I just rebuilt a mmx box, replacing the motherboard, cpu and ram. I have reassembled to whole thing last night and booted it up for the first time. It is not finding my hard drive and it prompts me for a boot disk in the floppy as my boot sequence is c,a. I dont have a proper boot disk for this machine though. My problem is the system not finding the hard disk. When I look for it in the bios, it does not locate it either. The hdd jumpers are set to be a primary. It is on the same cable as my cdrom, which seems to be getting recognized by the system. I am not the best with motherboard jumpers....could this be an issue. What could be the reason for my system not finding my hdd. Please help...................

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Bob

Originally posted by rthielemann:
I just rebuilt a mmx box, replacing the motherboard, cpu and ram. I have reassembled to whole thing last night and booted it up for the first time. It is not finding my hard drive and it prompts me for a boot disk in the floppy as my boot sequence is c,a. I dont have a proper boot disk for this machine though. My problem is the system not finding the hard disk. When I look for it in the bios, it does not locate it either. The hdd jumpers are set to be a primary. It is on the same cable as my cdrom, which seems to be getting recognized by the system. I am not the best with motherboard jumpers....could this be an issue. What could be the reason for my system not finding my hdd. Please help...................


does the hdd light in the front light up along with floppy and cdrom when the computer goes threw post.....?

on the primary ide set jumpers master for(hdd) and slave for (cd-rom)
and in the bios set (hdd) detection to automatic all the way through let it detect it for you. check the top of the hard drive it should show you how to position the jumpers in the back to read it as the master and the same for the cdrom............ hope this helps http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

[This message has been edited by jangolion (edited 10-11-2000).]

Does it matter that the hard drive already has info on it from the system it came out of? Also is there a certain way that I should cable the hdd and the cdrom. I have heard that the master should be furthest away from the ide bus. Should it matter which ide port I use?

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Bob

Originally posted by rthielemann:
Does it matter that the hard drive already has info on it from the system it came out of? Also is there a certain way that I should cable the hdd and the cdrom. I have heard that the master should be furthest away from the ide bus. Should it matter which ide port I use?



yes because it contains all the driver from the system you took it out of which are probably not compatable with the new board you just installed.

"I have heard that the master should be furthest away from the ide bus." yes you have heard correctly.....on the (PRIMARY) ide set jumpers master for(hdd) and slave for (cd-rom) and in the bios set (hdd) detection to automatic all the way through let it detect it for you. check the top of the hard drive it should show you how to position the jumpers in the back to read it as the master and set the the cdrom as the slave.....

check these things first as well as all other connection fan power cords make sure everything is seated properly ie. ram expansion cards etc.

tell me how far it goes during booting? .... does it clear post? any beeps?(one is good) does it go all the way to windows logo screen then pauses?.....do these things first http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

It doesnt get as far as the windows screen. During boot up it says that the hdd is not found and then prompts for a boot disk. It check the ram and posts. The problems occurs while it is finding the drives in the syste. It finds the cdrom apparently, but that is where the problem starts.

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Bob

Should I format the drive?

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Bob

Get the hard drive jumper settings right first, and get BIOS to detect it. You might have to look up the perameters and input them by hand. BIOS will be looking for number of Cylinders, Heads and Sectors per Track (CYL|HD|SPT). My site below has links to plenty places to find info, Trish's, the top link, is one of the best. Look in the hard drive section, you'll find links that list hard drive specs for just about anything made.

Then, once you get the BIOS to recognize the drive, I would say format and reinstall, many times you'll have problems transferring a drive to a different motherboard, since it has drivers already installed for a different board, and will often have nothing but problems until you do format and reinstall. At best, you'll spend 30 minutes waiting for Windows to install new software and drivers for the new board, and 2 weeks sorting out all the leftover files. At worst, it will constantly lock up, get illegal errors, BSOD's, GPF's and a host of other problems related to having to work with a completely different board than the original.

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If you had everything...Where would you put it?

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)

yes formatinng the hd would be the easiest route just remmember to back up
but he does have a new board and after the initial half hour wait he can pop in the cd with all the inf files and update all drivers to make hdd compatable but i guess to eaches own and a clean start perhaps...to format wouldnt be my first choice but it works.............. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

Just wanted to let you all know that I got everything up and running. The issue turned out to be very simple. I had to change the jumper setting on the hdd and switch the eide cable around so that the hdd was connected to the master port and the slave to the slave port. It actually booted to the hdd(on which I was running win95) which surprised me. A few .ini files seemed to be lost but they were easily fixed. All is right with the world. Thanks to everyone for their help and expertise. I look forward to bothering you for more info in the future.



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Bob