Help Re Hard Drive And Cmos Issue

[mlbslugger]

I have a problem that is somewhat 'out there' and I'm not sure what's happening. I went to re-boot my system tonight and changed one setting in the bios regarding boot sequence. After saving and re-starting, the computer never booted up again into Windows. When I reset the bios and restarted, I watched the screen start up and even list my sata hard drive before I re-entered the bios. In the bios, it even lists the hard drive as a drive I can select in the boot up order, but when I go to the screen where you enter or auto detect the drives, it only shows the dvd drive and the floppy.

I thought I may need to re-flash my bios, although I never got that far. My roommies computer made the disk I needed, but when I went to try this, even though my floppy is in the drive list and selected as a bootable option, the computer never goes to the floppy either. The hard drive gets power, I can feel it come on when the computer comes on....

Does anyone have any idea what the heck is happening? Hopefully y'all can follow that jumble of words above and make some sense out of it. HELP!

John

[mlbslugger]

After working to try to fix this all night, I've gotten nowhere. I even tried to use another IDE harddrive in the computer. This is what has transpired. I'm hoping the right person reads this and knows what I need to do:

1. Boots to show memory, processor, etc. and lists the sata drive but never gets past this. I have to re-set the bios every time I reboot or I get a black screen. If I reset bios, I can get back into it one time.

2. Bios does not show the sata drive in the drives list and I cannot enter the specs manually. It only shows the dvd. However it shows the sata drive in the selection list for boot drive sequence!!?

3. Friends drive was noticed at startup and the bios recognized the drive as the primary ide, but upon saving info to bios and re-starting, again the system would hang and I would have to reset bios and go back into it and then after saving, go back into a non-boot black screen and no ability to go back into bios without resetting bios and rebooting "again"....

Everything was working fine until I rebooted and changed that one setting in the bios, but even restoring to factory settings won't get me out of that loop of only going into bios and then having to reset and coming back into a black scren like above.

Also noticed the numlock stays on after this happens now, but switched keyboards and still no luck. The numlock never stayed on before; the only thing to stay "on" after shutdown was my mouse due to the power on setting, but never the numlock before.

So why can't I get past saving to bios (I tried replacing battery on mobo also and the keyboard), why can it see the older ide drive but not the sata in the bios setup screen, and why does it see the sata upon initial startup and in the bios boot sequence but not in the drives list in the bios?

Also, the sata drive is running. The only thing that seems to be recognized constantly is the dvd drive, and it does recognize the floppy but it never tries to boot from it regardless of what order it appears in the bios bootup drives list.

The power supply appears to be ok also, as the lights flash on the keyboard and the drive lights upon startup....

Sorry if I am repeating, but as like everyone else I'm sure (lol) this is critical and is happening at a time where I have work I can't access. This problem is driving me crazy. Thanks again.
:confused:

[yawningdog]

I've been out of the hardware racket for a while, but I'll take a stab.

First of all, you need to specify your computer make/model. That way if someone here has the same one (or similar) they can look at their own to better gauge your perspective. Same goes for your BIOS manufacturer and version.

Once you set your BIOS back to factory defaults, you screw up a ton of stuff, so you then need to go back through all of your BIOS settings and configure them correctly. In my experience (and remember, it's been a while) factory defaults means the factory that made the chip. If you have a Dell for example and you set the BIOS back to defaults, then the BIOS goes back to where they were before Dell set them up. Make sense?

And dont overlook factory support. Again, in the case of Dell you've got 3 years of factory support, and I think they do a decent job of it. You should definitely consider contacting the manufacturer if our machine isn't too old.

Good luck and let us know.

[Paul Komski]

If this PC has SATA drives (one or two or more?) then (a) the system cannot be that old and (b) they could have been in a RAID array or not. BIOSes vary a great deal in the way SATAs are utilised and you may have to specify whether they are to be added to an array or not and whether they should emulate an IDE(PATA) or not. I haven't seen a modern system that needed SATAs to be auto configured and since the drive(s) flash into view during boot-up the system seems to be "seeing" them OK.

Since you have reset the BIOS check the boot order carefully and also check a hard drive/array listing to see which hard drive or array is to be used as the boot hard drive.

Make and model, as mentioned, could be useful since it may be possible to look-up the actual BIOS settings for your PC and then advise more specifically.

Dont consider flashing the BIOS - they were working and so flashing at this point is an unnecessary risk.

Watch out for a key-press prompt when the SATAs are being detected since arrays sometimes have their own BIOS accessed separately from the main BIOS.

If floppy is the first in the boot order and you cannot boot to a known good bootable floppy then temp detach all Hard and Optical drives (leaving just the floppy attached) and then see if you can boot to it - and then report back here.

[david eaton]

Have you considered changing the BIOS battery? Such behavior could be caused by a failing battery.

[mlbslugger]

Hey, thanks for the advice. Unfortunately, nothing has helped this. I'm really suprised how messed up it became after a reboot. The PC is one that I put together on a budget a couple of years ago. The hard drive is a western digital sata (don't remember the model offhand) but upon checking it, it stated no jumpers necessary for sata drives so that was that. The motherboard is a (don't laugh) PCChips M-955G ver 3.0a with an AMI bios (again if needed I can find the info). In the book and bios, it simply claims the system will recognize the drive and it's not in an array. Um, even though it sees and lists the floppy correctly, it will never ever try to boot from it; it never comes on at all, like the only thing it recognizes is what is in the setup utility screen where it lists the drives (allows you to set time and date) but ti still lists all the drives including the sata in the advanced setup screen where you specify boot order, etc. This book is not helpful and thankfully the original assembly went without a hitch.

At this point I'm at a loss. Remember I did try my friends old IBM EIDE drive and it actually went to the point of listing it in all applicable areas of the bios screens and listed it correctly. Upon reboot it did try to boot, you could hear it, but same result, black screen. I would think as usual it would have just said "missing operating system" as his drive is his D drive and had no OS on it. I also unplugged everything and tried it with just the sata drive and the still same thing. Again too usually after I check the bios settings and exit it; when it goes to restart after that it usually can't even make it back to the bios screen without actually shorting the bios pins again and restarting 'again'.

Hopefully this helps... oh, and the OnBoard SATA-IDE option is selected to Enabled as well... sigh...

:eek:

[mlbslugger]

Have you considered changing the BIOS battery? Such behavior could be caused by a failing battery.

Yah I did that last night as well but same result. ARGH!!

[Paul Komski]

I'm sorry for asking again but its not clear to me if you tried booting to a boot floppy with all hard drives and optical drives detached.

If I reset bios, I can get back into it one time.
Could you expand exactly how you are resetting the BIOS. There are usually a couple of options (a) to reset the BIOS defaults and (b) to reset the ESCD or equivalent.

There is probably also a numlock setting which has been changed in the BIOS setup and one other thing you could try toggling with is any setting for a plug-n-play OS.

Final point for now is that I have seen boards which would only boot to the HDD if it was first in the boot order - though somehow the main problem just now seems to be that the CMOS is not retaining its settings after a hard reboot. Does the system reboot normally if you choose Restart from the "Turn Off Computer" button.

[mlbslugger]

:( Hey there, thanks for taking the time to read and help with this.

First, I cannot get into windows period, I never get past the bios and/or post. I am resetting using the jumper on the mobo. If I get into bios, try to save settings and then choose save and exit, it sometimes goes through post again and then back to the bios screen, but more often than not, it simply hits the cdrom lights since thats the only thing it seems to know is there and then stays black. When that happens, I can't even get back into the bios by hard boot or any other way, unless I short the bios jumper again... this is like 90% of the time. And it gives no messages on screen whatsoever.

It does have PNP setting in the bios, I tried that one all ready! Lol

SOmething else I did notice is that the very first screen it does show S-ATA 0 = My WD Sata drive, that goes by very quickly and I just saw this a few minutes ago by pausing... so it knows its there at start up, but by the time it gets to the cmos error msg (due to my resetting the bios) it lists the master as the DVD again and nothing about the SATA before I enter the CMOS setup. It sees the SATA drive in the bootup order list, which it is listed first but no mention as stated before, in the configure drives window. There is no way to change these settings in the cmos also; if it doesnt see the drive, I can't manually choose anything to override what it has there - it just keeps telling me the DVD is the only drive there.

The floppy never comes on even though it's in the list, tho it used to as of last night before the terror began. One other thing I noticed is that the boot sequence list doesnt seem to be updating so to speak. At one point I even disconnected the floppy and dvd and rebooted only to see that all of the drives (sata, dvd, floppy) were still listed in the boot sequence select screen even tho two of them were not connected. (PS Cant boot from install cd to see if the dvd will boot into anything as the cd is missing!!!!!!)

:(

Does the fact that it sees the sata drive at startup give a fair indication that the drive is still good? I just bought dvds to backup to the other day but never did my backup! Also, the cpu seemed to be running very hot last night also, but if it fried the cpu, would the computer come on at all, or how far would it get?

Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

One last note haha - the AMI Bios, it beeps once at start up and then I go do my thing in bios, then when it tries to reboot and go through Post, it give 2 short beeps. According to the lists of beep codes I have seen, it tells me two different things: one is either memory parity error OR Post Failure - One Of The Hardware Tests Has Failed. Are these codes reliable? If so, what hardware does it check, could it even be like a soundcard (I'm thinking no...)??

[Paul Komski]

it lists the master as the DVD again and nothing about the SATAThat's normal to see on the "Standard CMOS Setup Page" which only lists IDE/ATAPI and Floppy Drives along with the system Time and Date. You probably need to go into the RAID/SATA BIOS to identify any SATA Drives. This involves pressing the <TAB> key during boot-up.

If the SATA is listed there then what value does its Status Have.

It's possible that you need to choose SCSI or RAID in the boot order and also try this after toggling the OnBoard SATA-IDE option both on and off.

It never goes amiss to state the obvious but are you pressing F10 in the BIOS in order to save the changes.

The manual (http://64.124.27.138/pcchips/manual/m955g/M955G_30B.pdf) states ...

If the Setup Utility configuration is incorrect, it may cause the
system to malfunction. It can even stop your computer booting
properly. If it happens, you can use the clear CMOS jumper to
clear the CMOS memory which has stored the configuration
information; or you can hold down the Page Up key while
rebooting your computer. Holding down the Page Up key also
clears the setup information.... but I guess you have bin there dun that.

Only other thoughts right now are (a) that you may have a faulty cable or connector so trying new SATA cables would be another option or (b) that your SATA is starting to fail, which was the reason for suggesting removing it from the system to see if you can then boot to a floppy.

[Sylvander]

"I even disconnected the floppy and dvd and rebooted only to see that all of the drives (sata, dvd, floppy) were still listed in the boot sequence select screen even tho two of them were not connected"
That's only to be expected.
That list is NOT made up drives that are detected as connected and are also enabled.
I guess the BIOS checks what it finds against that list to decide which of the functioning drives should be booted 1st, 2nd etc.
And those drive types are the only ones catered for by this particular BIOS.
And even if the drives were present and functional, and the drive parameters had been correctly configured by static or dynamic [Auto] auto-detection, if the controller [or IDE 1st, 2nd channel] had been set to "Disabled", then the drive wouldn't work.

I'd go with Paul's idea to disconnect all drives but the FDD and try to get that working as a first step.
Make sure drive A has its parameters correctly specified [1.44M, 3.5in] and the "Onboard FDD Controller" is "Enabled".

Those 2 beeps:
Reseat your RAM, or try only a single stick, or different RAM.

What's the furtheset Startup has ever gotten in the following?

A typical and successful startup sequence
1. Start of Boot Troubleshooting Walkthrough
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/index.htm
2. Yes: The system power supply is functioning
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/power1.htm
------------------------------------------------------
You should hear a single short beep at about this point indicating the successful running/completion of the POST.
Some PC’s beep much later, possibly as late as just before step 12.
------------------------------------------------------
3. Yes: Something is being written to the screen during boot up [This may be only a flashing cursor]
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/video1.htm
4. The video BIOS message is displayed on the screen for a few seconds and then clears from the screen, or more messages display under it
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/vbios1.htm
5. Yes: The system BIOS startup screen is appearing
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/bios1.htm
6. The memory test completes successfully
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/ram1.htm
7. The BIOS accesses the floppy drives and the boot continues
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/seek1.htm
8. The system is able to autodetect IDE devices successfully
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/auto1.htm
9. The system is not Plug and Play compatible, has no Plug and Play devices, or has PnP devices but identifies them properly
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/pnp1.htm
10. Boot sequence is A: before C: (floppy disk first)
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/seqAC.htm
11. The floppy disk makes a noise and the light comes on
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/fd1.htm
12. The floppy disk light goes off and the hard disk light comes on as it starts booting
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/fd1hdd.htm
13. The hard disk boot process will continue here, if you want to follow it.
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/hd1.htm
14. The system continues booting from the hard disk and the message "Starting MS-DOS" or "Starting Windows 95" is displayed
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/hd1os.htm
15. Operating System Loaded From Hard Disk. The system has found a boot sector on the hard disk and is now starting the load of the operating system. The hard disk is working. You have successfully completed the hardware part of the boot process. Any problems encountered after this point should be diagnosed by looking for a more specific problem with a component, or under the section that contains run-time error messages.