem with the chipset drivers than the Bios.

[rastamandan]

I have already downloaded all the available update drivers including the VIA chipset 4in1 drivers from MSI.

Tried to run the programms from the flash bios site.
The CTBIOS programme ran and produced a load of data. Not much of which makes sense to me, especially as it's in german.
Then tried to fun the Universal Flash Bios prgramme but all that happened was a black DOS looking screen popped up for a second then dissapeared. Tried it a couple of time but the same thing happened. Has it done something to my system and not told me?

The problem I have with updating the BIOS from the MSI site is that when I have done the create a DOS startup disc it then tries to write to the disc and gives the message.
"Write data to disc failed! Please replace disc, insert another disc into the floppy drive (A:\). Then Click "Yes" to try again (Clcik "No" to skip creating disk)".
I have tried new discs, re-formatting the same disc. If you click no you get the error message: "To Flash the BIOS in DOS mode, you must ahve a floppy drive and a diskette".
So that is as far as I can get with the MSI bois update programme.

It seems that to update the bios i need the floppy drive to be recognised propperly but to do that i need to update the bios.

Dan

[Leurgy]

This may be problematic because you are having problems with your floppy drive. You need to boot with a boot disk. Then you flash your bios in Dos, not Windows. If you were to insert a floppy in the drive JUST after you start to boot do you think the drive will work?

Go to Bootdisk.com and download the Driver Free Disk For Bios Flashing. This is an executable program you run in windows to create a bootdisk. You need a floppy in the drive to do this. Put the Flash Utility and the new Bios on that floppy. Boot with this floppy and run the flash utility and the bios flash. DO NOT POWER DOWN THE COMPUTER UNTIL YOU SUCCESSFULLY FLASH THE BIOS. If you do, the motherboard is toast.

Go here and read How do I update my BIOS?

Good luck. Let us know how you make out.

[rastamandan]

The floppy drive works fine as long as the disk is in the drive before you power the pc. I have downloaded abd saved to disk " Driver Free Disk For Bios Flashing | Alt1" from bootdisk.com which seems to have worked fine.

Questions before I attempt to do this and toast my MB?

Which files do you mean exactly by "Flash Utility and the new Bios".

Exactly how do I boot from a disk?

From what I read on that help link you added the flash utility and new bios seem to be downloaded from MSI. The problem is I can't download these as i get the error messages as before.

Dan

[Leurgy]

The floppy drive works fine as long as the disk is in the drive before you power the pc. I have downloaded abd saved to disk " Driver Free Disk For Bios Flashing | Alt1" from bootdisk.com which seems to have worked fine.

So you ran that and created a bootable Floppy?

Which files do you mean exactly by "Flash Utility and the new Bios

MSI has this to say about flashing. Is your Bios AMI or AWARD? Time to find out. That will determine your Flash Utility. Better to use the real one than the one from bootdisk.com.

In the post earlier when you said you were "pretty sure" this was your MB I linked to the Bios page at MSI. Pick your Bios from there.

I can't emphasize this strongly enough. Run Belarc. It will tell you what your MB is exactly and what your current Bios version is. Once you know that let me know and we'll go from there.

Exactly how do I boot from a disk?

Enter the Bios (Press delete to enter setup) and set your computers boot order to A,C,CD-ROM. Press Esc, F10, Save Changes and exit (Y) <enter> and the computer will take boot instructions from the floppy. Pull out the floppy and reboot and the computer will not find anything in A so will look to C: as normal.

[rastamandan]

Belarc says that the processor is:
Board: MICRO-STAR INTERNATIONAL CO., LTD MS-6330
Bus Clock: 133 megahertz
BIOS: Award Software International, Inc. 6.00 PG 08/03/2001

Another programme i found when searching for the type of memory my pc uses as I'm going to uprgade told me that I have a K7T Turbo MS-6330 V3.OB

Looking at the MSI website the only K7T Turbo 6330 on there which isn't red and looks like mine which is grren and has the lite chip on it is the K7T Turbo Lite 3.

Which is the one I put the link too.

If you search on http://www.msicomputer.com/support/bios_result.asp it gives a few results for that mother board.

MSI's Live update programme says I have bios version 2.90

I think that a bootable floppy was created but I'm not sure how to check this.

Dan

[Leurgy]

I think that a bootable floppy was created but I'm not sure how to check this.

Switch your boot drive to A and boot with it.

[rastamandan]

I changed the bios settings in the startup to boot from floppy.

Then sort of accidentally started my computer again without realising that the floppy which I had saved the "driver free disk for flashing Alt1" onto.
I was then faced with a black DOS screen which just had A:\ _ at the top.
Didn't know what to do so crossed my fingers and reset my pc.

Anyway, long and short of it is that my drives seem to work now, allowing me to swap discs, use my usb stick. Plug and unplug it as much as i want. Really everything seems back to normal.

Don't know what that disc if anything did or if this is permanant but have started up my computer again and all the drives and ports still work.

I can't thank you enough for your help Leurgy, I just hope it will stay fixed now.

Might be back for more help soon as I intend to install a second hard drive and some more RAM.


Thanks Again

Daniel

[Leurgy]

Well, thats interesting as all get out. There is a couple of IBM files on that disk. Maybe they rewrote your io.sys, which makes some sense.

What you did was boot from that floppy so the only instructions the computer was using were those from the disk. When you saw A:\> the computer had finished booting and was waiting for instructions. From that point you could have run programs like scanreg, scandisk etc.

Well, I'm really glad it worked and I hope you don't mind if I put that one in my bag of tricks. Feel free to post back anytime but it is probably best to start a new thread in the relevant forum.

[rastamandan]

Scratch the last post, just turned my pc back on after it's been off for about an hour.

Back to it's old tricks!

Nothing works again so I'll try the bios update.

My motherboard has printed on it K7T Turbo VER: 3

There is a bios in the list you had a link "MSI" to "K7T Turbo(MS-6330 Ver3.0)".

So as I see it what I need to do is.

1) Download this and save it to a disk

2) Set my pc to boot from floppy.

3) Boot from the disc I created from bootdisc.com

4) When the A:\ prompt appears insert the disc with the "K7T Turbo(MS-6330 Ver3.0)" download from MSI.

5) A:\FLASHUTILITY BIOSFILE.VER

The bios flash utility will be the file name of the bios update i will download from MSI.

6) Follow the onscreen prompts.


Unless you think I should do something else first.

Sorry, thought you got rid of me didn't you.

Dan

[rastamandan]

Have downloaded "K7T Turbo(MS-6330 Ver3.0)" from the MSI linked page you had.

In the WinRAR file which downloads are , an application file "AWFL789" which I think is the FlashUtility, an unrocognised application file "W6330VMS.350" which is the BiosFile.ver, a word document explaining what to do and a note pad file.


The MSI site instruction you sent a link too says:

"At the A:\ prompt, you will type in the following command
a. A:\FLASHUTILITY BIOSFILE.VER
b. The flash utility will be the .EXE file included in the BIOS you downloaded. For example: ADSFI712.EXE = BIOS FLASH UTILITY
c. The BIOS file will end with the version number you downloaded. For example:
A6728ims.210 = BIOS file version 2.10
To update the BIOS using the example above you would type the following command.
a. A:\ADSFI712 A6728ims.210, then push the enter key."

So i presume I would type: A:\AWFL789 W6330VMS.350, then push the enter key.



But the word document from the winRAR file says:

"When you get the A:\ prompt, type the following sequence:
C: <enter>
cd\test <enter>
C:\test> awdfl783m BIOS file
(to save or not to save old BIOS is the user’s decision)"


Which do you think I should do if either?


Dan

[Leurgy]

When you opened the .rar file you extracted the bios and flash utiliy to a newly created folder called test on your C: drive. Thats fine it will work. So you will be running the flash from there. Say yes to save the old one.

Thats a different way to do it but makes a lot of sense. The only difference is in where the bios and flash utility are.

But the word document from the winRAR file says:

"When you get the A:\ prompt, type the following sequence:
C: <enter>
cd\test <enter>
C:\test> awdfl783m BIOS file
(to save or not to save old BIOS is the user’s decision)"

You would type C:\test>awdfl783m W6330vms.350

Note the difference between mine and yours. NO SPACE after C:\test>

This post has been edited by Leurgy: Jan 19 2005, 04:58 PM