Booting problems

matthewd · June 23rd, 2004, 08:24 PM

Whenever I try to select which boot order for the floppy,harddrive,and cd rom/ dvd drive, I can Select cdrom/dvd drive, but that is the only option it gives me to boot from. Shouldn't there be floppy drive and hard drive option so that i can boot from second and third? I think my comp is only detecting the cd rom and not the floppy or hard drive. Is there some place in bios where I can fix this. I checked all the connections and I believe everything is connected properly. My motherboard came with two cables. One that has three total connecters, and another with two connecters. The one with three connecters is connected to my cd rom/dvd drive, connected to the end with another connecter in the middle and then connected to the mobo. The hard drive is a samsung 120 gig Serial ata. After windows xp goes through setup a message comes up that says that a hard disk drive has not been detected, please make sure that all connections are properly made.......
I'm greatfull to anyone willing to help a newb

Bovon · June 24th, 2004, 02:50 AM

Can a serial ATA connected drive be made bootable?

matthewd · June 24th, 2004, 11:06 AM

Ok I got my bios to detect the hard drive, now I need to now how to enable the floppy drive. Isn't under inegrated periphials?
Thanks for the help so far
Matt

John Prophet · June 24th, 2004, 11:20 AM

is it under "standard bios"

if not u just have to check for it..its in there....sometimes it says "onboard floppy controller"

Zedicus · June 24th, 2004, 11:58 AM

can u post yur hardware specs? u r going to need to hav the floppy working so u can load the serial ata driver during windows install. yes serial can b bootable. serial hd may b called sumthin like bootable add in device in yur bios boot menu. post yur specs an we will go from there

John Prophet · June 24th, 2004, 12:05 PM

is it a Dell or name brand..or is it a custom build? if its a custom build..what motherbaord is it?

(some gateways dont come with floppies...and soem new oem type boards dont have floppy controllers on the motherboard, lol....)

matthewd · June 24th, 2004, 02:01 PM

msi neo 2 865PE P-FISR
P4 2.8C HT 800MHz
samsung dvd/cd rw
samsung 120 gig sata
powmax case with 450 watt ps
corsair XMS extreme 512 mb 3200
windows xp home
mitsumi 3.5 floppy drive 1.44mb

matthewd · June 25th, 2004, 01:20 PM

UPDATE:
Now under standard cmos there doesnt seem to be anything installed. It says not installed for primary IDE Master and the same for Primary IDE Slave. Shouldn't my hard drive manufacture and cd rom manufacture name be under these? It was last night, and when I booted up today now it's not there.
However in advanced BIOS under boot selection device my hard drive and floppy is detected but not my cd/dvd drive. This is weird because in the beginning it would ONLY detect the cd/dvd rom.
The problems I was having with floppy was due to bad floppy drive. So I fixed that problem. I need to figure out how to enable my cd/dvd rom drive so I can set it to boot first then hdd then floppy.
Thanks
Matt

It's amazing how one bad floppy drive can confuse someone this much. If I had changed to a different floppy to begin with I would be having zero problems right now

Bovon · June 25th, 2004, 04:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by matthewd

UPDATE:
Now under standard cmos there doesnt seem to be anything installed. It says not installed for primary IDE Master and the same for Primary IDE Slave. Shouldn't my hard drive manufacture and cd rom manufacture name be under these?

Yes, your master hard drive should be detected in the primary master position in the Standard CMOS setup...IF you have the drive jumpered as master, IF you have the drive connected to the ribbon cable that is connected to the motherboard in the primary IDE header and it is turned the correct way..i.e., the red trace wire on the outer edge of the ribbon cable is going to pin 1 of the header.

You have the primary master position set to auto and you have actually allowed the BIOS to auto detect the drive. (Some BIOSes will autodetect a hard drive without first manually going Thur the motions of telling the BIOS to detect the drive...some do not).

The functions to set the boot device sequence,,i.e., the floppy first, the CD first..HDD first etc. is not found in Standard CMOS setup.. I can't remember which one it is found in...look in Advanced BIOS features. Look for first boot device, second boot device, third boot device, other boot device...here you can choose which device the BIOS will choose to boot the machine 1st, 2nd, 3rd or other (your choice) device.

very important When you are thru making changes to your BIOS...you MUST save those changes..otherwise when you leave, everything returns to its original settings.

A couple of things to look at that would cause your hard drive to not be detected would be...the ribbon cable is not plugged in fully, it is turned 180 degrees (the red trace wire is not on pin 1) the power molex plug is not connected. pushed in all the way or is faulty. Both IDE and power connectors can be faulty and not make connection... I do not trust them..and usually try a different one anytime I see a drive disappear.

matthewd · June 25th, 2004, 09:32 PM

Ok finally got xp running. everything is smooth and perfect. Comp is very fast, but slightly warm. cpu temp-50 at ide. Thanks for all the help, it was the defective floppy drive that messed up everything for me. I will post pics of the machine and my setup, when I set it up

Matt