[lpchris85]

i recently started having problems with my home built computer, i believe mobo is socket 454? either way its an old amd athlon machine but it suits my needs.

well something happened and it starting doing the "boot cycle" over-and-over. i had reinstalled windows xp once before and it fixed the problem fine, however it was unsuccessful this time due to a hardrive error.

i bought a 20gb hardrive and installed it to the mobo as well as all the other cables and now when i try to boot from my windows xp cd it says "disk boot failure."

from what i understand if i still had the remaining partition it would be a simple fix... however i idiotically deleted the partition...... i feel in over my head and would appreciate any help anybody could give me.

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ok, i did some research on this problem and apparently its common (so thats a good sign for me... atleast im hoping)

it was mentioned in another forum that the reason it keeps reading "boot disk failure" is because it is trying to boot from the floppy drive (even though ive assigned the bios to boot from cdrom. i did not plug in my floppy drive simply because i didnt feel i needed one... was that a mistake? can anybody confirm this by any chance?

any help would be much appreciated!!!

[lpchris85]

ok, i did some research on this problem and apparently its common (so thats a good sign for me... atleast im hoping)

it was mentioned in another forum that the reason it keeps reading "boot disk failure" is because it is trying to boot from the floppy drive (even though ive assigned the bios to boot from cdrom. i did not plug in my floppy drive simply because i didnt feel i needed one... was that a mistake? can anybody confirm this by any chance?

any help would be much appreciated!!!

[Samm]

Welcome to G2G, Ipchris85

Can you confirm the following please...

1) You are attempting to boot from the XP CD

2) You already have the CD inserted in the drive before powering the system on (not essential, but easier)

3) The boot priority order in the bios is set so that the CDROM drive is the very first device in the list

[lpchris85]

yes, that is exactly what i have been doing and i am experienced at installing windows from cd, juts have not encountered this problem before

[lpchris85]

ok well now i have another problem...

i cannot even try to work on the previous problem w/ the bios because neither of my 3 monitors will turn on, they just sit in standby mode when i plug them in.

my first thought was my graphics card went bad so i put a different card in, and neither of the monitors turned on.

(sigh) can i go a single day without a cpu problem??? PLEASE HELP

[Samm]

Ok, could you tell me what the make & model of your motherboard is please? This should be printed on the actual board itself.
Also, what type of video card do you have? i.e AGP, PCI or one of those two plus integrated video, for example.

[lpchris85]

the graphics card im using is an AGP pny gforce 6600 gt. and my motherbpard is a gigabyte GA- 7VT600 socket A

[Samm]

OK, please follow these instructions very carefully :

1) Disconnect external power cord & monitor cable from computer

2) Open up case

3) Wear anti-static band or discharge your static by touching a metal surface before going inside the computer

4) Disconnect the main ATX (20 pin) power lead from the motherboard

5) Locate the jumper header called 'clear_cmos' which is located next to the silver battery.
I believe that on this board the clear cmos jumper is only 2 pin, not 3 pin. In which case you need to place a plastic jumper cap over the 2 pins.
Leave the cap in position for about 30 secs, then remove it.

6) Remove & reinsert the video card. Make sure that the card is firmly & evenly inserted.

7) Check that the memory is clipped in properly

8) Disconnect all the drive ribbon cabling from the MOTHERBOARD, including hard drives & optical drives. (leave all the cabling connected to the drives)

9) Remove any PCI cards you have & any USB devices.

10) Reconnect the ATX power connector to the motherboard

11) Reconnect the monitor cable & external power lead

Power the system up & let me know what happens.

Can you also tell me exactly which cpu you have please & also the power rating in watts of your power supply

[lpchris85]

i followed your intructions and neither of my monitors will turn on. could there be a different problem?

as far as my cpu is concerned its an athlon 2500 with an 350 watt power supply

[Samm]

OK. I want you to repeat steps 1 to 4, then remove all of the ram modules & the remove the video card.

Please make sure you have a system speaker or buzzer connected to the board.

Obviously you won't be able to connect a monitor this time because of the lack of video card but that doesn't matter. Reconnect the power & switch the system on. Listen for beeps - you should hear lots of them within a couple of seconds of turning the system on.

Let me know what happens