[kelltech]

Hello, My desktop hangs on the Asus splash screen, haven't had any previous trouble or signs of trouble. I can't get into BIOS because the keyboard doesn't light up, although everything in the case is working (fans, HDD spinning, etc). One thing out of the ordinary; a few thunderstorms came through and our power did flicker and the pc shut down. The board is an Asus A7N8X deluxe, running XP Pro. Thank you for any help!

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Try another PSU if you can.

[Alzeimer]

Try another PSU if you can.

[kelltech]

The PSU lights up, fan spins I don't think it's the PSU. Besides, I don't have an extra

[Alzeimer]

Just one of the possible symptoms

Here others you can check:

- Reset your CMOS (by removing the battery and shorting your cmos pins) to its original setting to see if it boots. If it boots make sure to reset your time and date and any other changes you had done in your BIOS.

- Take out all your ram and try to boot to see if you get the usual beeps warning of no ram installed. If you do not hear beeps it might mean that your motherboard does not even start so it cannot detect you have no ram.

- Unplug everything and only start your system with video and one ram and keyboard. If it does boot put back any extra hardware you have one at a time until you cannot boot to see which one might be causing your system to freeze.

[kelltech]

Sorry it took me a few days, working strange hours. I removed everything thats plugged in and reset the CMOS jumper. I can get to the BIOS screen where it says CMOS Checksum error then my keyboard stops responding so I can't get past that. The only thing plugged in is keyboard (USB) and monitor.

[phillpower2]

Hi there, have you got a PS2 (wired) keyboard, If not can you loan one!
You will need one to be able to navigate, setup & save your settings in
BIOS this would include time, date, usb ports etc

@ Alzeimer - sorry for jumping in there

Edited by phillpower2, 05 May 2010 - 09:49 AM.

[Alzeimer]

Change your battery and if you have one use a ps2 keyboard.

Drscription of a checksumm error probable cause:

A checksum error shows that boot up settings which were previously set have been changed. This usually happens when the battery looses its charge and thus fail to retain the CMOS settings. This can also be caused by a power surge and a damaged motherboard.

[kelltech]

I can try to get my hands on a PS2, I don't think I have one any longer. The battery makes sense, we had some wicked thunderstorms blow through here and a few times I was unable to get things shut down. I will try the battery replacement next.

[kelltech]

Ok, I tried this once more with the battery removed and the jumper and sure enough I can now get into BIOS and set things up. Now a whole different issue, I get an error after the BIOS loads it says "Error loading OS." Am I now in danger of having lost all of my information on my main drive?

[phillpower2]

No, the message simply means windows hasn`t loaded successfully,
what is the present state of the computer, did you save & exit BIOS.
If yes try a soft reset & see if you get the same message

[Alzeimer]

4 reasons for that error message might be:

1- The boot sector of your hard drive is corrupted and bios cannot find any OS

2- Your hard drive is not recognize by your bios so it sees no OS

3- Your boot order is not set right, those three items should be in the first order of boot (Floppy, CD-Rom, HDD) the order of the three does not matter but if you have USB device Network or others before your HDD then you might get the massage you have.

If it is corrupted or damage your boot sector can be repaired using your XP cd

4- Your connection between your hard drive and your motherboard is loose.

So in your Bios see if your HDD is detected. Check your Boot order if all that is as it should be then either your HDD is defective or as stated earlier your boot sectors has been corrupted.

Let us know

P.S, I also found this explanation of what might cause your error:

You can expect to see the Error Loading OS error when there is an issue with the way the BIOS and the Windows XP operating system are communicating with each other. Most commonly, the BIOS has an issue where it does not support or has no way to correctly manage the capacity of the hard drive that Windows XP was installed to.

Windows XP (no SP) maximum partition size is 137go, all other version SP1 and up do not have that limit if it partition using NFTS


If your windows installation was working before then that should not apply to you but another avenue to check.

Edited by Alzeimer, 05 May 2010 - 02:48 PM.

[kelltech]

Ok, the HDD is detected in BIOS and the boot order is correct. The master HDD is seen as 160GB by the BIOS, not sure if that is the problem. I checked the connections and all seem good, still getting the "Error loading OS" message.

[Alzeimer]

Do you have your XP cd, you can try a repair of your installation, its like a fresh install but it keeps your personal and setting intact.

Boot the computer using the XP CD. You may need to change the boot order in the system BIOS so the CD boots before the hard drive. Check your system documentation for steps to access the BIOS and change the boot order.

When you see the "Welcome To Setup" screen, you will see the options below

This portion of the Setup program prepares Microsoft
-Windows XP to run on your computer:

-To setup Windows XP now, press ENTER.

-To repair a Windows XP installation using Recovery Console, press R.

-To quit Setup without installing Windows XP, press F3.

Press Enter to start the Windows Setup. Do Not choose "To repair a Windows XP installation using the Recovery Console, press R", (you Do Not want to load Recovery Console). I repeat, Do Not choose "To repair a Windows XP installation using the Recovery Console, press R".

Accept the License Agreement and Windows will search for existing Windows installations.

Select the XP installation you want to repair from the list and press R to start the repair. If Repair is not one of the options, END setup.

Setup will copy the necessary files to the hard drive and reboot. Do not press any key to boot from CD when the message appears. Setup will continue as if it were doing a clean install, but your applications and settings will remain intact.

Please note that you will need your XP product key number.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can try using the cd to do a repair through the recovery console. CHKDSK / f to see if you have any errors that can be fixed. Or you can try a FIXMBR (fix master boot record) or a FIXBOOT (writes a new boot sector onto the specified partition).

If your XP cd tells you that it did not find a Hard Disk to install on then your HD might be the problem.

Hope this will help you.

For the size of your hard drive being 160go that might be a problem only if you have a prior to SP1 XP and its the first time your trying to install it but your XP installation was working no problem before on that Hard disk so it should not be a factor.

Do you have only one Hard Drive if no how many and are they Sata or IDE (your board supports both)

[kelltech]

Thank you for your continued help!

I do have the original XP CD and product key, and I'm comfortable trying either of the above. Do you recommend the install fix or the CHKDSK fix? Also, I have a second drive, just an old 20gb drive, they are IDE.

[diabillic]

For the size of your hard drive being 160go that might be a problem only if you have a prior to SP1 XP and its the first time your trying to install it but your XP installation was working no problem before on that Hard disk so it should not be a factor.

This is an issue with logical address blocking, or LBA. It was corrected with 48-bit addressing. It is not a pre SP Windows issue. Refer here

I suggest doing a clean install.

Edited by diabillic, 07 May 2010 - 10:05 AM.