Will not boot ....after HDD detection..ECS K7S5A SiS® 735 with Athlon XP 1600+

[Mohammad]

I just installed a AMD XP 1600 + on a ECS K7S5A SiS® 735. Initially i was having some problems with power switch. I was able to get around them, but now after doing the memory scan and detetcting the CPU and RAM the computer stops while booting, i get a message saying " Searching for Boot Record on IDE0..... OK " and then nothing...

 

[mechBgon]

What operating system do you have? Also, what motherboard/CPU combination was it using before the K7S5A/1600+ combination?

 

[Mohammad]

I was using windows 98 and before installing the thing my system was a P3 450 with a Intel BX 440 chipset mobo. My odl mobo was giving me a lot of problems that is why i upgraded

 

[mechBgon]

I'm guessing Win98 is freaked out by the change of platform. If you want, you can boot from your Win98 CD and try reinstalling over the existing Win98 installation, which would preserve your data and programs. If that doesn't work, it's time to either revert to the old board and CPU, or reformat and do a full Win98 reinstallation.

(edit: you might try booting in Safe Mode and deleting all devices of any type in Device Manager, then restarting after deleting all of them. I've never tried this, but it might give Win98 the chance to properly detect the hardware)

 

[ride525]

I'm posting on my dad's name. My dad just recently got this motherboard for me and I'm having the same problem. I have XP. I just started the computer with the XP CD, but I haven't checked yet to see if it worked. I have the 2000+ chip.

 

[Peter]

Yes ... that means the boot sector got read, but then the initial DOS (which underlies W98) does not find its stuff on the drive. This, with any new board, happens when the drive has been connected to a completely different system before, most of the time this is because the previous one used a different generation or manufacturer of BIOS.

 

[ride525]

I tried recovering the Windows XP and it didn't work. So I installed it again and now my computer is working. The only weird thing is that all the icons on my desktop are gone and there is nothing in the program files. I still have all my files on the computer. And I can still execute things like AOL or microsoft C++ without reinstalling. I notice that my computer is faster and a little quieter. When my computer starts up it gives me the option to choose an operating system and is displays 3 windows xp selections. I have to click the bottom one because the first two don't work. Does anybody know how to get rid of this so it chooses the working copy of windows xp for me? thanks

 

[lorlabnew]

I had K7S5A couple of days and finally returned it; I've seen "Searching for Boot Record on IDE0..... OK" many times during those couple of days.

My board wasn't even able to finish up formatting of the drive for OS install (tried 3 good drives altogether) would corrupt them instead ("Win2k was unable to format this partition, it may be corrupt etc, use different partition or exit"), including MBR. If it would screw up MBR or partition boot record or put bunch of errors all over, it would just sit there with that message.... I'd take out the drive, re-test it and reformat in other PC, test install OS on it, then wipe it and return it back to K7S5A (or preformat it FAT, NTFS whatever, no luck). I made sure my WDC drives cables are correctly plugged as well.

I believe the board was bad, or maybe BIOS was corrupt or damaged. I've never seen board act up like that before neither. I first thought that my PS was weak, but after I put 350W antec in and problems continued, I returned the board....

 

[Peter]

_You_ to 99.999 percent have bad RAM. Your next board will show the same symptom. www.memtest86.com