PC won't boot

bliss · 9 Sep 2006 at 14:43

PC won't boot (urgent help)

I'm in a real pickle here guys so i hope you can help. I have a friends PC that i fixed once but then the IDE HDD died yesterday. Bought a new one and fired it up and nothing. No motherboard beeps, no monitor signal, nada. Cleared the CMOS and i finally got some activity. It slowly goes through the motions until it hits "System Boot Disk Failure. Insert And Press Enter"

So i looked in the bios and nothing is listed. Auto detecting the HDD finds nothing, but autodetecting the DVD-Rom is fine. I removed the DVD-Rom drive and just left the HDD hooked up and tried auto detecting again, and it finds it. So it seems only one drive at a time can be detected. Save exit...... "System Book Disk Failure" again. Back into the bios and the HDD which had auto detected is no longer there. I've tried clearing the CMOS again using the jumpers and tried removing the battery for 15minutes, both having no effect. I'm stumped, please help.

Thanks in advance guys.

Ps glad this isn't my PC

J.B · 9 Sep 2006 at 14:51

Have you checked that the jumpers on the drive are configured correctly?Is the cd drive and the hdd on the same IDE channel? if so then its probably simple as master and slave or some IDE cables require the master to be on the end plug and the slave on the second or vise versa.

Considering it is a new drive it probably will say some sort of boot disk error as there is no OS on it.

bliss · 9 Sep 2006 at 15:00

Hdd is set on the Master w/ slave present and the DVD-Rom is set to slave. They're on the same channel as the motherboard only has one IDE connector.

It's a Intel P4 on a Foxconn mobo and the new HDD is a Western Digital. I don't know anymore exact specs than that.... and i'm sure my mate doesn't know either even though it's his PC.

Still find it strange how it won't detect it in the bios. You hit auto detect and it searches for roughly 25seconds then comes back with nothing.

Didn't try the switching which way round the IDE cable was plugged in. I'm popping back down in 30minutes so anymore help for thing to try will be greatly appreciated.

michael baxter · 9 Sep 2006 at 15:12

Have you got another working hd or optical drive to try?

Perhaps there is an incompatability between the hard drive and optical drive?

bliss · 9 Sep 2006 at 15:17

Tried 3 other HDD's. I'll see if he has another optical drive.

bliss · 9 Sep 2006 at 15:26

Going out now to see if anything i've read or the above posts work. Will be back if there are still problems.

michael baxter · 9 Sep 2006 at 15:27

Did you have the same problem with the other hd drives?

bliss · 9 Sep 2006 at 16:30

J.B said:
Have you checked that the jumpers on the drive are configured correctly?Is the cd drive and the hdd on the same IDE channel? if so then its probably simple as master and slave or some IDE cables require the master to be on the end plug and the slave on the second or vise versa.

Considering it is a new drive it probably will say some sort of boot disk error as there is no OS on it.

Followed your tip about switching the ide plug around betwen the 2 drives and it worked. Will have to remember that tip. Thanks to all that gave advice. :cool: