Serious Boot up Issues...

[Bulldog13]

Hello,

Here's my problem. I just recently replaced the hard drive on a P3 550 from Gateway. I kept getting errors about the hard drive, bad clusters etc, errors and what not. It had trouble booting etc.

So I figured the hard drive was dead. This was an old 20 gig hard drive that came with the Gateway.

I buy a new 60 gig WD hard drive. I install this. It uses a PCI controller card (ata 66, again came with the comp).

This is where the problems begin.

At first the thing would randomly freeze at various times during the POST. Sometimes After the Video Card BIOS loaded up. Sometimes after the RAM was checked. Sometimes after the optical IDE devices were detected.

Eventually I reset it enough times that I was able to get the hard drive formatted via the Windows 2000 install program.

Again with the freezing.

Then I took out all the PCI cards except for the controller card and the video card. Then I stopped getting a signal to my monitor. Tried 2 different video cards and 3 different monitors.

I didn't know what to do so I yanked the CMOS battery. That kind of worked. At least I get a signal to the monitor most of the time.

Now the thing alternates between no signal to the monitor, freezing during POST, and booting into windows. When the booting into windows happens, I see the little white bars on the bottom of the screen and get an error message "Inaccessible Boot Device" Mind you this only happens 1 out of 20 power off / ons'

Anyone have any recommendations? I was going to try the Maxtor software, but I don t have a floppy in the comp and can t seem to find the downloadable CD version.

Thanks

 

[InlineFive]

I don't know if this stricly applies but did you install the drivers for the controller card? Have you tried the hard drive on the motherboard ATA controller?

And i'm kind of suspicious that your controller card is only ATA/66 when your drive supports ATA/100. Where did you buy it from?

-Por

 

[Bulldog13]

The Controller Card came with the original computer which only utilized a 20 gig ata 66 HD. I got a new 7200 rpm HD. That is why there is a difference.

When I connect it to the motherboard I get the same error. Inaccesible_Boot_Device

 

[swank121]

Does it POST fine with no hard drive installed at all .. just the motherboard, cpu, ram and vid card?

 

[JBT]

Take all the jumpers out of drive seems to be a common problem with WD drives.

 

[Bulldog13]

Originally posted by: JBTele
Take all the jumpers out of drive seems to be a common problem with WD drives.

Tried that. Nothing.

The most annoying thing, is that it is constantly freezing at random points during bootup.

 

[Bulldog13]

^ C'mon ppl. Share some love.

 

[swank121]

It sounds like a flaky motherboard to me. To rule out the hard drive, remove it. Set up the comp barebones style .. just the motherboard, cpu, ram, video card, and cd drive. Create a boot ISO of memtest86 v3.0 available Here. Boot that and run it for a few hours and see if your comp still has problems.

 

[Slammy1]

My recommendation, to you, is that you take this opportunity to buy a better system. I'd make sure to only install on the 2nd channel on the MoBo. It could be a PSU problem; if you have a PCI video card I believe it'd run on the same voltage rail as the HD. But my original advice is the best, start saving for a cheap upgrade. I'd bet you could put together a much superior system for $250-300; maybe even less. Software and hardware will only support older tech for so long, they make you upgrade even if you're happy with present computing power.