Need Trouble Shoot For This Afternoon's Build

[SageOfTheWabash]

Not sure were this belongs?

I Have spent the afternoon putting together an inexpensive computer for practice. I have the video card, hard drive, floppy and DVD drive installed. Although I am not at all sure everything is installed right. When I turn the machine on all the fans work, the keyboard flashes and I can here what I think is the hard drive. I get no beep but I think I have the audio connections wrong. The monitor comes on to a white artsy logo screen "Biostar" such and such... I can't enter bios using the delete key or F8. What should I try next.

Biostar NF325-A7
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 2.0 ghz

 

[DonNagual]

We need a few more details I think (at least I do).

So you fire the system up, you see the Biostar screen, then what happens after that? Is the system freezing on you there, or is it waiting for you to input something? Do you get ANY other messages coming up?

 

[SageOfTheWabash]

Thanx for your reply Don, Sorry I didn't reply right away. I have been working on this right along so here is an update.

If I boot bare bones so to speak, [mobo, cpu, and video card] I can enter bios. However I don't know what if anything I should change so, all I have done is set the time. IF I install the IDE HDD, I boot to the white artsy logo screen and can do nothing else [enter bios] The IDE HDD is used [salvaged]. While it was still installed in its previous machine I booted to disk and deleted the partitions. I was planning on reformatting the drive when I got the new machine up and running.

Also Happy Thanksgiving to all. Even if you are not in the U.S. or Canada, take time to give thanks for the things that you have been blessed with:]

 

[DonNagual]

Happy Thanksgiving right back at you!

When you say

IF I install the IDE HDD, I boot to the white artsy logo screen and can do nothing else [enter bios]

do you mean that you can or can not enter the bios?

Is there a version of windows on that HDD that you are hoping to be able to boot from? If so, this is usually not a good idea to try. All the drivers that are on that install are for other parts. If you are totally against doing a fresh instal (i.e. reformatting that HDD and starting from scratch) you can try booting up with the XP cd in, and choosing to do a "repair windows" installation. It will probably fix you up, but I personally always prefer to do a fresh install when switching out motherboards/cpus.

Now, if you are saying that you have tried booting up with the XP cd in the drive, and nothing happens, then what you need to do is go into your bios and set your "boot device priority" (or something to that effect). Make sure your optical drive is listed before your hard drive, and that should fix you up.

Good luck!

 

[SageOfTheWabash]

Sorry I was not being very clear. I mean that in that situation I can not enter bios. As I hit the delete key nothing happens. I suspect that you are correct about the hard drive that I am trying to use is the problem. Before I removed it from its old computer I used the XP recovery disk to delete all of the partitions on the hard drive. Perhaps I should have reformatted it as well.