need help with older computer. It wont boot.

[nx02nx02]

I have an older computer that im working on. It will not boot.
It will post but then I get the error, Disk Boot failure insert system disk and press enter.
I thought it was the hard drive at first so I put a newer one in (one that works) and get the same error.
I tried the other IDE slot for the hard drive and now I get the error, a disk read error occured.

It is a older computer with a pentium processor and 32 MB of ram. Not sure which mobo.
The hard drive is showing up in the bios and is in the boot sequence.
I am able to format the hard drive and copy system files over but then when it reboots I get the error.

It seems like it's not seeing the hard drive.
I have also checked the RAM and reset the BIOS and even tried with C as the only boot sequence in the BIOS.

Any ideas?

 

[febuld]

it might be something with your IDE cables...try using another set of em...also, I was messing with a hard drive on my dell, and accidentally shifted some pins. It took me a while to realize that the pins weren't straight... that can happen very easily without you knowing, so make sure the pins are where they should be. If they are shifted, unplug the AC adapter, ground the computer by pressing the power button, and then get an eyebrow remover and put the pins back in place.. Worked for me

 

[nx02nx02]

Ok I just checked the pins, they all seem to be straight and they are all there.
I also tried another IDE cable and still no luck. I have now tried 3 different IDE cables.

I was thinking maybe the mobos bad but The IDE's will read the CDROM fine.


Any other ideas?
Is the mobo just bad?

 

[mechBgon]

It sounds to me like the motherboard isn't trying to boot from the hard drive. Check the motherboard's BIOS to see what the boot order is. If it's as old as it sounds, then typically you might see something like

A, C, SCSI or whatnot, and make sure that C (the hard drive) is among the options. CDROM, C, A would make it offer to boot from CD-ROM if it found a bootable CD, but it would skip it and go on to the hard drive if you didn't press a key at the prompt.

Hope that helps

 

[nx02nx02]

Yup. at first it was at A, C then I tried it at C only.
Still does the same thing.

 

[mechBgon]

I'm guessing you're installing an older OS like Win95 or Win98 there... you might try booting from a Win98 CD and choosing to just go to a command prompt with CD-ROM support. Then you can switch to D:, go to the Win98 directory and run FDISK. Partition, format, and make the partition active. Now try again and see if the motherboard has a

 :light:
:Q

Good luck!