Epox 8kha+ and Award BIOS gurus/masters - need WinXP install help please. (Update - works now! Thanks all)

[spartacuskzm]

Hi all,
Many of you will likely have seen my "Help" threads over the past 16 hours on the General Hardware forum. Yesterday I put together the following system. It's my first time and I'm an extreme newbie - especially at configuring the software, though the hardware was a bit tough for me too.

AMD 1600XP Retail
EPOX 8HKA+ MB
512MB Crucial DDR
40GB IBM HD
AOPEN CDRW2440
Pioneer 106S DVD
Santa Cruz Sound Card
Logitech Z-560 Speakers
VisionTek 6564 GF3 Ti 200
Enlight#7237AZ w/ 340W PS
Sparkle FAN 80x80x25.4 - 34 CFM

I *think* I have the hardware installed properly, though I'm not sure. All the Ram is recognized and it sees the HD, Floppy, CD/RW and DVD Rom drive. However, that's where I get stuckI booted up and was able to enter the BIOS just fine. I'm trying to make the CD the primary boot drive in order to load WinXP but it isn't working. I'm 99.9% sure that it's operator error.

I know this is asking a lot, but could another Epox 8Kha+ owner walk me step by step through how to make my CD/RW my boot drive. I need to do this in order to install the full-version of WinXP that I have on disk. The main problem is I can't get it to give me the "Boot from CD" prompt!!!

People have said look at the manual, but the manual is not that good for a novice like me - not in-depth enough.

I was up until 2:30 last night trying to get it to work, but no luck.

To recap, I went into the advanced bios features (the second choice down on the left side) and made the CD/RW the primary boot drive. I tried various combinations, one of them being disbling the rest of the secondary/third boot drives.

Under standard CMOS Features it says:

IDE Primary Master: IC35L0AVER07-0
IDE PRimery Slave: None
IDE Secondary Master: AOPEN CD-RW CRW244
IDE Secondary Slave: None

Drive A: 1.44M
Drive B: None

The problem I'm having is that when I try to boot from the CD it give me a boot error which says:

Disk Boot Failure, Insert System Disk and Press Enter

The thing is it tries to read from the Floppy when asking for the system disk, but then the CD also spins up. I also tried using my DVD-Rom drive (making it the primary), but no difference. I also tried unplugging the floppy drive cable, but it still gave me the same "Disk Boot Failure, Insert System Disk and Press Enter" error.

Thanks in advance - I won't be able to test any of the hopefully forthcoming suggestions until I get home to the system (in about 5 hours), but am trying to gather some ideas so I can tackle it right away when I do get home.

Thank you all!


P.S. I know this post is rambling, so please ask for any clarification and I'll do my best.

 

[SaturnX]

Alrite, I just setup a similar combo over the weekend, I'll help you out. Do the following:

1) Enter BIOS at boot
2) Select Advanced BIOS Features, hit Enter
3) Move the selector down to First Boot Device, hit enter
4) In the new window that pops up, scroll down to CDROM, hit enter
5) Set the Second Boot Device to Floppy, and the Third to HDD-0
6) Make sure Boot Other Device is set to Enabled
7) Put in the Windows XP CD into either of your CD drives
8) Hit Escape then select Save & Exit Setup, hit "Y" then then Enter
9) After the system has POSTed, you should get the following: "Press any key to boot from cdrom..."
10) Press any key.

Hope this helps, if you need any more help, drop me a message, I set up the board not too long ago and everything went flawlessly.

--Mark

 

[spartacuskzm]

Thanks - I'll try this as soon as I get home.

BTW, what does POST mean?

Thanks

 

[SaturnX]

POST - Power On Self Test

It just the initial boot up process, where you RAM is counted, along with all your drives being detected and such, basically the first screen you see when you power up.

--Mark

 

[chizow]

Yah do as Tharyn suggested and set your boot device to cd-rom first.

This might also be an instance of the WinXP/2k and GF3 install problem I've heard about. Do you know what BIOS revision you are running? You may want to d/load the 11/02 (unzipped version) to a blank floppy before you head home if you don't have another operational PC there. I'd then boot up and set the floppy as the first boot device and flash your BIOS. This was a problem early BIOS users had with win2k and winXP where their installs would halt midway thru install.

Chiz

 

[spartacuskzm]

I'm home - here I go. Update soon!

(gratuitous bump)

 

[spartacuskzm]

Doh - same error message: Here are my settings:

Standard CMOS Features

IDE Primary Master [IC35L04AVER...]
IDE Primary Slave: [None]
IDE Secondary Master [Aopen CDRW]
IDE Secondary Slave [None]

In the above example, should my CDRW (my boot drive) be the primary master???

Advanced BIOS Features

Virus Warning - Enabed
CPU INternal Cache - Enabled
External Cache - Enabled
CPU L2 Cache ECC Checking - Enabled
Ahtlon 4 SSED instructions - Enabled
MP Capable bit identify - Disabled
Quick Power ON Self Test - Enabled
First Boot Device - CDROM
Second Boot Device - Floppy
Third Boot Device - HDD0
Boot Other Device - Enabled
Swap Floppy Drive - Disabled
Boot Up Floppy Seek - Enabled
Boot Up NumLock Status - On
Gate A20 Option - Normal
Typematic Rate Setting - Disabled
Security Option - Setup
OS Select for DRAM > 64MB - Non OS2
Video Bios Shadow - Enabled

V 6.00pg

So there you have it. Does anybody have any ideas???? Thanks!

P.S. I'm also now getting a Floppy Disk(s) fail (40) msg.

 

[sam83]

I just built a computer with that Epox board last week for my friend.
You don't have your drives connected properly.
Your hard drive should be the primary master, that is, connect it to IDE-0 as the master.
Your DVD Drive should be the primary slave, same IDE channel as the hard drive, but on the slave connector portion of the IDE cable.
The CDRW should be the Secondary master. Connected to the second IDE channel, as the master. Once you do this, Check to make sure the jumper settings on the CD Drives are correct. CD Drives have jumpers that can be set to master or slave, so make sure they are at the appropriate setting. You should be able to see which setting is which by examining the back of the CD Drives. It should work now. Good luck.

 

[SaturnX]

I recommend not placing CD drives and HDD on the same channel, and saying his drive's are connected improperly is incorrect.
My setup has,

Primary Master - IBM 30GB HDD
Primary Slace - 8GB Quantum

Secondary Master - CDRW
Secondary Slave - DVD

This setup works fine, anyways, double check the connections of the cables to your drives and such, on your Primary IDE, if you're using an ATA66/100 cable (80wires/40pins) make sure the BLUE end is in the Motherboard, and the Master drive is on the last connector, and the slave is in the middle.

Make sure all your CD drives are jumpered correctly as well, as stated above. The jumpers are small little plastic type things that cover two pin vertically on the back of the drive, usually there is diagram on the drive for MA / SL / CS or something similar, make sure the drive at the end of the cable is set to MA, and the second drive is SL, then try again.

Also, when you boot up, is your Floppy light always on? If it is, reverse the floppy cable.

Anyways, the instructions I have gave you before should have worked, are you positive the cd is infact bootable? have you tried in another sytem, just to double check?

--Mark