k7S5A not reading bootfiles on IDE-0

[u4ku]

I recently started having a problem with my ECS K7S5A where no boot files would be found on IDE-0. I've reformatted and had gone through the initial stage of the Windows XP setup (countless times). However, after the first restart of the setup, no boot files would be found on IDE-0 again and it would boot from the CD again. So far, I have taken out every unnecessary part out of the system and have left only the floppy drive, a generic agp videocard (RIVA128), one Seagate 120GB IDE HDD (pmaster) and one DVD Drive (pslave) connected. However, the problem presists.

The system was working fine until recently where I tried installing a new SATA hard drive. As people who are familiar with the K7S5A specs would know, SATA is not supported on the K7S5A. Therefore, I bought a SATA->IDE brige so my SATA HDD can be connected via IDE. After I successfully loaded the SATA HDD to my BIOS, I tried installing Windows on it. This was not successful. No boot files would be detected after the initial restart (of windows xp setup) and the motherboard has been behaving like so ever since.

Initially, I thought this problem would be corrected by a few restarts or changing of the IDE cable and whatnot. Eventually, the SATA-IDE bridged HDD wouldn't even be detected on the BIOS. I would turn the system on and off constantly and I'm not sure if this could have damaged it somehow. Now I realized that some of the IDE cables I used were not working properly.

Now with fresh IDE cables and a clean IDE HDD, the motherboard continues to not detect any boot files. What can the problem be?

Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for any help.

[DPA]

I'd have to say that the K7S5A as a motherboard in general gave me enough reason to never purchase another ECS product ever again. I'd be willing to wager that your problem is the motherboard itself--not the rest of your hardware. I suffered similar problems in that it was virtually impossible to load an OS on it. I found a solution by installing Windows XP to the first reboot stage on another computer, then when the computer restarted I just turned it off and put the HDD in the K7S5A.

Terrible work around, but it got the job done. I threw my K7S5A out the door as fast as possible; replaced it with another board and my quirks "magically" went away.

[u4ku]

I think I'll have a go at that work around. The funny thing is that the k7 with my AMDXP1800+ has been working pretty well for me for years now. I finally decided to upgrade today to a AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ today and was thinking I could've sold my old setup for a few bucks or so. I guess not. haha