XP can't find harddrive

[holabr]

I'm trying to recycle an old Epox 8k5a3+ MoBo into a usable basic system for a friend. I am only using the IDE channels with one dedicated to a single 120G HDD and the other to a CD Rom drive. I also have floppy drive in the system connected to the FDD controller. Nothing is connected to the HTP374 chipset supported channels. I am trying to install XP on this system from a CD. When I boot the system after several minutes the BIOS screen appears and lists the HDD on IDE1 Master and the CD Rom on IDE2 Slave. It then takes take what seems like several more minutes to start booting the XP Setup in the CD Rom drive. (I have it set in the BIOS as first boot drive) I then get a single line that says Windows is examining the system hardware configuration. Again after several minutes the blue Windows setup screen appears and asks if I want to install, repair or exit. I select install and the setup starts loading all the drivers. Finally when that is all finished Windows informs me that it can't find a HDD to install the operating system on.

What is wrong? The BIOS sees the drive but Windows can't. What can I do to fix the problem?

 

[RebateMonger]

Have you tested the hard drive with the disk maker's diagnostics utility? Boot to that via CD and run thorough disk tests.

 

[holabr]

I ran the Western Digital diagnostics from the CD. Although it seemed to take a very long time to boot up the diagnostics, once they were loaded the HDD was found and both the quick test and the extended test found no problems. If there was a memory or CPU problem, would the Bios POST test flag them? Do you have any other suggestions?

I also changed the jumper on the CD Rom drive to Master and it now shows as IDE2 Master in the Bios, but XP setup still does not see the HDD.

 

[RebateMonger]

It never hurts to test the memory. Burn a CD with Memtest86+ and run overnight. BIOS POST tests aren't very effective at finding memory problems unless they are really bad.

Are your IDE cables 80-conductor and not 40-conductor? I'd use 80-conductor cables and set the IDE driver jumpers to "Cable Select" (CS). But if the BIOS is seeing the disks OK, that's not likely to make the disk "invisible" to Windows.

Usually, if the BIOS sees a disk and Windows does not, then Windows is missing the driver for the disk controller that's hosting the disk. But I'd expect whatever disk controller using on your Epox motherboard to be compatible with the built-in XP IDE controller. The only drives on the Epox site related to IDE are the 4-in-1 drivers. But I don't read those as being absolutely necessary, according to Epox.

Ugh...I hate VIA chipsets...Sorry.

 

[SimMike2]

It should only take a few seconds for the BIOS screen to bootup to list all your drives and stuff. If your BIOS screen it "taking several minutes" to even appear on the screen, I would say this ancient motherboard might not be working correctly. This has nothing to do with Windows XP. It sounds like hardware failure to me.

That motherboard came out in 2002. By computer standards, that is incredibly ancient. If I was having trouble loading Windows on a computer that old, my first guess would always be hardware.

 

[holabr]

I'm suspecting the same thing. Is it worth trying to salvage anthing from the old system? i.e. power supply, memory, tower etc. Will the old PS (Antec True430) work with the newer MoBos?