Boot problems

tadcan

I've been taking hard dives in and out of my machine while working on fixing another PC. Think it may be bricked.

It had developed a quirk where the boot from dvd that had come from after the verifying DMI pool, instead had a page with just the DVD info and press any button to continue. Had to press a function key to boot from other source. It ignored the Bios setting.

It has one IDE DVD connection and one Sata DVD connection. When I unplugged the IDE it gave a warning that no drive was found. Now it just gets stuck on verifying DMI data pool, either with or without the IDE connection in the machine. In the Bios it sees two DVD drives of the same type despite being different makes.

Took out the Mobo battery, reset Bios to optimised defaults. It still hangs at Verifying DMI data pool. If the first boot is set to CD/DVD then I get a success message, but it hangs at Boot from CD/DVD.

The PC is a build from Komplett. MoBo is a Gigatbyte GA-P35-DS3P.

yoyo

tadcan wrote: »

I've been taking hard dives in and out of my machine while working on fixing another PC. Think it may be bricked.

It had developed a quirk where the boot from dvd that had come from after the verifying DMI pool, instead had a page with just the DVD info and press any button to continue. Had to press a function key to boot from other source. It ignored the Bios setting.

It has one IDE DVD connection and one Sata DVD connection. When I unplugged the IDE it gave a warning that no drive was found. Now it just gets stuck on verifying DMI data pool, either with or without the IDE connection in the machine. In the Bios it sees two DVD drives of the same type despite being different makes.

Took out the Mobo battery, reset Bios to optimised defaults. It still hangs at Verifying DMI data pool. If the first boot is set to CD/DVD then I get a success message, but it hangs at Boot from CD/DVD.

The PC is a build from Komplett. MoBo is a Gigatbyte GA-P35-DS3P.

Verifying pool data generally leads to the bios booting the boot device, so it sounds like the machine is having an issue booting from the hard disk. Does the hard disk work in the other machine?
I'd try another SATA port on the mobo, make sure boot settings in bios are set to HD first, CD second etc. Unplug any external devices, Drives, printers etc and see if it boots.
You could have a corrupted bios, but taking out the battery should fix that. Btw you need to leave the battery out a few minutes, the next boot you'll usually get a checksum error or something along those lines, this is the bios detecting loss of settings.
The only other thing I could think of is something going on the mobo, a SATA or IDE controller, etc

Nick

tadcan

The other machine is in my friends house and its a really dodgy build he got, so I wouldn't trust it very much. But I have a small laptop hard drive leftover from an upgrade. That boots fine. On the big H/D changed the sata port to 0, same result.

I thought it didn't matter which Sata ports were used. In the Bios it still says slave/master?

When the Bios was reset didn't get an error message. It was out for over 20mins and I hit the power button to dissipate any residual power.

So the best option is to get the data off the drive, wipe it, and reinstall. Most of it is backed up to my Nas, if the data is corrupted.

yoyo

tadcan wrote: »

The other machine is in my friends house and its a really dodgy build he got, so I wouldn't trust it very much. But I have a small laptop hard drive leftover from an upgrade. That boots fine. On the big H/D changed the sata port to 0, same result.

I thought it didn't matter which Sata ports were used. In the Bios it still says slave/master?

When the Bios was reset didn't get an error message. It was out for over 20mins and I hit the power button to dissipate any residual power.

So the best option is to get the data off the drive, wipe it, and reinstall. Most of it is backed up to my Nas, if the data is corrupted.

SATA drives don't need jumpers, although there is a possibility for one port to go dodgy, or the controller... Does the other laptop drive boot fine on the machine? If so theres an issue with the drive itself/or the boot code on it, have you tryed simply trying to repair the boot manager?
Boot into a recovery Console/DOS Window from your windows disc and type:
bootrec.exe /fixboot [enter]
bootrec.exe /fixmbr [enter]

See if it helps.

Nick

tadcan

Yes the laptop hard drive boots fine. I have a dual boot with ubuntu, so I'd have to find the commands to fix grub.

Was working on my friends machine to get it to see a 500GB H/D. Was seen after a bigger PSU was put in. Also replaced a dodgy sata cable. Got a 3.5 to sata power converter, but the drive wasn't seen in the Bios. Does it need to be a molex to sata? H/D worked fine in my machine, but was only sometimes seen in my friends machine. Anyway he is bringing it over tonight so I have a few days to figure it out.

yoyo

tadcan wrote: »

Yes the laptop hard drive boots fine. I have a dual boot with ubuntu, so I'd have to find the commands to fix grub.

Was working on my friends machine to get it to see a 500GB H/D. Was seen after a bigger PSU was put in. Also replaced a dodgy sata cable. Got a 3.5 to sata power converter, but the drive wasn't seen in the Bios. Does it need to be a molex to sata? H/D worked fine in my machine, but was only sometimes seen in my friends machine. Anyway he is bringing it over tonight so I have a few days to figure it out.

Those PATA to SATA changers are usually a load of rubbish so I wouldn't personally reccomend trying them. Does the friends pc still see the hard disk. Theres a possibility his PC may have damaged the hard disk pcb, if other drives work fine in your machine, check the drive in another machine and see if it sees it

Nick

tadcan

It wasnt a pata to sata changer it is the power connector. There is a molex and a 3.5 connection. I presumed either would power a h/d.

Tried the h/d in my pc and it worked. Will try it again when the machine arrives later tonight.

yoyo

tadcan wrote: »

It wasnt a pata to sata changer it is the power connector. There is a molex and a 3.5 connection. I presumed either would power a h/d.

Tried the h/d in my pc and it worked. Will try it again when the machine arrives later tonight.

Try getting your hands on one of these (molex to sata power):


I've got them in Peats before.
The molex connector (if the SATA drive has one) should work though, although no harm trying one of these thingies

Nick

tadcan

Peats were out of stock. Got the 3.5 connector in Maplins.

yoyo

tadcan wrote: »

Peats were out of stock. Got the 3.5 connector in Maplins.

That still doesn't work? Whats the PSU in the machine? Hard drives do require a fair bit of power and it could just be the PSU isn't up to the task!

Nick

tadcan

It is a 350W PSU. It did work last time when I upgraded from a 250W, but the DVD player was falling apart, had problems with the live DVD. Have since put in a spare DVD player. Before I got to it it would randomly not boot and give a grub error. Its been temperamental to say the least. Will get it tomorrow instead. I'm sick of been going up and down trying different things.

yoyo

tadcan wrote: »

It is a 350W PSU. It did work last time when I upgraded from a 250W, but the DVD player was falling apart, had problems with the live DVD. Have since put in a spare DVD player. Before I got to it it would randomly not boot and give a grub error. Its been temperamental to say the least. Will get it tomorrow instead. I'm sick of been going up and down trying different things.

Its probably a cheap PSU, get a decent one and see if it improves things, I'm guessing the PSU isn't giving the drive enough power or stable power. Also bad PSUs have been known to damage hardware so its best replacing I'd say youve pritty much narrowed it down at this point!

Nick