[Masonx77]

Geeks to go Tech Support, I am having a terrible problem with one of the computers in my house. it was working perfectly fine the other day, but then i went to turn it on and it wouldn't work properly. So i entered Setup and checked the BIOS. What I discovered put me at a complete standstill on what to do. The configuration for the devices tells me that I did not have my HDD, DVD drive, or my CD/RW drive connected at all, the BIOS said that the computer had no drives at all. So out of fear that maybe my drives were ruined i tested them in another computer setting them to slave drives, and they work perfectly fine. That is my situation, and I would greatly appreciate it if I could get some help. Oh and by the way, if there are any specific questions you need to ask in order to help solve this dilema, just post them here or . Thank you

Edited by Murray S., 24 December 2007 - 03:24 PM.
Email address removed to protect the innocent

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Howdy and welcome to GTG:

While in BIOS, did you use the option to "Automatically detect hdds" ?

How old is this system? Have you ever changed the CMOS battery?

Murray

[Murray S.]

Howdy and welcome to GTG:

While in BIOS, did you use the option to "Automatically detect hdds" ?

How old is this system? Have you ever changed the CMOS battery?

Murray

[Masonx77]

Howdy and welcome to GTG:

While in BIOS, did you use the option to "Automatically detect hdds" ?

How old is this system? Have you ever changed the CMOS battery?

Murray

Yes I have tried the auto detect and it still didn't show it, its about a year old.
hmm... how would I go about changing the CMOS battery? because that may do the trick thanks Murray!

[Murray S.]

Well, all depends on whether it is a desktop or laptop.

You need to open the case. The CMOS battery is round and shiny about the size of a nickle. It could be held in by a couple clips or just a sprind loaded clip.

Murray

[Masonx77]

I've tried the CMOS battery, but the auto detect HDD option in the BIOS still won't do anything, I've even tried new IDE cables because i thought maybe the cables were faulty thus resulting in the incapability to detect the HDD, and that still didn't change a thing...
This is the weirdest thing I've seen happen to a computer yet. Do you have any other suggestions as to what may be wrong?

[Murray S.]

Did you install, adjust, do anything at all to the system just prior to this happening?

Murray

[Masonx77]

Did you install, adjust, do anything at all to the system just prior to this happening?

Murray

Well I went into the BIOS to disable the floppy drive because I don't have a floppy drive in the computer, and every start-up it would say that drive A isn't ready, thats because I didn't have a drive A to begin with. but it worked fine after i did that, but then after a few times of the computer going on and off, it brought up the current issue. It sure as [bleep] got me confused

[Murray S.]

Well, I would suggest you take the IDE cables from the system they worked in and try that.

Murray

[Masonx77]

Still nothing... the IDE cables from the working system didn't work in the other system. the exact same thing occured in the BIOS as all the other times, I really have no idea of what to do. At this point i think my motherboard is simply busted, it probably shorted out somewheres

[98springer]

Are you sure that you didn't inadvertently disable the onboard IDE controller?

[Masonx77]

Are you sure that you didn't inadvertently disable the onboard IDE controller?

I'm pretty sure I didn't but I'll check just to be sure. And I swear if that small of a thing is the reason for all of this I'm gonna cry haha

[Masonx77]

Are you sure that you didn't inadvertently disable the onboard IDE controller?

I'm pretty sure I didn't but I'll check just to be sure. And I swear if that small of a thing is the reason for all of this I'm gonna cry haha

Alright Murray, it is alive again, and I am very happy, the IDE configuration kept on resetting itself after each restart, so i completely went through the BIOS and figured it out, now it works. Thanks for the help dood, it was very needed

[Masonx77]

I gave it another try and it still works, as to make sure it would still work, so great success guys. thanks for all the help!

[Murray S.]

Thanks for the update. What exactly did you find if I may ask?

Murray

[Masonx77]

Well it was as you said, the onboard IDE controller was disabled, which really confused me because I didn't need go into that part of the BIOS to disable the floppy drive. but yeah, I changed it and it was promising, then it didn't work again. So I decided to get really persistent and went into the option and changed it over and over again to what it SHOULD have been, saving each time, then after a while it decided to co-operate
I then restarted it, shut it down, tried it a few times and it comes up great each time now.
But yeah thanks a lot tech support ^_^ I learned a lot from this.