New'ish Build wont boot. Help!! Pleeeease!!

mydrumming

Hi,
I put a machine together from a Komplett Kit back early in the year. I got a Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5, i7-920, Crosshair Ram, Harddrive, PS, Case..etc.
All was working fine until today. I've just wiped the HD and put on XPSP3. Today the computer started fine and I installed WMP11 during a regular update. When the computer restarted it froze just after Verifying DMI Pool Data... Boot From CD/DVD. If I try boot from the XP CD I get to the "press any key to boot from CD" and it still freezes, did get to hit enter once but the machine froze.
I do have images of my machine taken using NovaBackup. Using the Nova rescue disk I can see that both the Hard drives are not being picked up. But are listed in the BIOS. I have an external USB HD that is registering as the C: drive.
Ive tried taking out all ram but one stick - Same Problem.
Bios back to Fail Safe Defaults - Same Problem
Removed all USB Devices - Same Problem
Using Q-Flash the computer also freezes. Can get to it from the Bios setup but only lists Floppy Drive.

Any ideas?? Is it the MB? Didn't think both HD's could fail at the same time??

Is this something Komplett can help with?
Hop you can help!!!

Thanks,
Paul.

Komplett-Tech: Ryan

It might be best to move this to the Building and Upgrading forum. There are a great group of guys over there that will gladly help you troubleshoot this issue. Let me know, and ill have this moved for you

mydrumming

Great! Thanks.

dudara

Moved to B&U forum

dudara

Diom

Sounds like a mobo problem to me. Just to make sure... you CANNOT see the internal HDDs in the BIOS? But you CAN see the external USB HDD?

Sounds like maybe a problem with the sata driver/connector/cables/power supply cables.
First thing first. Try different cables and make sure they are properly connected.
Make sure you check the power cables.
Make sure that you have ONLY the system drive(s) connected.

Then:
1) are the hdds themselves okay? try them in someone else's computer, or use a sata to usb converter and see if your computer then recognises them.
2) If the HDDs are okay, and the cables are okay then it is definitely a problem with your Mobo BUT....

3) First, to make absolutely sure... take everything of the case and rebuild. It solved a problem I was having before... must have been a short or something. That way you have your ass totally covered... there is nothing else you could have possibly done.

mydrumming

Thanks Diom. Thats the thing I can see them in the BIOS but not in my recovery software. Only the USB HDD lists in the recovery software. I cant do anything as even WinXP or Win7 wont start the setup from CD. Everything halts right at after Verifying DMI Pool Data... Boot From CD/DVD. I did get to hit enter once to boot from CD and saw the "Windows is checking... " thing at the top of the screen but it was there for a split second then everything stopped and the screen went blank. The Keyboard wont even respond. I'm setting up my old machine to check the HDDs but i'm thinking i should at least get to see the Windows XP setup and have it tell me that "Setup did not find and hard disk drives..."

Maybe the MB?? I have had to change the power supply recently...?? might be something to do with that?
Thanks for the suggestions!! Any other thoughts??

kmb

Hi,
What power supply are you now using?
If you disconnect the drives will xp go as far as the cannot find hdds?
Did you double check that all cables are properly on?
If you disconnect one drive will windows load?
Did you reset cmos?
Did you try doing repair under using the xp cd and chkdsk?

Regards,
Kmb

mydrumming

Hi Kmb,
Thanks for the suggestions!!

What power supply are you now using?
- Have a Cool Master Silent ProM 600w

If you disconnect the drives will xp go as far as the cannot find hdds?
- Didn't disconnect all drives and try a boot. OK. Will try that. Did try the HDDs in another computer and they're fine.

Did you double check that all cables are properly on?
- Yes

If you disconnect one drive will windows load?
- Tried that and No, same freeze at "Verifying DMI Pool Data..."

Did you reset cmos?
- No

Did you try doing repair under using the xp cd and chkdsk?
- Cant get that far, computer halts at Verifying DMI Pool Data...

Thanks again... Happy to at least have a few options to try!!

All the best,
Paul.

Serephucus

I had something similar to this a while back. I installed Win7 with three harddrives in, instead of one, and for some reason, some boot files were put on one of my storage drives. I had to set that drive as the boot device, it would then load Windows files from my normal OS drive.

Change the boot device order. Cycle through everything and try see if one of them will get you to Windows. If that works. Show hidden and protected/system files, and you should see boot stuff on your external or something. I haven't bothered trying to fix this; I just reinstalled. :P

Hope that helps...

massy086

defo try clearing the cmos

mydrumming

Thank everyone!!
After taking on all the suggestions I've managed to get back up and running. Not too sure what exactly happened. Both the HDDs were fine but the boot drive was the one sticking everything. I had it partitioned and set to dual boot with WinXP and Win7 64bit. So, in my old machine I wiped it set a new partition and managed to reinstall windows... and i'm back in business.
Disconnecting all the drives and managing to get Windows setup to tell me there were no HDD's found was the start...once i put them in my old machine and saw the Win7 and WinXP partition i figured id try formatting.

Thanks again!!! Thought id have to fork out for a new MB.
All the best,
Paul.