can't boot off intel ssd320 in dell e521 (nForce4)

[magreen]

Hello everyone

I just registered on this forum because I saw some great advice here.

machine: dell e521
ssd: intel ssd320 80GB
chipset: nForce4
OS: Vista Home Premium 32-bit

Executive summary of my problem:
my machine will not boot off the SSD once I tell it to use the Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller storage controller drivers. I can use the SSD as a secondary drive using the Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller drivers. But I cannot boot from the SSD using those drivers. (And with the nvidia drivers, TRIM doesn't work and the drive is unreliable.)

When I boot off the hard drive, I can go and set the storage controller drivers to the Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller. I reboot (again off the hdd), and the Intel SSD Toolbox can optimize the ssd drive, run TRIM, everything is perfect. I can run the CrystalDiskMark bench and the SSD is operating quickly and perfectly.

And I can boot off the SSD using the nvidia SATA drivers. But then TRIM won't run, and I can't even complete a CrystalDiskMark bench without the machine hanging. (It usually hangs on the QD32 test). I want to set the drivers to be the Microsoft ones.

But when I've booted off of the SSD and set the storage controller drivers to the Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller and reboot, it won't boot. I'll see the Microsoft Windows splash screen for about 3 seconds and then just black. Sometimes it kicks me out to the BIOS splash screen and sometimes it just hangs black forever. Then the only way to get things running is to do a system restore to get back the nvidia drivers.

Can someone please help me diagnose why it won't boot using the Microsoft storage controller drivers? This is driving me crazy. Thanks!

[Fernando 1]

@ magreen:
Welcome at nForcersHQ Forum!

machine: dell e521
ssd: intel ssd320 80GB
chipset: nForce4
OS: Vista Home Premium 32-bit

Executive summary of my problem:
my machine will not boot off the SSD once I tell it to use the Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller storage controller drivers. I can use the SSD as a secondary drive using the Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller drivers. But I cannot boot from the SSD using those drivers.

Did you check the "HARD DISK BOOT PRIORITY" settings within the BIOS?
If you have more than 1 HDD or SSD connected with the SATA/IDE ports of your mainboard, you have to determine, which of them should be the bootable one.
This setting has nothing to do with the "normal" boot order (1. CD/DVD, 2. HDD).

And I can boot off the SSD using the nvidia SATA drivers. But then TRIM won't run.

TRIM doesn't work with the MS IDE driver neither. It only works, when you are running Windows 7 or Windows 8.
What you probably mean is the "Optimize" option of Intel's SSD Toolbox., which is doing something different from the TRIM command. The "Optimize" button of Intel's SSD Toolbox should work with both compatible IDE drivers (MS IDE and nForce SATA) unless you have enabled the RAID option within the BIOS.

Regards
Fernando

[magreen]

@ magreen:
Welcome at nForcersHQ Forum!

Did you check the "HARD DISK BOOT PRIORITY" settings within the BIOS?
If you have more than 1 HDD or SSD connected with the SATA/IDE ports of your mainboard, you have to determine, which of them should be the bootable one.
This setting has nothing to do with the "normal" boot order (1. CD/DVD, 2. HDD).

First, thanks very much for the reply and the welcome.

That sounds promising! I didn't notice any setting for which drive is the bootable one in the BIOS, just the boot order. I will go and look -- but do you know what should I look for?

TRIM doesn't work with the MS IDE driver neither. It only works, when you are running Windows 7 or Windows 8.
What you probably mean is the "Optimize" option of Intel's SSD Toolbox., which is doing something different from the TRIM command. The "Optimize" button of Intel's SSD Toolbox should work with both compatible IDE drivers (MS IDE and nForce SATA) unless you have enabled the RAID option within the BIOS.

Fair enough, the Optimize in Intel's Toolbox is indeed what I meant. As an aside, how is that different from TRIM? I thought that the Toolbox is actually sending the TRIM command that the Vista OS doesn't send?

Thanks again!

[Fernando 1]

As an aside, how is that different from TRIM? I thought that the Toolbox is actually sending the TRIM command that the Vista OS doesn't send?

You are right: The Optimizer of Intel's Toolbox is sending something like a "manual TRIM command", whereas the actual MS Operating Systems are sending the TRIM command automaticly.

[magreen]

As an aside, how is that different from TRIM? I thought that the Toolbox is actually sending the TRIM command that the Vista OS doesn't send?

You are right: The Optimizer of Intel's Toolbox is sending something like a "manual TRIM command", whereas the actual MS Operating Systems are sending the TRIM command automaticly.

Fernando,

Ok, thanks.

I went and looked in the BIOS, and I don't see anything that would let me determine the hard disk boot priority other than what I've already set. There is an option there for determining the boot order of HDDs. It shows my HDD and my SDD, and I placed the SSD first. But that didn't help.

There's also an option to disable or enable each SATA port. I tried disabling all the SATA ports (there are 4 of them total) except for SATA-0, which the SSD is on. (Interestingly enough, even though the BIOS says that if you disable the port the drive attached to that port won't be usable, and the BIOS no longer saw my HDD or DVD-ROM, my HDD and DVD-ROM were still accessible in Windows.) Then I tried installing the Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller drivers and rebooting. But it was no better. Windows splash screen with the little green swishy thing at the bottom for about 2 seconds, then black screen and automatic restart back to the BIOS screen.

This time, when it was in this broken state, I pressed F8 to boot in safe mode. I saw Windows safe mode load approximately 50 drivers. The last driver to load before it crashed and automatically restarted was always crcdisk.sys. I did it a few times and it always had the same result.

Interestingly, one of the drivers in the list among those 50 it loaded before it crashed was nvstor.sys. Does this mean I still have some nvidia drivers on my system that I need to get rid of? Note that this was a clean Vista install (using the Dell OEM Vista DVD) and I did not install any drivers or software.

Any ideas? Thanks!

[Fernando 1]

I went and looked in the BIOS, and I don't see anything that would let me determine the hard disk boot priority other than what I've already set. There is an option there for determining the boot order of HDDs. It shows my HDD and my SDD, and I placed the SSD first. But that didn't help.

If this didn't solve your problem, you should unplug the hdd while trying to get Vista installed onto the SSD.

Then I tried installing the Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller drivers and rebooting. But it was no better. Windows splash screen with the little green swishy thing at the bottom for about 2 seconds, then black screen and automatic restart back to the BIOS screen.

It would be interesting to see the error message, because this may indicate the cause of the BSOD.
So please hit F8 and choose the "Don't reboot at system failure" option, before you try the next Vista installation.

This time, when it was in this broken state, I pressed F8 to boot in safe mode. I saw Windows safe mode load approximately 50 drivers. The last driver to load before it crashed and automatically restarted was always crcdisk.sys.

As far as I remember the file CRCDISK.SYS usually is the last driver, which is loaded while starting Vista in safe mode. That is why I don't believe, that the name of this driver has anything to do with your problem.

Interestingly, one of the drivers in the list among those 50 it loaded before it crashed was nvstor.sys. Does this mean I still have some nvidia drivers on my system that I need to get rid of?

That is the Vista in-box nForce SATA driver and I do not recommend to delete it.

Any ideas?

Yes, you may try the following:

1. Download >this< 32bit driverpack and unzip it.
2. Unplug the HDD and then boot off the Vista DVD.
3. When you get the option to load any driver, load the content of the SATA_IDE folder, which is part of the downloaded package. Choose the "NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller".
4. Let Vista Setup delete and recreate the partition, where you want to get Vista installed.
5. Let the Vista Setup do its work.

Good luck!
Fernando

[magreen]

Thank you very kindly. I will try this and report back.

[magreen]

Then I tried installing the Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller drivers and rebooting. But it was no better. Windows splash screen with the little green swishy thing at the bottom for about 2 seconds, then black screen and automatic restart back to the BIOS screen.

It would be interesting to see the error message, because this may indicate the cause of the BSOD.
So please hit F8 and choose the "Don't reboot at system failure" option, before you try the next Vista installation.

Ok, I didn't change any drivers, and I hit F8 and chose no reboot at system failure. Here's what the BSOD said:
------
Technical information:
*** STOP: 0x0000007B (0x80607BA0, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)
------

Thanks very much.

[Fernando 1]

@ magreen:

There is something wrong either with your BIOS settings or with the SSD.
>Here< is the story of another Dell PC owner, who got exactly the same error message.
If you want some additional informations regarding the STOP: 0000007 BSOD, you should look >here<.

Regards
Fernando

[magreen]

@ magreen:

There is something wrong either with your BIOS settings or with the SSD.
>Here< is the story of another Dell PC owner, who got exactly the same error message.
If you want some additional informations regarding the STOP: 0000007 BSOD, you should look >here<.

Regards
Fernando

Thanks for the information. Well, I agree there's probably a problem with my BIOS settings. I doubt the SSD is faulty because it worked and installed properly with the nvidia drivers. It's just the standard microsoft drivers that make it BSOD.

I googled the 0x0000007B and 0xC00000034 stop errors, and found this thread and quite a few others showing a large number of people having 7B/0xC0000034 errors on various computers. The solution was almost always to change the SATA operation mode in the BIOS from AHCI to IDE/ATA.

The problem is this Dell E521 doesn't have any such setting. There is a SATA Mode setting, but the only two options are Raid Off and Raid On. I tried Raid On, and it was really RAID, with the option to press Ctrl-N to decide how to mirror the drives. I don't think that's what I want. I tried booting with it anyway, and it said No boot device or somesuch.

What do you think I should do? Do you think I should go ahead with your Plan B from your post above and reinstall with the HDD unplugged and with your custom drivers?