Windows doesn't start....Please help!!

[LannyL]

What a pain....I was trying to tidy up some cables under my desk and I
accidentally switched off the power bar my computer is plugged into....
Now it won't boot. The BIOS loads, and it gets as far as detecting the
Primary and Secondary Masters and Slaves, then it hangs.

It won't boot from Floppy, CD Rom, or Hard Drive. (and that is the boot
order i have set.)

I am running Award Medallion BIOS v6.0
Asus P4S800 ACPI BIOS Revision 1004
Windows XP Professionanl Edition SP1

Any help would be enormously appreciated...

Lanny
(If i ever fix this i'm getting a battery back-up...)
--
_______________

"Language is so small, and ridiculously cumbersome, and stupid."
-J. Garcia

mail@lannyl dot com
www.lannyl.com

 

[ras]

Have you tried inserting the WinXP CD before booting and doing a Repair
installation?

 

[LannyL]

Have you tried inserting the WinXP CD before booting and doing a Repair
installation?

Yeah, that's what I tried, but it won't boot from the CD Rom.
I also tried booting from the XP Setup Floppy Set (6 discs), and the Norton
Emergency Rescue Floppy Set (4 discs) but it won't boot from the floppy at
all.

The only thing that I can think of that might help would be to re-flash the
BIOS with the latest version, but I'd rather hear a few suggestions
first...The BIOS seems to be the only thing that is running at all, it
seems to be hanging before windows even starts to boot...

Thanks,
Lanny
--
_______________

"Language is so small, and ridiculously cumbersome, and stupid."
-J. Garcia

mail@lannyl dot com
www.lannyl.com

 

[Nick Burns]

I would set the bios to boot exclusively from the CD rom and disable all
other drives. Try to boot off your XP CD.

 

[Nick Burns]

Could also try, disconnect all IDE drives and see if you get farther in the
boot.

 

[LannyL]

I would set the bios to boot exclusively from the CD rom and disable all
other drives. Try to boot off your XP CD.

As often seems the case, spontaneous and wierd problems can have equally
spontaneous and wierd solutions.....
I changed it to boot exclusively from the C: Drive....it worked perfectly,
so I changed it back to the normal boot order (Floppy, CD Rom, C: Drive)
and everything appears to be in order....

Thanks for the suggestions,
L
--
_______________

"Language is so small, and ridiculously cumbersome, and stupid."
-J. Garcia

mail@lannyl dot com
www.lannyl.com

 

[Harry Ohrn]

Make sure you have everything else plugged in securely. This is not a
Windows problem but related to hardware. It is possible that you wiggled the
keyboard loose. Some BIOS are set to stop on keyboard failure.

 

[Thorsten Matzner]

What a pain....I was trying to tidy up some cables under my desk and I
accidentally switched off the power bar my computer is plugged into....
Now it won't boot. The BIOS loads, and it gets as far as detecting the
Primary and Secondary Masters and Slaves, then it hangs.

This is no Windows problem as it seems like if the computer cannot
start at all. A simple cause of this problem may be that one of the
cables on the backside of the computer is loose. If this is not the
case, this may indicate a hardware failure. If you are familiar with
the hardware of this machine you could open the chassis and check all
cables, replace gthe cables one by one and also check that the RAM
chips are sitting correctly in the slots. If you do not know anything
about this at all, take the computer to a hardware store and have it
checked here.