Boot Problem

[Kwmani]

First, if this is not an appropriate forum for this question, please forgive
me and please point me to a better place. I had a strange boot problem today.
When I turned on the system the BIOS got hung up auto detecting the HDD's.
which are on the primary channel, if I bypassed the auto detect of the HDD's
BIOS found the CD and DVD which are on the secondary channel. Then the system
would not boot to Windows because the HDD's were not detected. It did this 3
or 4 times, so I walked away from the system for about 90 minutes and when I
tried it one last time BIOS detected all the drives and all is well for now.
I suspect a motherboard problem, but I am also wondering if the CMOS battery
could be causing the problem or the cable for the HDD's. It has only done
this once before about a week ago. The mobo is about a year old and
everything else is functioning properly. Any suggestions would be
appreciated. TYIA.

Ken

 

[Dragomir Kollaric]

First, if this is not an appropriate forum for this question, please forgive
me and please point me to a better place. I had a strange boot problem today.
When I turned on the system the BIOS got hung up auto detecting the HDD's.
which are on the primary channel, if I bypassed the auto detect of the HDD's
BIOS found the CD and DVD which are on the secondary channel. Then the system
would not boot to Windows because the HDD's were not detected. It did this 3
or 4 times, so I walked away from the system for about 90 minutes and when I
tried it one last time BIOS detected all the drives and all is well for now.
I suspect a motherboard problem, but I am also wondering if the CMOS battery
could be causing the problem or the cable for the HDD's. It has only done
this once before about a week ago. The mobo is about a year old and
everything else is functioning properly. Any suggestions would be
appreciated. TYIA.

As I posted a similar *report* maybe it's the cable too, but
I guess you need to tear the PC apart, and test it. Either
just pull the cables and re-seat them in the same spot or
(just for testing) swap them. If you have spare cables... If
the controller is gone, new cables might not help of
course.. In that case a new MOBO is in order...

As to the CMOS battery it serves to store data in the BIOS,
so even if the DATA is lost, you'd get a warning with the
hint to either enter the BIOS or resume booting, if you
enter the BIOS, you can then check if you see the HDD. If a
dying HDD would display the same symptoms I'm not a expert
on that. In my own case swapping a known good HDD didn't
solve, only when I reseated the cables did it work.

Just on a side note you do have "BACK-UP" of the DATA? If
not now it's about as good a time to think about it as
any...

HTH, YMMV

Ken

Dragomir Kollaric