Non LR Post. Computer help required.

[Pedro_The_Swift]

hmm, where to start---
ok-- was reinstalling a cdrom that had been replaced,
XP would not "find" it but it showed up as hardware but with" this drive will not work"

upon reboot-
Bios stops at Bios logo-press del to enter bios- screen.
after a bit of troubleshooting-- I find if I reset the CMOS it then asks for a system disc. Following the blue screen prompts it then tells me it cant find the harddrive.

I am using said HD in my old PC to type this---
I have tried different ( known working) IDE cables, ram, CDROM,
at one stage, the monitor would not work if the burner was connected.

seems increasingly like a motherboard problem,,,

any ideas???

[Rovernaut]

Pedro, I can sympathise with you. I had a problem with an install of XP I kept getting invalid system disk error on boot up.
Is yours a OEM pc with XP with a trouble shooting CD or is it a fully licences XP with the XP CD.

First take a deep breath, I spend the good part of 5 hours solid over 2 nights fixing my with frustation.
Second, again go an check all your cables and ram are securely fitted.
Try and reboot and see it it works.
Failing that have a look in Cmos check that it recognizes your hard drive( do a detect hdd) then check the boot sequence, check the order of boot .
I had to un check everything on mine to only boot from Hard drive for it to start up.

Another time I had to only select CROM to get my mobo to recognize my CDrom, as it would by pass it.

If you can get into safe mode then oten you can select ' last known working configeration, or restore.

There is a specialized site; www.overclockers.com.au
if you register there for the forums you generally get a response very quickly from all the geeks there. It has trouble shooting forum, the bunch of ppls there are very helpful.
Best of luck.

[Bytemrk]

Hi Pedro,

If you've tried other IDE cables etc it does sound like a controller ( on the motherboard)

You could try connecting the hardrive to the secondary control (Assuming your board has two controllers - the one the CD is most likely connected to - again go to bios and see if it will detect the drive there.

If you were using it previously - it shouldn't be jumpers on the drive - but you could play between master and canle select on the jumpers to see if you can get it detect.


The monitor not working with the burner connected is seriously weird.. 8O ..

My money is on the board. - have you tried reseting the cmos - I have seen corrupt cmos on a board do some very funky stuff...

Good luck... Mark

[incisor]

amd crap [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif[/img]

[incisor]

you have jumpered the new cd rom the same as the old one you pulled out?

[Pedro_The_Swift]

this is getting pretty weird,,,

after changing IDE sockets it registered the drive on the boot screen and XP started--- but then rebooted and froze on the boot screen again

It wont let me into the bios from this screen either. It will from a CMOS rest though but in the end doesnt help.

The CDROM is master and the burner slave???

HD is on its own IDE cable at the end and set to master.



and wots this got to do with AMD?????
bloody poofey p4's [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif[/img]

[Moses]

Sounds like a jumper problem to me.

There 2 IDE ports and each port can have 2 devices on it. If the motherboard is new enough and the correct cables are used, you can set both devices to CABLE SELECT usually labelled CS or CABSEL on the drives. If you are using a low density IDE cable, then you must select one drive as master (usually the HDD) and the second as slave if it is on the same IDE port.

If there is only one device on each port, then both devices must be set to master.

In my experience, not a lot of computers use CABLE SELECT.

The drives should have a diagram on them showing how to configure them.

if not, then there should only be one jumper on either of the three options, M, S, or CS if there are three sets of pin pairs. if there are only 2 sets of pin pairs (rare) then no jumper is usually Cable Select for that drive.

Hope this makes sense.

[Pedro_The_Swift]

got up at 4 this morning and rebuilt PC from "heap of parts on floor"

now works!!!

must have known it was a monday i guess,, :roll:

[incisor]

Originally posted by Pedro_The_Swift
and wots this got to do with AMD?????
bloody poofey p4's [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif[/img]

losing or confusing the ide and or ps/2 ports signals the onset of AMDitus.. as i call it [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif[/img]
amd > 1.3g = amditus prone within 18 months UNLESS in about 21deg aircon which means you usually get 2 years before it starts:P

there are plenty of exceptions but many more victims

asus, abit, msi, shuttle, and spurious other mid quality boards seem to the most predictable, you can almost set your clock by abit [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif[/img]

gigabyte seem to resist it the most, but we get the odd one or two.

wanna argue, come and work here for a month you will see what i mean .....

[Pedro_The_Swift]

I'll argue--
if that was a job offer????
:wink: [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif[/img]





so if an asus is a mid quality

whats on the top shelf?