Download at least ASUS A7V onboard Promise ATA100 Driver Version 1.60 Build 25.

Previous versions were querying the ATA100 bus for about a minute before continuing. This showed as a very long delay in the windows loading proces, where the computer would seem to basically "do nothing"

There is a newer Driver, Build 32, but it re-introduces the delay at Windows start.

Unpack the file to a temporary directory. If a "PCI Mass Storage Controller" is in the device manager, delete it. Reboot. Windows detects it again, it wants to install drivers. Point it to the directory you unpacked to.

If you have devices attached to the ATA100 controller, you need to install the driver in order to access them. If you don't have any devices attached there, dont install the driver but disable the "PCI Mass Storage Controller" in the device manager.

If you use a harddisk which had been paritioned and/or formatted on another controller or Motherboard, problems may arise when using it on the A7V.

Your best bet is to install everything from scratch.

Remove all partitions with FDISK, reboot, set harddisk to auto, boot, partition with fdisk, format, install Operating System.

Before I did this, I had all kinds of harddisk read / write errors (after migrating from P2B-F and connecting my drive to the ATA 66 controller).

This may cause trouble, see above. If you insist on migrating with your drive to the A7V, try

Set the Harddisk type to manual and the translation method to "match partition table". This might help, although i have not tried it, yet.

Move the drive causing trouble from the ATA66 to the ATA 100 Port (or vice versa) . This makes it accessible again - at least for me. I did not repartition/format my second harddisk (which caused the same troubles) but moved it to the ATA100. Works perfectly :-)

You can get the VIA drivers from the VIA Taiwan Site .

There is an Installation Guide, read it !

For Info on which drivers you need : Read the VIA GUIDE 3 (page2) at ViaHardware

Read the VIA FAQs, too !

I use all 4 drivers of the 4-in-1 set and have no problems, but I heared varying reports of the Bus Master IDE driver causing trouble.

If the 4-in-1 Drivers asks for a file called VIAGART.CAT - ASUS has an Archive for download which includes this file.

The newest official 4-in-1 drivers (as of 13.10.2000) are Version 4.32. At ViaHardware you can get newer ones, Version 4.27.

Viahardware has a new Section which lists several known driver versions.

These seem to make my A7V much more stable!

Installation has one bug, though. You get asked for a file called "viagart.cat" which is NOT included in the archive. I pointed the installer to the file from version 4.24 and it works flawlessly, up to now ...

Others tried renaming or copying viamach.cat to viagart.cat, but I don't know if that helped ...