Urgent! Help Needed!

[TranceAddict]

OK I'm really confused now. I absolutely cannot get my system to work. First off, here's the specs:
Motherboard - Soltek SL-75DRV5
CPU - Athlon XP 2100+
Memory - 512 MB Samsung 333mhz PC 2700
Hard Drive - Western Digital 80 GB 7200 RPM SE 8 MB cache
DVD - Liteon 16/48
CDRW - Liteon 40/12/48
Video - Hercules 3D Prophet FDX 8500 LE
Sound - Audigy mp3+
NIC - Linksys 10/100
Floppy - Mitsume 1.44 MB

Primary master - hard drive
Secondary master - dvd, secondary slave - cdrw

Boot from order - floppy, cdrom, hd-0, other

So here's what happens:
All drives in, boot system disk floppy - System posts, then loads floppy, says "Loading Windows 98," then displays the copyright information, and then freezes up right when the command line should be showing up.

All drives in, boot Win XP cdrom (in dvd or cdrw drive) - computer freezes after posting

DVD, CDRW, and floppy in, boot from system disk floppy - same as above

DVD, CDRW, and floppy in, boot from Win XP cdrom - set starts, but then I get to a screen where it tells me I don't have a hard drive in (obviously). Once it gets to this screen though, the system freezes.

I've even tried just having the floppy connected or just the dvd connected, but the same thing happens as in the above two set-ups. When the computer freezes, it completely freezes, meaning I can't soft reset, I have to press the power or reset button.

Yesterday I was able to boot from floppy, and I fdisked my hard drive. The first time I fdisked it, I didn't enable LBA mode. Then I deleted that partition, and created another with LBA mode enabled. Both times I created a partition, they were primary DOS partitions. All my problems have been since I created the LBA partition.

I figure one of my parts must be screwed up in some sort of way, but I'm having trouble figuring out which part it is. I'd like to think it's my hard drive, but that wouldn't explain why th computer won't boot from floppy even with the hard drive disconnected. The BIOS recognizes all my drives as well as my RAM. I've tried the DRAM frequency at both 133 and 166 mhz, but that makes no difference either. I've tried taking out all of my PCI cards, but that also makes no difference. I've also tried putting the hard drive as a slave or as secondary master, but that does not do anything either. I've had the hard drive jumper in about every possible position, but that also makes no difference.

I would try the hard drive in my friend's computer, but I can't get ahold of him tonight, so I really could use some help from here.

 

[DaiShan]

Check all of the jumpers on all of your drives, check them twice. Make sure they are set correctly (the hard drive is set as master with no slave, the dvd drive is set as master with a slave, and the cd-rom is set as slave)

 

[TranceAddict]

I did check all the jumpers. Besides, that wouldn't explain why I can't boot from floppy with all the IDE drives disconnected.

 

[Nerdology]

Have you downloaded the latest update for your BIOS? Can you borrow an IDE controller card and try that instead of the onboard IDE? How about testing with a whole different motherboard?

 

[TranceAddict]

I can't update the BIOS because I can't boot from floppy. I'm pretty sure the BIOS is the latest revision anyways because I just got it, and the last time there was a revision was way back in May. I don't know anyone with a spare IDE controller or motherboard. I'm not so sure it's my hard drive anyways, considering that I can't boot from floppy even without the hard drive connected. Would it matter if I still have the IDE cables plugged into the motherboard, but not a drive? That's what I've been doing. It would seem silly to me if that was the problem.

 

[DaiShan]

Actually that would explain precisely why you couldn't boot (althought it appears in your case this isn't the solution) as you stated after it started to load from the floppy it froze up, this is a symptom of a conflict be it IRQ or Master/slave. In the case of Master slave, if you have both drives set to master, the bios does not know in which order to access the drives so it accesses the both simultaneously causing a lockup. I serviced a computer one time that would not boot because the hard drive was set to cable select. Once I switched the jumper it loaded xp smoothly. Now what I would do is take everything out except mobo, 1 single cd-rom, cpu, Ram, video card, and hard drive and try to load the os.

 

[earthman]

Try it without the cables to be sure, but I doubt thats it. You may have a bad mainboard controller.

 

[TranceAddict]

Put the cd rom and the hard drive on the same IDE channel then? If so, which one as master?

 

[TranceAddict]

I did as instructed, with the DVD as primary master and the HD as primary slave, and it still freezes up.

I really doubt this would be the reason, but I forgot to mention that I don't have a monitor, I have the computer hooked up to my TV via the S-Video out port on my video card. Would it be possible that stuff is still running, just not showing up on my TV? Sounds a bit of a stretch, but it's all I can come up with other than something being wrong with one of components.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Have you made certain the heatsink/fan are seated properly on the CPU? have you tried to monitor temps in the bios? I would also borrow your friend's RAM and make certain your stick isn't faulty, presuming you are using 1 512mb stick otherwise try each stick seperately 1 at a time. Do you have a good PSU?

 

[TranceAddict]

OK I've decided that it must be either the motherboard (not likely) or the RAM (likely). I started the computer with only the motherboard, cpu, ram, and video card connected, and it got to "Verifying DMI Pool Data," which is where it freezes when I try to boot from CD with the HD connected. Then it said "PLEASE INSERT A SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS RETURN," and froze.

 

[DaiShan]

Originally posted by: TranceAddict
I did as instructed, with the DVD as primary master and the HD as primary slave, and it still freezes up.

I really doubt this would be the reason, but I forgot to mention that I don't have a monitor, I have the computer hooked up to my TV via the S-Video out port on my video card. Would it be possible that stuff is still running, just not showing up on my TV? Sounds a bit of a stretch, but it's all I can come up with other than something being wrong with one of components.

That is not what I meant, you will have even more problems if you have them both on the same controller, set the Hard drive as primary master without a slave, and set the dvd drive as secondary master without a slave. To test your RAM run a program like memtest86 it is very informative. Verifying DMI pool data is when the computer takes inventory of all the components in the system and records their settings, it is normal. Have you tried running with a minimal configuration yet?