I have everything but a motherboard... could really use some suggestions.

[NiceGuyEd]

Hello all.

I have an old system that the mobo has died on and I would like to find the a good motherboard to replace it. I was hoping someone could offer some suggestions on an affordable motherboard that I could swap my current one out with. This is just a secondary computer so I don't need anything nutty.

350watt sparkle power supply
AMD Athlon 2500+ (Barton)
(2) 256MB Corsair Value Select
80GB WD
DVD/CD-RW

The mobo that died had all sorts of problems since day one (MSI don't remember the model #) so I wouldn't care to buy another. :unch:

Any suggestions?
Thanks fellas!
Ed

 

[dgower2]

Here's what AMD Recommends...

http://www2.amd.com/us-en/recmobo/ResultsHandler/1,,30_182_869_4348^7923~63674,00.html

Compare the features and reviews of some of these.

 

[jblake13]

Mobo sugestion

Go with ASUS I have two and no trouble

they are also AMD recomended

 

[zephead]

if you're looking for something with integrated video, the gigabyte GA-7VM400M-RZ isn't costly at all and would do the trick.

 

[NiceGuyEd]

Hello again...
I ended up buying an Asus A7V600-X as I realized I had an old video card that would work fine.

I've swapped out the motherboard with the dead one and everything seems fine. It's detecting the XP 2500 processor and the 512MB of ram, the disk drives, and the harddrive in BIOS.

But here's the problem. Even though it indeed recognizes the hard drive in BIOS, it doesn't detect the primary master (where the drive is) during POST and it's giving me an error stating "Primary Master Drive Fails".

The harddrive (WDJB80) had Windows 2000 professional (an upgrade cd) on it when the last mobo died. So I figured I could just throw the Win 2000 CD in and format the drive, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

The Windows 2000 disk does allow me to format and begin installing the OS, but when the Windows 2000 setup restarts the computer, it just gives the error, "Couldn't open the boot partition to check for signatures" and starts the 2000 setup all over again.

Any ideas? Do I need to repartion it or redo the MBR?

 

[RealBlackStuff]

Get a W98SE bootfloppy from www.bootdisk.com
FDISK and FORMAT the HD. 2 partitions please, 10GB for W2K and always-used programs, the rest for installing games, other programs, data, backups etc.
If your W2K-CD is bootable, fine. If not you need to make the four floppies with [W2K-CD]\bootdisk\makeboot.exe
They can partition/format as well.

 

[NiceGuyEd]

Thanks for the reply.

I downloaded the WIN98se bootdisk and dumped it to a floppy. It boots fine but then presents me with the message: "Windows 98 has detected that drive C: does not contain a valid FAT or FAT32 partition."

When I type FDISK at the A: prompt it says, "No fixed disks present".

Is this because the drive had Windows 2000 using NTFS on it? Or should this be working regardless?

 

[NiceGuyEd]

Ok... I made the 4 boot floppies from my Windows disk (made on my other 2000 system). I didn't realize that the 4 floppies that the Windows 2000 disk makes is the same as booting from the 2000 disk itself... which if you look up in a previous post, I did already try already unsucessfully.

The Windows 2000 disk does allow me to format and begin installing the OS, but when the Windows 2000 setup restarts the computer, it just gives the error, "Couldn't open the boot partition to check for signatures" and starts the 2000 setup all over again.

What's going on here?? Any advice would be so much appreciated!
Ed

 

[vnf4ultra]

Is there a possibility that the drive is dead? Or a drive cable is bad? Just a thought.

 

[kol_indian]

just a thought try clearing the master boot record and check again

the command is fdisk/mbr from command promt.:grinthumb

 

[NiceGuyEd]

Sure enough.. the drive was dead... I threw an old 7 gig maxtor in there and it immediately started installing windows.

Thanks for all the tips fellas!

 

[vnf4ultra]

Good you got it figured out. Too bad the drive died, was it still under warranty by chance?