X25-M G2 with original FW suddenly hangs in BIOS

[idata]

Hello

I have been using my 80GB Postville for a week now. I installed Windows 7 64bit retail on it and this worked super, even though I only have SATA 1,5 (on-board). Everything reacts much faster. But because I had some driver issues (soundblaster card) I went ahead and installed Windows 7 32bit retail. Same experience, same speed. This worked OK for a few days, found the correct drivers and then I wanted to go back to Win7 64bit.

So I boot from the DVD, I let Windows install and then the system needed to reboot automatically, so it did.

This is where it started to go wrong. The BIOS screen hangs on the SSD. And I didn't change a thing!

The SSD is there in the info on my screen (it says SSD blablabla SMART enabled and OK), but it does not go anywhere from there. I can't even go into the BIOS when i hit the DEL key!

Does anybody know what is going on?

some more info:

-I also have a SATA 3.0 PCI-E controller card and when I put the SSD on this port, boot to Windows XP from another drive, then in Windows, the SSD is there and can be used, so it looks ok.

-When I put the SSD on this SATA 3.0 port and try to install Win7 on it, using the drivers for this SATA 3.0 card during setup, the SSD is there (but I cannot install Windows on it because I cannot boot from this SATA controller)

-I tried different cables and switched from port 1 to 2 and back on the onboard controller, removed all the other SATA and IDE drives, set the BIOS to default, nothing worked, the SSD still hangs in the first screen.

-I did not change the Firmwaren, it has 02G9, straight from the box.

-the SSD is empty now, I removed all partitions and formatted it with the Win7 install DVD

PC:

ASUS NCT-D dual XEON 3.4GHz4 GB RAM

Please help!

[idata]

Please, somebody reply to me!

[idata]

okay. I will try to help. I will make one quick suggestion. Going back in forth between XP, 64bit Win 7, and 32Bit Win7 is not going to make your job easy and it will more than like screw you up.

First, connect the SSD to your motherboard SATA connection, not your PCI 3.0 SATA controller. You might have issues booting because in order for windows to understand your PCI 3.0 SATA controller you probably need drivers which probably have not been loaded during installation.

Second, boot with the WIN7 CD. Make sure that you select the option to boot from CDROM first and not your SSD.

Third, partition the SSD, then exit the WIN 7 installer without installing and see if it boots correctly. You should get a message that there is no operating system. Good thing.

Then, reboot from WIN 7 CD and do the install. Your partition and everything should still be intact so you only need to tell where to install.

You have tried a lot of different things so it is hard to pinpoint what's wrong, so start from scratch.

Good luck!

[idata]

Thanks for the help, it worked!!

I didn't use the Win7 DVD, but a Win XP DVD and used another computer to do it, but I did what you said.

After I erased the entire SSD and created a new partition with the Win XP setup DVD, I put it back in my own PC and it worked again.

Now I am typing this while on my Win 7 64 bit system booted from the SSD

Still on SATA1,5 though, but it's fast enough.

Thanks again!