Annoying! Can't boot!

komodosp

Hi all
Was wondering if anyone could help... a bit of a complicated situation. The problem isn't with graphics cards, it's with hard disks, the first bit is just for a bit of history.

Anyway, I have an ATI Crossfire motherboard, and recently, my computer just wouldn't start. I guessed it was the graphics card, as it had been getting more and more dodgy. So I pulled it out and bought a new one - a Sapphire HD 3850 512mb.

(PCI Express)

at first it wouldn't gt past the Crossfire screen when you first turn it on, (and strangely, only occasionally let me into the BIOS setup menu) but I soon resolved that by disabling a BIOS setting - "PCIE workaround". The previous graphics card - a Radeon X850 XT 256mb - had with it, in the other PCIe slot, a small blue card which had nothing but lines connecting the different "pins" of the connection. This is what caused me to guess at the setting to disable.


Anyway. Now my problem is this: The computer does not seem to recognise the two hard disks in it to boot from! I have a Samsung one (80GB) and a Western Digital 2500 (250GB), both SATA. It asks for a boot CD, despite "Hard Disk" being higher in the boot priority.

At first I'd noticed that I'd accidentally plugged out the WD2500 while taking out the GFX card, so I plugged it back in to one of four SATA sockets on the mother board. (The samsung one is plugged into another one)

In the BIOS, sometimes the Samsung disk is recognised, but the WD2500 is always recognised. I've messed around with which sockets the SATA cables should be plugged into.

I turn it on, and the Crossfire intro screen comes up, "Multiply and Conquer" and all that (press Del for setup), then after a few seconds, the screen which used to have the memory test flashes up and instantly disappears! Then, what I think is the Hard Disk status thing appears, but it scrolls up too quickly to show hard disk information except the last line or two which seems to tell me when it sees the WD2500 disk (always) and the Samsung disk (sometimes). The PCI hardware list thing with a list of about 15 items. Verifying DMI pool data is OK, but then it says, "Boot from CD" and then after a second it says, "DISK BOOT FAILURE. INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER".

Remember I said sometimes the Samsung disk is recognised? Well if it appears on the Boot screen following the Crossfire screen, but before the PCI device list, then I get the "DISK BOOT FAILURE... etc" even if a system bootable CD is in the drive (e.g. windows setup disk). If the Samsung disk isn't recognised, then a bootable CD can operate as normal.

I think this is the disk with the OS on it - I use it as the C:\ drive anyway (and the WD2500 one as the \ drive).

Any help with this would be great. I am thinking now that the visibility of the C:\ drive prevents the CD from being read since it's higher in the boot priority, but the bootable system files are for some reason not working. Is there any way of repairing them without disturbing the OS? A DOS boot CD doesn't seem to be able to read the NTFS HDDs... And why would one of the HDDs only sometimes appear?

Thanks!

blackgold>>

Clear your cmos settings with the jumper on the motherboard .Plug in the hard disk you boot from (windows whatever) and set it as the first boot device .
Your just confussing yourself by the sounds of it.

komodosp

Thanks

I didn't plug out any jumper switches just yet, but I plugged out the DVD drive and the 250MB (D:) hdd... Trying to boot only on the C: drive it gave me an error saying,

Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem.
Could not read from selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware.
Please check the windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information.

Now it seems the C:\ drive is being recognised as having only 33,822MB when it should have 80 GB.

Strangely, I messed around with cables and stuff and plugged back in both hard disks, and it booted! Got into windows, but without a DVD drive. But it only reads the \ drive (Windows is actually on this, it seems). If I click on the C:\ drive in explorer, it tells me it's not formatted! Disaster!

Oddly enough, when I tried to boot with only the \ drive plugged in. It gives me the error about the "DISK BOOT FAILURE. INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER"

I bought this computer off a guy who built it... And I don't think I can get help off him again... Maybe I'll try the jumper thing you were talking about.

But if the C:\ drive is screwed I'll go mad because there's a lot of important stuff on it!