System Will Not Boot

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

So I was doing some work on my dad's older system and it broke.

 

Basically, he had a CD-ROM drive installed, I removed it and put in a DVD ROM drive. Both were IDE.

 

Once I did that, the system would not boot into windows. Would tell me restart and select correct boot device.

 

Now the weird part is the boot drive is on a SATA drive, and there is also another IDE hard drive in the system.

 

I made sure the pin selection (slave etc) were in the right place (even tried removing them). No change, I unplugged everything but the main drive, still wouldn't. So it's not the new optical.

 

Put it back to how it was, wouldn't boot. Cleared CMOS, Then Randomly, it booted into windows.

 

 

I then tried again because he wants the new optical drive, thinking maybe its the CMOS, nope stuck at boot. Now I have the system back to how it was originally, won't boot.

 

Basically, it seems to randomly let me into windows. I put another drive in there from another system with windows, and it boots fine. So I thought it was the windows installation, but the one time it booted into windows after clearing the CMOS, was before this point, so its also not Windows. The drive is also fine as well, cause when I boot from the other windows, it has all files, and in BIOS it shows up fine.

 

I might have made this sound all confusing, but I hope someone understands.

 

HELP?

 

 

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

You need to set boot order in BIOS. Whenever you add a new device, be sure that you are booting off the right medium.

[The Evil Overlord]

^ Good advise

 

OP also, do you know if the mobo has a jumper on it to reset the board, (I know my son's Asrock does)

might be worth doing that if it does, then setting up boot in your bios As Mind mentioned

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

I do that a lot, Dushmany. :p Repairing older system that still need PATA devices. Whenever you add something, jumper or not, one can override another. Just check BIOS to see if it is set up right, in the first place.

[francescob]

In the BIOS there could be multiple boot settings, one for setting the order of all boot devices and another for the order of the SATA/IDE devices (the one you need to change).

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

Yea I went through the BIOS, forgot to add that, tried everything in there. No go.

 

No Jumper on mobo as far as I can see.

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

Maybe show us your BOOT order, just to be sure? Something sound fishy.

[francescob]

What is the motherboard model?

[Flantec]

I cannot tell you why this possibly would help, but try to boot to windows first while there cd in the drive. I have seen at least half a dozen times on different computers where they would not boot without a cd in the drive. It makes zero sense as the cd did not need to be a bootable cd. For some reason, the boot process just got hung up while trying to detect whether there was a bootable cd.

Because you said it does let you in almost randomly, that it what made me think of that issue. To this day, I still cannot explain what causes the issue. Good luck.

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

Well here is the thing.

 

I have the system back to how it was at first, not working.

 

I put in a USB stick with Windows, same screen, does not boot.

 

I have tried every combination in the BIOS, not working.

 

I am thinking the MOBO is broken or something. Makes no sense to me.

 

I will figure out the MOBO model tomorrow, it's old though, not sure if I will be able too.

[francescob]

Are you sure the SATA controller doesn't have a IDE/SATA/AHCI mode setting that may have changed since you resetted the bios? On older systems with custom serial ata controllers if the setting is not the same it may prevent booting due to different sector allocation.

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

There is a setting for the SATA, IDE or AHCI, but I have tried both. I think it's default IDE.

[Chris000001]

Motherboard battery dead (forgetting boot order)?

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

As I said, I unplugged everything except the drive, still no.

[francescob]

There is a setting for the SATA, IDE or AHCI, but I have tried both. I think it's default IDE.

Is there a SATA boot bios setting anywhere? Older motherboards had third-party SATA controllers that required the controller to run some initialization code to allow booting.

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

It could be a master/slave conflict on the IDE bus.

 

Please provide motherboard's and drives' model numbers.

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

It's the Asus P5Q Pro Turbo motherboard, and the OS drive is SATA, so it can't be the master/slave issue (plus I already said I tried all combinations to be safe)

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

The problem is, if I have set the system back to how it was before the problem (which I have) it should work no?

 

This makes me think the motherboard is dead/dying. Unless you guys can come up with something else.

 

Anyway to test that?

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

Now it seems to be trying to load into Windows but does a quick bluescreen, and then reboots.

 

This is the first this is happening. This was after I plugged in a USB stick with Windows on it.

 

Gotta be the MOBO, but how to be sure...?

[The Evil Overlord]

If it's trying to start windows, I (personally) Don't think it's the mobo

This reminds me of a problem I had with an Alienware (Clevo D9T that died a while back)

If memory serves me correctly, I had to grab drivers and bios flash software, save to usb

Power up the laptop with the usb connected, go into bios flash, set boot options

Install windows (format hard drive)

years ago, so I might have missed a step....

Although you've already mentioned the jumpers are in the correct placements on your hard drive(s)

I would suggest checking them again,

if you're only using one hard drive on ide, and the other ide is going to your rom drive, try removing the jumper altogether on the hard drive, or setting it to cable select, see how you get on?

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

It's booted into Windows, I did nothing.

 

It's seriously, random. Seems fine now, but I am back to the original CD-ROM. Not going to try again, not right now lol

[+Warwagon MVC]

Maybe the drive has a flakey sector.