A7N8X will post ok, but won't boot - help plz

[cnburden]

I have the A7N8X deluxe with the latest BIOS (1001.G).

System (brand new, nothing installed)
A7N8X deluxe
AMD XP 2600
2 x 256MB Corsair 3200C2 v1.1
ATI Radeon 8500LE vid 64MB vid card
Liteon CD RW
WD 160GB HD IDE
FDD
Have the Win XP CD in the CD-Rom drive.

If I only have the MB, Vid Card and HD connected (using the ATA100), the post reporter tells me it succesfully passed the self-check and then tells me its booting from OS. At this time it stalls at the Nvidia Boot Agent. Then the following error message comes up:

PXE-E61 Media Test Failure, check cables.

OK, so I disconnect the HD and connect the CD R/W using the 2nd cable provided (ATA 33). Get the same error. Disconnect the CD and now connect the FDD, get the same error. So, whatever combo I have connected, it always fails at the same point.

Only setting I've changed on the mobo is the SATA (raid) to disable (2-3). In the bios I disabled the Fireware ports.

Since I doubt all three of my cables are bad (also tried the HD one that came with the HD), can you please let me know what else I can try?

Thanks,
Craig

 

[mechBgon]

This is the network card boot controller complaining that it doesn't have a network cable in the nVidia network port. Go into the BIOS and disable unused network controllers as needed.

 

[Viper96720]

You'll get that with no OS installed. Is winxp installed on the hard drive? If not set your cd-rom as the first boot device. Then you can start it up and install xp.

 

[chizow]

Yep, to add to what the others have said, if you are coming from a different chipset, you need to do a REPAIR on your existing windows installation by booting to your WinXP CD. Its probably going through and trying to load your old XP registry, and not liking what its seeing. My advice would be to reformat and reinstall your OS, but I was successfully able to migrate from KT266A by removing all VIA chipset devices from device manager (AGP, Mem controller, IDE busmaster, etc.) and then doing a repair installation.

I've since reformatted and reinstalled (b/c I put in a Radeon 9700pro a week afterwards).

Chiz

 

[Pjotr]

I was not able to upgrade from KT133 to nForce2, I had to reinstall Windows 2000 botting from CD.

 

[cnburden]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
This is the network card boot controller complaining that it doesn't have a network cable in the nVidia network port. Go into the BIOS and disable unused network controllers as needed.

Thanks Mech, that definately solved the PXE error I was getting... thanks.

Now, anyone for the next one?

Now it won't boot from the CDRom and I'm starting to feel like an idiot. Tried two different CD's (Win 95 and XP). Also tried two different drives, my old CD 24x and my new CDRW. It says "Boot from ATAPI CD-ROM" and then gives the standard DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK. Yeah yeah yeah.

In the Bios I've tried CDROM as the first, second and third boot devices. Disconnected my HDD and had only the CDRW connected, both in IDE2 and IDE1 banks, same thing. If the HDD is connected as the primary on IDE1 and the CDRom as the primary on IDE2, do I need to choose a different option in the BIOS for boot order, such as HDD-1 or something? I figured HDD-0 was the primary master and CDROM would be the CD whereever it happened to be hooked up.

It will boot fine from the floppy though (with an old DOS 6.0 disk from years ago). BTW, the HDD is empty, just received most of the system components yesterday from GoogleGear. Trying to get it to boot from the Win CD so I can start installing stuff.

Thanks,
Craig

 

[mechBgon]

Hmm, and it's not prompting you with anything along the lines of "Press any key to boot from CD..." or such? I agree with your theory on the boot order... you shouldn't have to pretend it's a hard drive in a particular position or something.

 

[cnburden]

Think the issue is that it doesn't want to boot off of those CD's for some reason. I can boot off of the floppy and then go to the CD and see the files. Would have assumed the XP Pro disk would be a bootable CD, but maybe not? Only time I had used it before was to upgrade a 2000 install, and it went and did its thing from an already booted machine. Heading to work now, so will make me a few boot disks there and also bring back a copy of 2000 just to see if that will work. I'll update y'all tonight.

Appreciate everyones help and ideas. These things can sure be frustrating when they don't want to co-operate. But thats the fun of building your own computer too .

 

[chizow]

You can't boot from some CD-Roms..I think a list is on XP's site. Have you ever been able to boot from CD? Sounds like you're running a relatively new Lite-On, but you may want to double-check. I don't boot from my Lite-On CD-RW, I boot from my Toshiba DVD-ROM...so I can't tell you off-hand.

Chiz

 

[cnburden]

Downloaded the XP Pro Boot app from Microsoft today, made my 6 floppies and was able to install from there. I'm up and running now. I'll look into the CD not booting later, more imporatant to me to get the machine up and running.

Thanks everyone for the help and suggestions.

Regards,
Craig