I am a moron, help would be appreciated

[ResistUnlearnDefy]

Just put together my new PC, fx-53 on a neo2 platinum, and I've run into the fact that I am retarded. It boots up ok, beep there etc. POST will run, i can get in the bios, but for the life of me i can't get it to boot off the floppy or dvd drive so i ca put on an os. It just won't do it. I say boot off floppy and nothing happens, i say boot off cd and theres a bit of whirring and it says booting off cd but nothing happens. After a while it'll say something about media test error, check cable...or no system disk. But thats horseshit, its the win xp pro installation cd or the win xp floppy boot disk (ive tried a bunch of different disks. I know theres somehting im missing in my stupidity but for the life of me I cant figure it out. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[ResistUnlearnDefy]

I tried to use a windows 98 bootable cd and had the same problem, I'm reallly getting frusterated. BIOS seems to recognize both teh NEC 3500a and the floppy but won't boot off either. Please tell me what I am doing wrong.

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: ResistUnlearnDefy
I tried to use a windows 98 bootable cd and had the same problem, I'm reallly getting frusterated. BIOS seems to recognize both teh NEC 3500a and the floppy but won't boot off either. Please tell me what I am doing wrong.

Are the lights on these drives continually on by any chance? (indicates cables not attached properly)

I'm guessing you have BIOS properly setup. May wanna test the floppy drive and/or floppy disk by using another bootable floppy. Can get one from your HD manufacturer, free d/l from there site. Ie, use their HD diag proggie (they're bootable). Can prolly do the same with your optical drive (burn the diag proggie to a cd and boot to it).

If that works, your drives are OK.

 

[ResistUnlearnDefy]

nope, the lights arent continually on or anything, they just flicker when it goes to check the disk, and Ive tested each with multiple bootable cds and floppies. The bios seems to see the drives fine just wont use them. I tried disconnecting them and then reconnecting. Didn't help. I've flipped around the optical drives, and tried to boot from both of them and the floppy, all are a no go. I have a feeling its something simple. Any ideas?

 

[ResistUnlearnDefy]

Nvidia boot agent, PXE 2.0(Built 082 v1.82)
Copyright © 2001-2004 Nvidia corporation
Copyright © 1997-2000 Intel Corporation
PXE-E61: Media Test Failure Check Cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting Nvidia Boot Agent
DISKBOOT FAILURE INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER


wheeeeeeee

 

[Fern]

Nvidia boot agent, PXE 2.0(Built 082 v1.82)
Copyright © 2001-2004 Nvidia corporation
Copyright © 1997-2000 Intel Corporation
PXE-E61: Media Test Failure Check Cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting Nvidia Boot Agent
DISKBOOT FAILURE INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

Do you have mandrake on the harddrive? Or is it new?

These links suggest it's a Mandrake prob LINK

If the HD had mandrake on it and you wanna put XP on it. Make sure 1st boot device in BIOS is not HD, then reformat and install XP

 

[ResistUnlearnDefy]

its a brand new hd. heres the full sys specs if it helps:

fx-53 skt 939 w/arcticsilver thermal compound
msi k8n neo2 platinum
4 x 512MB ocz pc-3700 EB
WD SATA 74GB raptor
520W ocz powerstream
bfgtech geforce 6800 ultra OC
Audigy 2
Zalman CNPS7000A-Cu
NEC 3500A DVD-RW
Sony 16X DVD-rom
samsung 1.44 floppy

 

[Fern]

Hey bro, i don't wanna mislead into thinking I know what the prob is. But I see you got a SATA drive. I'm suspecting that MAY be it. I don't have one, but I'm thinking you may need to get sata drivers loaded in there b4 your system can use it.

I could be totally off here. So I'll do some more checking into that angle.

 

[Fern]

Does this sound familiar?

During the initial installation of Windows, you will need to press F6 almost immediately when "Setup is inspecting your hardware..." appears on the screen. You will then be asked to provide any mass storage controller drivers you may have. At this point, use the drivers supplied by your controller manufacturer. After performing the steps above, the drive will be recognized and the install should continue without problems.

Check the sata/raid section of your mobo manual (if you haven't already). May need to do something similar to the above, may also need to enable the sata in your bios if not already done.

Hope that helps (and I'll keep looking into this)

Fern

 

[Fern]

Found this on sata for your mobo (from HERE. Read below:

Single Drive Setup


1. Hook up the drive to serial port 1/2/3/4. There has been issues around with people using SATA port 1 and 2 in regards to overclockability. If possiblealways use SATA port 3 or 4 unless doing a Raid 0+1 or 1 where 4 are required.
2. Very first thing we will do is boot into the BIOS and go into ?Standard CMOS Features?
3. Check to make sure your drive is located on what SATA channel you have the drive plugged into
4. Go into ?Integrated Peripherals?
5. Press ENTER on ?Onboard Devices?
6. Press ENTER on ?RAID Config?
7. Locate the ?SATA1/4 RAID? make sure whatever port it is plugged into is enabled.
8. Return to ?Onboard Devices? menu
9. Locate the SATA1/SATA2 ? SATA3/SATA4 and enable the option that corresponds with your drive.
10. From here we will exit/save
11. Upon posting you will now see the NVIDIA Raid Bios and press F10 to enter.
12. Here you will see your new drive located on the left side of the 2 panels ?Free Disks? and ?Array Disks?.
13. Simply hit the right arrow key and the drive will shoot over from the left to the right side.
14. Make sure the ?RAID Mode? is Stripping and Striping Block at 64k or Optimal. Hit F7 (Finish)
15. You will now see an ?Array List?; as long as the drive is listed as healthy we are good.
16. CTRL-X to Exit. The computer should reboot.
17. We need to go directly into the bios right after the system posts.
18. Go into ? Advanced BIOS Features?

*NOTE*

When you have a serial hard drive hooked up to this motherboard ahd have arrived at this point you will be able to go into ?Hard Disk Boot Priority?. Please go in here and you will see NVIDIA Stripe here. Please make sure this is the top #1 option with your page up/down to select this.

19. You will want first boot device to be CD-ROM for Windows XP/2k installs.
20. You will want the second boot device to read HARD DRIVE; this corresponds to the ?Hard Disk Boot Priority List?.
21. Save/Exit
22. As most of you know when you enter the Setup for Win2k/WinXP you will need to hit F6 to load additional drivers for other SCSI devices.
23. When you arrive at the ?Press S? menu please make sure you load BOTH of the NVIDIA SCSI/Storage drivers.

This means you will load "NVIDIA RAID CLASS DRIVE" hit <Enter> then hit S again and select "Nvidia Nforce Storrage Controller" hit <Enter>

You must do this step or windows has no idea what you want it to search for in regards to possible storage space.

From here you should be able to complete the install of Windows XP/2K fine. You can go into the bios and make ?hard drive? first boot if you wish now.

 

[mechBgon]

The PXE (Preboot Execution Environment) stuff is because the system is trying to boot from the network, having failed to find any other bootable stuff to use. You can disable that in the BIOS by not selecting the LAN as a boot option and disabling Boot Other Device.

Try just one optical drive at a time, if you haven't done that yet.

 

[Fern]

Well, ResistUnlearnDefy your in good hands with mechBgon :thumbsup:


Please a question mechBgon, I'm trying to understand this too.

Is the sata thingy completely unrelated, or would it go into the lan/boot thingy if his HD didn't have the neccessary sata drivers? (I saw the PXE/lan stuff elsewhere while researching this, but noted he said he had changed bios to boot device floppy, then cd, so *apparantly erroneously* thought it wasn't relevant)

Thanks,

Fern

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: Fern
Well, ResistUnlearnDefy your in good hands with mechBgon :thumbsup:


Please a question mechBgon, I'm trying to understand this too.

Is the sata thingy completely unrelated, or would it go into the lan/boot thingy if his HD didn't have the neccessary sata drivers? (I saw the PXE/lan stuff elsewhere while researching this, but noted he said he had changed bios to boot device floppy, then cd, so *apparantly erroneously* thought it wasn't relevant)

Thanks,

Fern

Oooo, I need my Magic 8-Ball for this one :Q

From what he said, my understanding was that his system refuses to even try running Windows Setup from a CD, regardless of what CD (98 or XP or another XP) so my thinking is that maybe he has a jumper conflict between his optical drives, or a faulty IDE cable connecting the IDE drives to the motherboard?

Now, if it were running Windows Setup ok, and it found the HDD (maybe with help from the F6 + driver-floppy routine), and ran Windows Setup but then it couldn't boot from the hard drive, then my Magic 8-Ball says it would be a boot-priority thing in the mobo's BIOS. Since mobos unfortunately are not alike from brand to brand or model to model, then I have to go through the mobo's manual looking for what it wants changed. But if the board can't find anything else to try, it may try the LAN in despair if that hasn't specifically been disallowed.

Bigger picture: I hate SATA :| Benefits: next to none. Hassles: depends on the motherboard and its chipset, but ranges from none to practically-insurmountable. Why even go there? :frown: Sorry, I am ranting to the world at large... 😛

 

[ResistUnlearnDefy]

turns out i am more or less retarded. Wasnt a sata problem. Problem was with the optical drives. I had them chained on an IDE cable into one port and when i tried doing it one optical drive at a time i left the dvdrw plugged into master and the dvdrom in slave when it was the only one plugged in. plugging the master end into the dvdrom fixed it and i was able to boot. Thanks for all the help.

 

[mechBgon]

Good deal 🙂 Be aware of the danger of your new rig catching worms off your broadband connection if you don't get some kind of firewall in place (if in doubt, leave the network cable unplugged). More info here: link

 

[lenjack]

Don't feel bad...I'll wager there isn't anyone here who hasn't missed something obvious and made a beginner's error.