no ide devices will boot

[organyx]

Hello all, nice to join in ratther than sit on the side reading, this time i have a problem thats flummoxed me.

I have a customers Pc, New MoBO (ASrock P4i65g) new CPU (P4 2.8ghz) new psu, XP Home, all bios settings correct.

the problem im having is i'm unable to boot from any ide H/D, (ide2 is fine i can use cdr drive), I have tried 4 H/D's all preinstalled with XP, all spin up, but, i am able to read and write to them as ive replaced the boot files , fixed mbr through various utilities ( just in case) but still wont boot up, after post, the next page a i see is the startup option page, unable to use any choice like safe mode, the pc will then reboot and go back to starup menu.

if i use sata drives, there is no problem at all, everything boots up fine,
Bios is set to boot from HD/cd/fd in that order.

any help would be greatfuly recieved

kev

 

[raybay]

Sounds like a BIOS or a cable issue. Have you changed anything with recent downloads or automatic updates? We see this sometimes once IE 7.0 has been added by an automatic update.
First thing I would do is check the jumpers, and change from Cable select to Master and Slave settings.
Then I would do is replace the EIDE cables, being careful to check the pins to assure none are bent. They fail often after they stiffen and harden from heat and age... as shrinkage pulls on cables... be sure to use the 80 conductor, 40 connector cables.
Then download and install the latest BIOS from ASRock. If this is a new board, I would get back to ASRock tech support as they may know some things you do not related to that board... The number of failed new motherboards is way too high, as some manufacturers count on users for quality control.

 

[HSC]

I do not use SATA but I would have thought there would have to be an option in the BIOS to select first boot to a SATA or PTA drive ? is the IDE0 drive showing in BIOS setup ? if the XP IDE drives you are trying to boot to were installed on a different system then you will get boot failures ? lastly keeping it nice and simple, try booting to a Windows98 boot floppy with any old HD fitted format it on FAT 32 use sys C:to transfer the system files, if this config boots to a C:\ prompt there is no problem with the hardware

Cheers HSC

 

[organyx]

thanks for a quick response

All the cables have been changed to test this, and HD is set to Master, the bios is set to IDE and will auto detect SATA if present, ( none present unless i place one in there), bios recognises the drive, again, i dont think it is a drive issue as no IDE drive will boot from it, only the SATA, i dont think the board is duff, my reason for saying this is that im able to read and write to the drive so i assume the bus is ok.

ps: the drive was formated and OS installed on another machine (as this is a new MoBo, it counts as new) But how would this effect the drive as the SATA drive boots fine?

who knows! hahahaboohoohoo!

 

[raybay]

I don't know the board you are using, but the options I have on SATA and IDE are in my board setup disc.

 

[HSC]

If you boot up with the SATA drive with the IDE drive still connected does the IDE drive show as either active or system in disk management ? if not it will not be found as a bootable drive by the system

If you install XP to a hard drive then move it to another system unless both systems have identical hardware XP will always error out or go into a reboot loop , if thier hardware is different then the only way I know to do that is to boot straight to the XP CD and run the XP repair install this action detects and install the drivers for the new configuration

Cheers HSC

 

[Rick]

I have a customers Pc, New MoBO (ASrock P4i65g) new CPU (P4 2.8ghz) new psu, XP Home, all bios settings correct.

Is this a completely new computer? Or did you upgrade the system board and CPU?

If you upgraded the board and CPU, Windows XP will not boot unless you reinstall it from scratch or try a system repair. https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic8356.html

ps: the drive was formated and OS installed on another machine (as this is a new MoBo, it counts as new) But how would this effect the drive as the SATA drive boots fine?

This is the reason it does not work. XP HAS to be installed on the new system. Not on another one and transferred over. It simply won't work. So, as above, you either have to repair (not recommended) or reinstall Windows XP on the new computer itself.

i am able to read and write to them as ive replaced the boot files , fixed mbr through various utilities ( just in case) but still wont boot up, after post, the next page a i see is the startup option page, unable to use any choice like safe mode, the pc will then reboot and go back to starup menu.

This means, technically, your computer is 'booting' up fine for all intents and purposes. The problem is Windows is not loading after the boot sequence.

Here's a simplified version of the boot process.

1. System POST
2. BIOS searches for the best possible bootable device and loads the MBR (AKA: master boot record, master boot sector)
3. The MBR finds the active partition and passes control to the boot loader (NTLDR).
4. NTLDR prepares for the boot process (Loads file system drivers to read FAT32 and NTFS).
5. NTLDR loads boot.ini and displays the black & white boot menu (if available)
6. NTLDR begins to load Windows XP/2000 by running NTDETECT and loading HAL and NTOSKRNL.
7. Windows loads

 

[organyx]

Rick
Thanks for the info, will go ahead with re-install, *****

 

[Chimworth]

Just as a future suggestion, instead of "preinstalling" your OS you might want to set up a ghost server with Symantec Norton Ghost. Then you can roll out new PC's quickly all set up the way you configured the Ghost Image as.