Major Boot loop issue

[Wildog]

Asus A7S333 Motherboard
Athlon XP 1700+
Windows XP Pro

No problems with the machine before tonight.

Had not had a floppy drive in the machine before, so I wanted to flash BIOS and update firmware on my Optorite DD0203.

Installed the drive, plugged everything back in, got the dreaded boot loop. It would go through the boot process, get to the Windows XP Pro startup screen (with the blue dots running right beneath the logo), the screen goes blank for just a second, the mouse pointer appears, and then it reboots.

I've tried booting with the XP CD, booting into safe mode, can't get it to stop. I've gone into the BIOS to switch the boot order. Nothing works

Any ideas?

 

[Double Trouble]

If you yank out the optorite, does the machine boot normally into windows? It might be that the firmware on the drive is fubarred. If that's the case you should be able to flash the firmware back to a previous version (or perhaps try to reflash the current version). If still no boot, try booting into safe mode without the drive connected to see if that works.....

 

[Wildog]

I didn't actually get to upgrade the firmware on the Optorite, but I'll pull it out and try that.

I've got a bad feeling about this whole thing.

 

[LiLithTecH]

Did you try Clearing the CMOS?

 

[Wildog]

My IDE ribbon to the CDRW and DVD burner had come unplugged. Plugged it back in and bang, everything back to normal. thanks for the suggestions.

 

[daveybrat]

Glad everything worked out.
It sucks when everything just stops working and frustration sets in.

I've had that bad feeling before too, but chinese food can do that to me too