Help?

[ZachMarius]

Ok. I got back to my room on sunday, popped in the hdd I had used at home, and tried to boot up. Nothing! I decided the info on there wasn't too important so I wipe that hdd, and the second hdd, and start afresh.

Nada.

I recheck all the cables....everything's plugged in, in the correct order. I load the boot menu and try from just the hdd I didn't take......nothing still. (even a fresh install)

Then I get to the point where neither HDD is getting recognized by the bios (with all the cables still plugged in)

FRUSTRATION.

I don't touch it for a couple of days. Idea!!! I switch the hdd's physically and choose one master and one slave exclusively. Boot up.....Good. Fresh Install....slow but good.

Boot up new OS....

NOTHING!!!! ARRRGGGG.

Ok. Now here I am explaining my whole crappy mess. The Hdd's are correctly installed with a fresh copy of Win XP Pro. When I boot up it comes up saying "Verifying DMI Data Pool....." and stays there till the cows come home. (which they never do

Here's what I got.

150W PSU
Mobo: Believe to be a Tekram P6Bx-An
P3 500Mhz (don't know chipset)
various PCI cards + 64MB vid card in AGP
2 optical drives : Sony CD-RW CRX215E5 and a Compaq DVD-114MC (ser. TJEA099174WL
1 generic Floppy drive
2 Hdd's
Western Digital 12.9GB--WM911
Western Digital 8.5GB---WM907
456MB Various PC133 Ram (3 sticks)

I'd really like to get this computer up and running. And any questions you may have....Please either post here, pm me, or e-mail me at FineLine15@gmail.com

Thanks for your help!

 

[Uncle Bob]

If the pc hangs at the DMI Pool message, it means that the BIOS can't make sense of the hardware it sees. Basic troubleshooting applies here, pull everything out of the system (with careful attention to handling components so as not to damage them by static discharge) except video card, ram and floppy disc. For good measure, pull the power cord and clear the cmos (it will usually be a jumper cap that you have to move to another position for 20secs and then move back to it's original position). Failing that go into the BIOS and look for an option "Reset Configuration Data" or "Force Update ESCD" and change that - this is a one-shot setting for the next boot only, the next time you reboot it will automatically change back to the default setting.

Then if all works, reintroduce parts one at a time

hope this helps

 

[ZachMarius]

and if in a worst case senario those two things don't help, what of my comp?

 

[KGB]

Zach,

Make sure you have the HDDs jumpered correctly.
WD has a "master-only" setting as well as a "master w/slave" setting.
If the jumpers are not set right, you'll get the symptoms you're seeing.

 

[ZachMarius]

The HDD's I have only have three settings. Master, Slave, and Cable select. I haven't looked into ones that aren't place onto the Hdd itself but I'll check that out also.

 

[ZachMarius]

OK. THis sucks.

I tried both of your guy's solutions and I still can't get it to work. Is it possible it's a HDD failure?

Chris

 

[imported_rhfactor]

Try having only 1HD connected and see if that works.

 

[ZachMarius]

nope. I have already tried that. But thanks

 

[bamacre]

Will it boot without a hard drive, like using a windows 2000/XP installation disk, or a windows 98 boot disk?

 

[ZachMarius]

It will boot without a hard drive. (like running boot from cd). It'll attempt to put WIN XP and/or 2000 on the drives though. There's no way for me to run WIN XP OS from a cd.

Chris

 

[bamacre]

I would download one of those hard drive checking boot disks, depending on the manufacturer of the drives, I am sure you can download them from the website. Scan the hard drives and see if they are ok.

Edit: Sorry just realized you may not be able to do that.

If so, have you tried the hard drives in other computer?

 

[earthman]

Make sure the settings for the hard drives in the BIOS are correct. There should be LBA, Large, and maybe Auto or CHS. Try Large if LBA doesn't work. Auto should work, but I've seen cases where it won't. Also, that power supply seems way too small for four drives.

 

[ZachMarius]

When I get time I'll try my other drive that I have. The BIOS should be correct. I remember putting it on auto. If the power supply is so small for the 4 drives then how come it worked before I took the one out? Many unexplained happenings of a computer....