Ultra100 Bios not installed, because there are no drivers attached - PC does not boot

[OliverB]

I would need help o_n the following problem:

One of these scenarios can happen

Scenario 1: During boot my HDD is not recognized and the boot sequence finishes with 'Ultra100 Bios not installed, because there are no drivers attached'

Scenario 2: However sometimes the HDD is recognised and the PC powers up and starts Win2000 as normal. Everthing is running fine for a while until suddenly the HDD stops to 'operate' and the PC 'crashes' and subsequently returns to scenario 1.

Firstly I am puzzled why I get this Ultra100 message because no controller Ultra100 is actually inserted in o_ne of the PCI slots. Secondly I wonder why the HDD is sometimes detected and the other time not. During the faulty boot sequence I've also received the message 'check cables' - which I did but with no idea what to do - everything looked fine to me. Listening to the HDD it sounds like it sometimes simple stops 'turning' the disk.

My motherboard is a Asus Cubx-E with a primary master / slave and secondary master / slave.

Please note: I am not a Hardware Person - but I understand what to do if the answer is not written in techy language.

Are my bios settings screwed?? (and why what that be - have not made any amendments to hard- or software - problem occured out of the blue).

Your help is appreciated.

[glc]

The CUBX-E's onboard controller is a Promise Ultra 100.

You do need to check your hard drive cable. It should be an 80 wire Ultra ATA cable, with the blue end connected to the motherboard, the black end connected to the master, and the gray connector in the middle connected to the slave. The drives should be jumpered Cable Select, not master/slave. You also need to check the power connectors to the drives - reseat and/or swap if necessary.

If you still have problems, you need to download diagnostic software from the hard drive manufacturers and run it on the drives, one or both could possibly be starting to fail.

It's best to put hard drives on the primary and optical drives on the secondary when you have this type of controller setup.

[OliverB]

Thanks for the answer. I will start checking the cables and connectors. Since nothing has been touched in the past year (and just worked fine during this time) I guess (unfortunately) your statement 'one or both could possibly be starting to fail' is what I have to come to terms with.

Further ideas still welcome if there are still other options for my scenarios.