Hi all,

installed a new ASUS mobo model k8v-mx. reformatted a six month old samsung HDD of 40 gig (model SPO411N)and partitioned 20gig, 10gig, 10gig.this is the only hdd in primary IDE channel and set as master.i have not attached any slave. the secondary IDE channel has a dvd r/w and cd r/w.

during initial boot the post message said "S.M.A.R.T monitoring of primary IDE SLAVE failed." I left it at that because there was no "slave" in this channel in any case,  and enabled S.M.A.R.T in the bios, set all other bios parameters, saved, exited and installed win xp pro with sp2. installation went well(felt on top of the world!).

NOW at the final reboot (and ever since) the "POST" reads " primary MASTER(!) hard disk: S.M.A.R.T COMMAND FAILED. press f1 to resume)

further details (pertaining ONLY to primary ide ) in "POST"

primary master--samsung SPO411N-TW100-13
ULTRA DMA MODE-2
S.M.A.R.T capable but command failed

the main bios menu pertaining to primary ide:--

primary ide master
device-hd
vendor-samsung SPO411N
size-40gb
LBAmode-supported
block mode-16 sectors
PIO mode-4
Async. DMA-multiword DMA 2
S.M.A.R.T monitoring--supported.

THE ENTIRE ABOVE AREA IS GREYED OUT.

THE INPUT FIELD AVAILABLE--

TYPE--AUTO
LBA large mode-AUTO
BLOCK MULTI SECTOR TRANSFER M -AUTO
PIO mode-auto
DMA-auto
S.M.A.R.T monitoring--auto (the available options are auto, enable, disable and even with "enable" option selected the same "command failed" results)
32 bit transfer mode-disable
acoustics-max performance.

i even checked with the samsung site and confirmed that the hdd is S.M.A.R.T compliant and the new mobo is of course.

question: does this mean that some sectors in the hdd is corrupted and therefore unable to execute the S.M.A.R T command or is it a foolish question and something else is the cause?

sorry for the long post but thought all relevant info may be needed.

will gratefully acknowledge any input.

good day--Venkat

                         PCBUILD's List Owners:
                      Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
                       Drew Dunn<[log in to unmask]>