Mysterious HDD/BIOS(?!) failure

[MisterZ]

Last night I was "surfing the net", when suddenly my PC restarted.
When it was about to boot up again, it only went as far as memory test and "Detetcting IDE Drives" displaying me info about my Drives:
Primary Master: Maxtor 932569
Primary Slave: None
Secondary Master: Samsung CD-RW
Secondary Slave: None

THATS AS FAR AS IT GETS WHEN I BOOT IT UP AGAIN!


Now, the first thing I did was to check incase it was an OS problem so I tested it with making CD-Rom bootable and tried to boot up from my WinXP CD, but as I suspected it didnt go that far stopping at my Drives info(see above), so my conclusion is that it is a BIOS problem.
I had a thorough look inside BIOS and could not see any
abnormalities, all the settings were absolutely correct and nothing
was changed. I tried changing BIOS settings to FAIL-SAFE but obviously no progress was made and I am still stuck on "Drives info".

Here is my system spec incase any of you want to know it:
WindowsXP Pro
AMD XP 1700
512 MB DDR RAM
40gig Maxtor HDD
Abit KR7A mobo(thats where BIOS lives)
nothing else matters I suppose


Next thing I did was to open up my computer case and check that all plugs were properly connected. I also tried resetting CMOS memory but that did not help either and I still had my 'boot up' stuck on 'IDE Driver Info'.

I tried unplugging my HDD and thats when boot sequence went a bit further displaying my 'general system info' and asking me to "Connect HDD etc etc"


I really dont have a clue now how I could fix the problem and what exactly is failing(HDD? BIOS? anything else?)

Any help or advice will be highly appreciated,
thanks

 

[sohcrates]

how did you clear your cmos? did you use the jumpers properly or did you take the mobo battery out?

assuming you did try clearing it correctly, i would do 2 things

1) unplug computer from wall for a while (that does magical things sometimes...also, make sure it's unplugged while clearing cmos with battery method)

2) start ripping cards out and unplugging stuff. go back to your roots with just 1 hard drive, a cpu, memory, and a video card. see if it boots. if so, slowly add other stuff back one at a time

 

[jmagg]

.

 

[MisterZ]

<< how did you clear your cmos? did you use the jumpers properly or did you take the mobo battery out?

assuming you did try clearing it correctly, i would do 2 things

1) unplug computer from wall for a while (that does magical things sometimes...also, make sure it's unplugged while clearing cmos with battery method)

2) start ripping cards out and unplugging stuff. go back to your roots with just 1 hard drive, a cpu, memory, and a video card. see if it boots. if so, slowly add other stuff back one at a time >>




OK,

1) I cleared CMOS properly using jumpers with the unplugged computer.

2) Taking out all components other than CPU, Video card, memory and HDD was 2nd thing I did last night but it did not help

Apparently booting from CD doesnt work either, only goes as far as displaying 'IDE Drives Info'

 

[sohcrates]

i've seen crazy stuff like this before, usually you can play around with it and make it work

i spose you can't boot off a floppy then either right? i would imagine not

what i would do, is go beyond just taking cards out. i would leave cpu and ram in, but take EVERYTHING else out. unplug all wires, IDE cables, hard drives, cd-roms, and all cards.

then, add just video card in...see how far it boots w/out hard drive (i know you've done this before, but it's a good idea)

then, add hard drive and see if you're lucky. the key i've found comes with removing EVERYTHING, cables included. basically rebuilding system again

oh yeah, and i'd try the battery clear as well. take the mobo battery out for 30 minutes w/ no power to mobo and see if it makes a difference. could be a bad IDE cable as well i suppose. make sure no cables are backwards