Can I fix this no-boot issue?

[absinthe]

This post doesn't refer to the computer which is probably in my signature, but to my "family" computer (also built by moi):

Corsair CMPSU-520HX ATX12V v2.2 PSU
MSI K8N Neo4-F Socket 939 motherboard
Patriot Signature Series 2x512 MB DDR400
AMD Opteron Model 146 "Venus" 2.0 GHz w/stock HSF
Connect3D ATI X700 PRO - 256 MB GDDR3, PCI-E video card

I have replaced nearly everything in this computer recently, including the mobo and processor. I didn't keep a record of the exact hard drive, but I know it's an IDE drive, probably a Western Digital, and I think 120 or 160 GB standard issue hard drive. I would put its age at 3 to 5 years.

My wife was using the computer when it suddenly went black and tried to reboot. But the drive cannot be found. When displaying the drives at boot time, the screen shows just some gibberish for the "primary master" drive about half the time.

The odd thing is, I've tried booting to the WinXP setup CD, but it can't seem to find the CD drive, either? I am able to bring up a bootable floppy, though the floppy seems unable to load the "tomato" CD driver. When I run FDISK and try to check the partition info, it tells me that drive 1 cannot be recognized.

It seems very strange that I cannot boot to CD. One time the boot process did get as far as the "press any key to boot from CD ...." message, but it failed from there.

Sometimes it displays a screen with the BIOS info (a black screen with "Phoenix Techologies" at the top, followed by the computer specs). Most often, though, it hangs at the line "Verifying DMI data pool."

I can understand the hard drive dying, but why am I having trouble booting to CD?

Help is, naturally, much appreciated.

-Aaron

 

[pkrush]

Check the capacitors on the motherboard, especially the ones around the CPU, for bulging/leaking. If you find them, the motherboard is the most likely culprit.

 

[Laputa]

Does it do the same thing if you put in another drive. Sounds like that the CD and the hard drive is on the same IDE chain and appear to be a corrupted fimware issue with the hard drive or maybe possibly a bad CD drive. Or could be an Jumper issue:B Or maybe trying just without the hard drive or without the CD and see what you get.

 

[absinthe]

Thanks, pkrush and Laputa. Good will try both of your ideas today.

-abs

 

[absinthe]

Well, all the capacitors look fine (as I mentioned, MSI recently replaced this mobo for me, and the computer has been working fine since). When I unhook the CD drive, leaving only the sole HDD as master, it still says "boot disk failure." If I unhook the HDD, leaving only the CD drive (selecting the CD drive for the boot drive from the boot menu), it does the same.

However, I left the CD on the slave. Can you do that? . . . leave a device as slave with no master attached? If not, I'll have to start taking things apart and change jumpers.

I guess my next step will be to remove the drive and see if another computer can recognize it.

-abs

 

[seemingly random]

Try disconnecting all drives. The bios configuration screens should be viewable (usually Del key). Until you can consistently get this far, there's no point spending time looking at the drives.

Also inspect for dust buildup and re-seat everything that can be - video card, ram, power connectors, etc.

 

[absinthe]

Okay, I've removed the suspect hard drive and attached it to my computer. There seems to be nothing whatsoever wrong with it. I was able to read it and copy over my wife's important files, and I've got scandisk running on it right now.

I changed the CD drive in the other computer to a master and tried booting to CD. Still got "boot disk failure." Then I tried switching the whole IDE cable over to IDE channel 2 and voila, XP setup comes up from the CD just fine. I haven't hooked the hard drive back up on IDE 2 yet, but I strongly suspect that when I do, everything will return to normal.

My question is: Is it okay to use IDE2 and leave IDE1 vacant??

Also, what could be causing this failure? MSI recently cross-shipped me this mobo as a replacement (maybe 4 or 5 months ago), so it should be covered under warranty. But I don't want to make it sound like this is a "problem" motherboard, because when I finally fixed the computer the last time, it turned out that it wasn't the mobo at all but rather the processor, which I had been running overclocked.

Is there some way I could fix or test IDE1? Should I consider asking MSI to replace the mobo (again)?

Thanks!!

-abs

 

[seemingly random]

Don't think there's a problem with using only IDE2. You might try switching the IDE drives to cable select - and then you don't have to worry about which is master or slave. Can the CD be seen in the bios?

You don't have the hd and cd on one cable do you? I've always heard this is not a good idea.

 

[absinthe]

Yes, I've had the CD and HDD on one cable.

I changed the CD drive to cable select and attached it to IDE channel 1 (without any other drives attached). It is NOT detected in the BIOS. Strange. I see no problem with the IDE1 connector on the board upon visual inspection.

Suggestions?

 

[absinthe]

Color me befuddled. I thought I'd update the BIOS, but it looks like now it won't recognize the floppy, either ... even when I manually select to boot from floppy (which it ought to do automatically, anyway). I have managed to boot to floppy at least once since this all began.

-abs

 

[seemingly random]

Originally posted by: absinthe
I changed the CD drive to cable select and attached it to IDE channel 1 (without any other drives attached). It is NOT detected in the BIOS. Strange. I see no problem with the IDE1 connector on the board upon visual inspection.

And it works in IDE2 with cable select? If so, I'd get the mb replaced assuming nothing is disabled in bios.

Has the bios been cleared? - probably don't need to ask things like this since you know how to OC.

You've tried everything (reseating everything, etc.) in the above posts? If you're trying a lot of things it might be time to keep a detailed written record so things don't get redundant.

With two pc's you can swap components testing for goodness - methodically try one thing at a time - backup any critical files first.

Interesting about the previous bad cpu - they're always suspect but rarely turn out bad. What where the circumstances?

 

[absinthe]

Nah, clearing the BIOS didn't make any difference. I've confirmed that everything works normally on IDE2. I've also spoken to MSI, and all they could do was allow me to send in the board for repair/replacement. Apparently, they don't have any comparable boards on hand to do a cross-shipment. So, rather than going without a computer for what I'm sure will be close to a month, I'm just going to let things run on IDE2 from here on in. If something else happens, I can always send it for repair at that time, or .... well, decent mobos come fairly cheap.

But my next one won't be an MSI.

Thanks!

-abs