Help with Abit BH6 BIOS

[weshuang]

Hi everyone,

I have an old Abit BH6 mobo which I am using for a new computer for my kid. I'm trying to install XP on the computer but am having difficulty with the BIOS (I guess).

The BIOS, which I updated a year back, has a setting that allows a boot sequence to start with the CDROM. However, I can't get it to boot from the CDROM no matter what I try. I have even FDisked the hard drives so that there is nothing to boot from on them. Does anyone have any suggestions? With XP, you can't run setup from DOS, so using a conventional DOS boot disk with CDROM support doesn't work.

Thanks,
Wes

 

[Goi]

Do you have a bootable CD-ROM? How are you trying to boot from your CD-ROM drive? With a Win XP CD?

Does it work when you try to boot from a bootable floppy disk?

 

[oldfart]

You can go to Bootdisk.com to download files to create XP boot floppies.

 

[weshuang]

Thanks, guys. I got the bootable disks, which worked fine.

To answer Goi's question, I was trying to boot from Win XP CD, which I thought I remembered working no problem. Am I remembering incorrectly?

 

[Goi]

Hmmn, I'm not using Win XP so I wouldn't know if the Win XP CD is bootable. I would expect so though, since even my Win2K CD is bootable. Have you tried the CD on another computer or tried putting another CD-ROM drive into your computer? Perhaps the CD-ROM drive is faulty or something. Judging from what you've said, it *should* work. I'm using a BH6 too and it definitely can boot from the CD-ROM drive.

 

[weshuang]

Goi,

You know, I just re-read your earlier message, and I realized that you asked if the CD-ROM itself is bootable. I didn't know there was such a distinction; I thought that it only had to do with whether the BIOS could instruct the system to check the CD-ROM first?

Anyway, this is a mystery that I'll probably never solve, but it's not a big deal since I got the thing installed by using the floppy.

I do have another question for you, though, since you also have a BH6. On this computer, I originally had two HD's, and I wanted to use only one and free up the other one. However, I couldn't get the BIOS to stop kicking back an error when it couldn't find the primary slave HD. I tried going into the BIOS and change the HD settings so that it only was expecting a master, to no avail. It would just keep kicking back an error saying that the primary slave failed, or something to that effect. I ended up giving up and leaving the HD in. Any ideas?

Anyway, thanks for helping!

Wes

 

[Goi]

Well, congrats on the installation success...must've taken a long time with floppies though...

Anyway, to answer your first question, yeah CD-ROMs have to be bootable too in order for the system to boot up with them. You can't put in an audio CD, or a CD-ROM with stuff you backed up, and expect the system to boot up right? There has to be some OS shell in order for the system to boot up - the same case as floppies.

As for the HDD slave issue, are you sure you set your HDD master/slave settings correctly? Some HDDs have more than the usual Master, Slave and Cable Select settings. They have an additional one called "Single Drive" or something similar, and must be set to this setting if you're using it alone, else it won't work correctly. That might be your problem.

 

[weshuang]

Goi,

Ah, I misunderstood you regarding bootable CD-ROMs. I thought you meant a bootable CD-ROM drive, LOL. I need another cup of coffee, obviously.

Regarding the jumper settings on the HD, you may be right. It was about 2 am that I was doing this, and I may have been relying on a cable select position. Maybe there was a single drive setting.

Thanks for your help!

Wes

 

[Goi]

OK, check it out and see if that's the problem. Let us know if it works or not, I have this thread subscribed...

 

[Jhhnn]

If your primary master hdd is a western digital, then you need to reset the jumper to use it as a single. They're peculiar in that respect, it usually involves just removing the jumper entirely....

Might be an issue with the cdrom drive itself not being bootable, because the winxp cdrom definitely is, in the right hardware combo.....