Boot problem with new motherboard

[NateDanger]

Thanks in advance for reading.

Ok, so here's the story: Once upon a time, I helped a friend with a PC problem. It was a low-budget PC, a Dell Dimension L800r. To make a long story short, I had to replace the motherboard, CPU (and fan), and RAM. The replacement parts came directly from Dell, and after replacing the old parts everything worked fine. For a few days, once again all was peaceful in the land.

Fast-forward a week, and I get a call from the same friend saying that her PC froze and now it won't boot up. Apparently she was online (through dial-up AOL) when the PC crashed. I thought, "Ok, this sounds pretty basic. Should be a piece of cake." 2 weeks later, I have not fixed it and here I am humbly asking for your help.

To review:

- Just 3 weeks ago the motherboard, CPU, and RAM were replaced with ceritfied Dell parts and the new parts worked fine.

- She was online through dial-up AOL when her PC froze up, and now will not boot.

- Regardless whether or not there is a floppy disk in the drive (or even whether or not the floppy drive is connected), the PC gives the following error at boot-up:

Invalid Boot Disk
Insert BOOT disk in drive A:

I've tried the following things, all of which resulted in still getting that same 'BOOT disk' error:

- Disconnect the floppy drive
- Use a new floppy drive
- Disconnect hard drive
- Use a new hard drive
- Use new cables for all disk drives
- Disconnect all disk drives
- Reset CMOS settings through BIOS software setup
- Reset CMOS through motherboard jumper setting

Frankly, I'm stumped! I've tried all kinds of boot disks (Win98, ME, DOS, etc.), and I've tried both bootable floppies and CDs. No matter what I do, it always gives that same error. I've come to the conclusion that the new motherboard needs to be replaced again, but I have no real evidence of that other than by process of elimiation.

If anybody has ever encountered something similiar or if you have any suggestions, I'd really appreciate your help. Thanks again for reading.

EDIT - clarification

[Bovon]

What OS?

[mar122999]

Did you try restoring your CMOS settings to "default". If so, try making your IDE-0 drive the first boot option. I think the problem is more related towards software, so don't worry too much about the hardware. I am sure that everything inside of the PC (hardware settings) stayed the same whenever the computer was working fine so there was no need to really change anything inside of the PC, just look. Your MBR could also be damaged/corrupt. There is a method of restoring it that i forgot. Maybe someone else can offer some advice on restoring you MBR.

[NateDanger]

Thanks for the replies.

The original hard drive has Win ME installed. I've also tried a HDD with Win XP, as well as one with Linux (Mandrake).

I did reset the CMOS settings to default. I did so first through the BIOS software, which did not work. Then I did it through a jumper on the motherboard itself, which also did not work. I would try to use FDISK to create a new MBR, but there appears to be no possible way to boot the PC. It will not boot from any IDE drives, HDD or CD-ROM, nor will it boot from a floppy disk.

Thanks again for the replies. I do appreciate them. Any other ideas?

[NateDanger]

Bump...?

[mar122999]

All in all, I would personally speculate that the motherboard is bad. If you have an extra one, replace it and see if the problem persists. You can buy motherboards pretty cheap on ebay.com if you don't have one in stock. The motherboard could have been fried due to a power surge, leaky capasitors, or lightening storm. Check the capasitors on the motherboard to see if some of them were leaking.

[John Prophet]

well you cant just slap a hard drive from another xp computer in there without reinstalling windows on it...it will blue screen right away because of the hardware conflicts from the old registry settings etc......but of course that wouldnt make it say "invalid disk"

it does sound sort of like the motherboard is flaky