P4 system won't boot - Urgent, please help

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blindrocket

Gawd
Joined
Jan 14, 2001
Messages
584
I'm here at work with only a couple of hours left in the day so this is rather urgent.

Our P4 2.8 system wouldn't start up the other day so I ordered a new PSU off of newegg.
It arrived today so I installed it, everything seemed to go fine and it fixed the power problem but now it won't boot into windows.

During post it seems to detect the CPU, the ram, and the CDROM but it doesn't display the HDD.

I went into setup and didn't see anything out of the ordinary either. I put in the Windows XP disc to see if it would boot from there and it will not.

Here are the specs:

P4 2.8
Intel Desktop Motherboard (I'm not sure the model, no PCI-E but it does have SATA)
1 GIG DDR333
120 GB WD HDD IDE

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I already cleared CMOS, reset the Molex connectors but I'm kind of stuck on this one.

Thanks!
 
blindrocket said:
During post it seems to detect the CPU, the ram, and the CDROM but it doesn't display the HDD.
Click to expand...

Detect the CPU? Uh, how would POST not detect the CPU?

What do you mean by "display the HDD"? Detect the drives while it is initializing the IDE channels? What does the BIOS do if you try to select or autodetect inside it?


blindrocket said:
I went into setup and didn't see anything out of the ordinary either. I put in the Windows XP disc to see if it would boot from there and it will not.
Click to expand...

Are you prompted to boot from CD? Do you have CD boot enabled in your BIOS before the HD boot? What errors or messages do you get from the CD boot process?
 
mikeblas said:
Detect the CPU? Uh, how would POST not detect the CPU?

What do you mean by "display the HDD"? Detect the drives while it is initializing the IDE channels? What does the BIOS do if you try to select or autodetect inside it?




Are you prompted to boot from CD? Do you have CD boot enabled in your BIOS before the HD boot? What errors or messages do you get from the CD boot process?
Click to expand...

I just listed what it detected.

It doesn't seem to detect the HDD like a normal boot up would.

I am not prompted to boot from CD though I have it set to use the CD drive as the first boot device.

I get no errors.

Thanks!
 
blindrocket said:
It doesn't seem to detect the HDD like a normal boot up would.
Click to expand...

Again, what are the BIOS settings for the IDE controller? Disabled? Auto? Does the BIOS detect the drives?

We're not there with you; we can't guess at what you are or are not seeing, so please try to answer our questions as completely as possible. It's the only way we can help you.
 
It sees it whenever I go into the drive configuration, but says its max capacity is 8.something gigs when it's a 120 gig HDD. I have it set to AUTO configure the drive.

It's set to enable all PATA and SATA drives.
 
KaptainBlaZzed said:
Try changind out your CD and HDD cables
Click to expand...

I tried this today and it didn't work. Along with the HDD not working it would also not detect the optical drive.

It's really confusing. When I initially press the power button, I get the Intel screen (the intel quiet boot up or whatever it is called), and then finally it shows the CPU speed, Memory capacity, Optical Drive, and then says press F4 to run setup, and that's it. Even if I have it set to boot from the CD and have XP in there it won't do it.
 
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