removing "press any key to continue"?

@ptbg: In your images, I could only see part of the Phoenix Award BIOS version - can you post the version, not an image, just type in the version you see. Same thing for JMicron BIOS. Thanks.

@F5ing: I agree. I think ptbg is going to have to research the offerings made by MSI. I'm only interested in hardware firmware. I'll probably take a look, but you mentioned that the information is a bit light. Once ptbg confirms the versions, I might suggest download and flash manually - but we'll wait for a bit until everything else is confirmed and tested. The active partition might still be a problem, I didn't see a confirmation on that - I might have missed though.

@ptbg: I'll take a look at some more things after you confirm the current status / configuration I asked about in the preceding posts.

Thanks.

@ptbg: I can get the BIOS info out of the System Information Report (I think)

SI report:
BIOS Version/Date
Phoenix Technologies, LTD 6.00 PG, 05-Jul-07

SMBIOS Version 2.4

I'll need to find the JMicon information in the SIl, but if you have it handy could you post the versions (Award & JMicron). Just to make sure I'm correctly reading the SI report

Thanks

proudtobegreek said:

Bought myself a new 40 pin(no 80 was available)IDE cable

connected OD at the end(CS), BIOS saw it, came up in windows, fully functional.

Connected WDC at the end of IDE(CS), BIOS saw it, came up in windows, fully functional.

Tried both, none of jumper settings could see WDC, only optical.

Just formatted a quote to outline some key info.

The last line I presume means all combinations of jumpers were tried with both drives connected.

I also presume 40 pin cable is referring to 40 wire as both 40 and 80 wire are both 40 pin.

proudtobegreek said:

If u mean MY placement of disks,it was WDC as slave and OD as master and thats how its now set(but not working anymore) but believe me,i tried them all,CS-CS,MS-SL,SL-MS,no jumper at all...

This probably won't help as your tried the different jumper combinations but leave as set, currently set WDC as slave and OD as master and try switching the middle and end connectors around.

Also I don't know if it makes a difference but if the cable is not colour coded then one end is usally longer from the middle connector and is intended to be plugged into the motherboard.

BIOS version:v6.00 PG W7235SIMS V1.10 070507
JMicron driver date:16 Sep 06 version 1.0.0.0 (info via device manager)Attachment 215620

@Duzzy & F5ing: Thanks - only 40 pin cables - 40 wire or 80 wire, not pins.
Senior moment

@ptbg: Thanks for the updated Disk mgmnt and BIOS versions
You made the System part Active, which is the correct config. I should have looked at my system before editing your image. Good catch on my error.

Are there jumpers on the OD? What make and model is the OD? I should have asked these before.

Your Disk mgmnt image shows the SATA drive as disk 0 (C:\) and the IDE drive as disk 1 (E:\). I also believe this is the correct config. I do not see your OD. Drive letter (D:\) is not assigned? What's the status of the cable now -is the OD connected? If you tried connecting the OD and it didn't see the IDE drives, please let me know that.

@ptbg: I understand it seems like we're not getting anywhere, but your system looks like it is configured better as far as your drives are concerned. It's very difficult from this side to know what is connected or what you've already tried. It will help if you post the current config when you post. You can create a text file with the pertinent information and change it as we go along. Something like the example below would be extremely helpful (you can add more when questions and answers are given):

Award BIOS: V1.10 070507
JMicron BIOS: 1.0.0.0
Drives Connected: WDC, OD, SATA
Drives seen: WDC, SATA - no OD
Jumpers: WDC - 5 & 6, OD n/a
Anykey prompt: Darn thing is still there
Completed steps in Post #: 15, 106, 110
--> don't worry about the posts asking you to post some information, only the posts that affect the configuration. Having a "report template" makes it easier to follow changes. It's important to know what has and has not been done.

I'm sorting through the available MSI updates and will make recommendations in a while. As I mentioned before, this is tedious work, but you're hanging in there - thanks.

MSI P965 Neo main page - your starting point for everything about your hardware.

Double check that I gave you the correct links, I used Win 7 32 bit and E660 CPU (your system specs) as references to your system. This is a little bit confusing going back and forth to check this forum, the MSI forum and the MSI download page, so I'm asking you to verify that I linked the references.

Apply each of these updates in the order specified. It's good practice to restart your system after each update - these are low level drivers, Windows might not pick up the changes unless you restart. It might also be required to clear CMOS, there's a tutorial for that if we need to go that route.

We'll look at settings after you finish these updates, Ok.

1. BIOS v1.08
   For Core 2 Duo | Conroe | E6600 CPU, the CPU Support page links to
   BIOS v 1.08. There is a BIOS v 1.11 available, - I don't know why the CPU Support doesn't link to BIOS v1.11. It might be that they never updated the link, or that newer BIOS aren't meant for your CPU. Let's go with what MSI recommends for your CPU. You can contact MSI later and ask them if BIOS V 1.11 is ok to use on your specific system.
   -->edit: I know you posted you are on BIOS v 1.10, but as I state above, the MSI CPU page points to v 1.08.
2. Win 7 32bit driver page
   There are two selections for this Intel Rapid Storage Tech. Driver (same version), one is to install from from floppy, the other is to install from HDD.
   I linked the HDD version - it's easier. Posts on the MSI forum recommend against flashing from floppy as it causes an extra prompt on boots. I wonder if this is the "any key prompt" issue - the post wasn't specific.
   
   Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver (v 10.5.0.1027)
   Intel_RST_MB.zip
   

   ---

   Note: Do not flash the JMicron chipset mentioned below yet.
   There is also an update for the JMicron IDE/SATA RAID Driver (v 1.17.59.00), but from what I've read on the MSI forum, you want either the IDE/SATA driver or the SCSI driver. I can't seem to locate the SCSI driver they mention, but they definitely mention the Intel Rapid Tech Driver, maybe it's just a terminology difference.

After you down load the Zip files, open each one in Windows explorer and hit the "extract all" button. Extract the contents to a new folder, for instance
put the BIOS files in Downloads\MSI\Bios and
put the Intel Rapid Tech Storage files into Downloads\MSI\Intel.

There should be a flash utility in each extraction folder plus the supporting files for the update. I don't know what MSI calls their flash utility, but there's probably only one .exe file in the extraction folder. If there are more than one exe let me know, I'll see what I can determine. If there's a readme file - read it and make sure I'm giving you the same instructions - ask if there are differences.

Basically, for each update above, you're going to run the flash utility from the extraction folder and restart (the flash utility might do that for you or tell you to do that).

1. Open an elevated Command Prompt (run as administrator)
2. In the Command Prompt window, navigate to the extraction folder containing the update
3. Execute the flash utility

I think you still have a HDD Od issue - that might be solved by the updates and some configuration changes, but let's see where we are after the updates. If at any point, the any key prompt disappears, we're done with this thread. If there are residual issues from this process, we can chase them down in a new thread, OK?

These are references and utilities which will help you understand your machine better and should be your first place to look after Windows for help with your system.

• User Manual (English) (v 1.0) E7235v1.0.zip
  --> There is also a multi language manual, but I'm not sure if Greek is included (Chinese, Japanese, and English are the only ones mentioned)
• P965 Neo: Overview page (utilities)
  --> Some utility applications here, I have not looked into them, one is MSI Live Update...

  ---

I am not familiar with Driver detective. I Googled MSI Wind U 100 and it seems to reference a Netbook, I wouldn't put much stock in Driver Detective.

I use utilities from Microsoft or the OEM vendor. Sometimes third party terminology gets in the way of solving a problem - normally the OEM vendor uses consistent terminology as references to your system and their support.

Pirifrom has a good system spec reporter Speccy, I would trust either the Windows SI (format is raw) or Speccy (format is nice). Piriform also makes cCleaner, but don't worry about that utility yet. If you want good system data try Speccy or sift through the SI.

I'm using information from the System specs that you posted here on Seven Forums and looking at the MSI download pages. If your SysSpecs and my research match, then it is safe to use what your OEM provides. I asked you to verify my post information, because we all make typos or copy/paste errors. Another pair of eyes is always a good thing!

You can flash firmware from a floppy, but you can also flash it from your HDD. The references to an additional prompt mentioned on the MSI forum leads me to believe this is a probable cause of your original issue. I have always suspected the prompt to be looking for media and this will bear that out. In other words, according the posts on the MSI forum, flashing from a floppy makes the system prompt at boot for the media. Flashing from the HDD - well the media is there because your HDD is always there. This is only an educated guess based on information form the MSI forum. We shall see if that is in fact the case after you flash from your HDD.