BIOS autodetect question

[Videot]

Do all BIOS have an autodetect section? The reason that I ask is because I
have been having lots of problem with boot up. (See repostings of next
paragraph) Even though I know very little about BIOS managed to get in &
take a look around. When I got to the boot sequence where it had listed the
floppy drive then Pioneer. Now Pioneer is my DVD burner not a disk drive
but I could not see any place for the BIOS to do any auto detect of what
should be in place. The motherboards is an Intel D845pesv & I think that
the BIOS comes from Intel as well. Any Ideas? If all BIOS can do an
autodetect under what area should I find it?


"""My PC has 2 drives each with a couple of partitions. Sometimes when I
boot
up I get the message the NTLDR is missing. & this I understand has something
to do with a missing file which somehow relates to a hard drive. My second
drive is in a cradle so what I do is press crtl-alt-delete to reboot & just
remove the drive in the cradle. The PC now boots up correctly except for
the fact that I haven't go use of my second drive.

Now here comes the curious part if I reboot yet again with the drive
reinserted into the cradle it will boot up & both drives are recognized & I
have bypassed the NTLDR message. This means that the NTLDR message is
intermittent. How can this be? Where is the problem likely to be - in the
motherboard or elsewhere?"""


"I seem to have now passed the phase where the message NTLDR is missing was
a
problem at boot up. Now I get a new message 'Reboot & select proper boot
device or insert boot media in selected boot device' When I get this
message all I do is press reset & the machine reboots without a problem. I
only get the latest message if the PC has been turned of for a long time.

What does this message mean? My guess is that I have had these 2 different
messages due to something other than the obvious like motherboard problems.
Any ideas as to what the problem is?"

 

[anonymous]

Hi Videot,

I'm wondering how you have your jumpers set on each of your drives as
well as where you have them plugged into the cabling.

That NTLDR missing is usually because the disk that's being looked at
for boot info isn't the right one. I get that message when I leave a
floppy in the A drive, you might be seeing it if your BIOS is looking at
the wrong drive first.

Where your HDs are plugged in on the cable makes a difference if they're
a master or slave, and the jumpers can be set wrong too, so there's a
few possibilities as to where the problems are originating. I've never
hurt a drive by plugging it on in the wrong place, or having confusing
jumpers, so I doubt you'll burn much with errors in configuring your
stuff either.

Is your boot HD in the middle of a cable or on the end?
Is your A drive on that cable too?

What's plugged on and where on your other cable?
What are the jumpers on them, slave, master, or CS?


---==X={}=X==---


Jim Self
AVIATION ANIMATION, the internet's largest depository.
http://avanimation.avsupport.com

Your only internet source for spiral staircase plans.
http://jself.com/stair/Stair.htm

 

[joust in jest]

Videot said "press crtl-alt-delete to reboot & just remove the drive in the
cradle"

and Steve responded: That is a very good way to fry both your Motherboard
and your removeable hard drive. It also doesn't do your Power Supply any
good.
Such drives should be inserted and removed only with the computer fully
powered down.

steve