xp cd wont give me a prompt

  • Thread starter Thread starter Parker
  • Start date Start date
P

Parker

Hello Everyone,

I'm at a loss. I just built a new system with an asus a7v880 mobo, a basic
cd drive, a cd/rw drive, and a western digital 80 gig driveSATA. I
originally had a grounding issue where I got no power to any periferal or
IDE sockets. That has been solved. The system boots and posts just fine.
It finds all drive properly in the bios and I disabled the floppy drive in
the bios(none installed) and have the cd master as first boot then IDE HDD
second. All connections are fine and all jumpers are correct with cd master
jumper on master and HDD master also in master. When the O/S cd is put in
the cd master drive I hear it start as I do the HDD drive but no prompt for
" boot to cd drive press any key ". All I get is a blinking cursor. I have
2 XP registered cd's. I tried both with the same results. What am I
forgetting or missing? I had contacted Asus for assistance with no help
because the board does post fine. Help, I'm at a loss.

Thank You So Much for any Responses
 
Hi, Parker.

Sounds like you might need to ask the ASUS gurus at this Usenet NG:
alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus

RC
 
Out the CD in the drive and turn the computer OFF. Then
turn it back ON again with the CD in the drive.


| Hello Everyone,
|
| I'm at a loss. I just built a new system with an asus
a7v880 mobo, a basic
| cd drive, a cd/rw drive, and a western digital 80 gig
driveSATA. I
| originally had a grounding issue where I got no power to
any periferal or
| IDE sockets. That has been solved. The system boots and
posts just fine.
| It finds all drive properly in the bios and I disabled the
floppy drive in
| the bios(none installed) and have the cd master as first
boot then IDE HDD
| second. All connections are fine and all jumpers are
correct with cd master
| jumper on master and HDD master also in master. When the
O/S cd is put in
| the cd master drive I hear it start as I do the HDD drive
but no prompt for
| " boot to cd drive press any key ". All I get is a
blinking cursor. I have
| 2 XP registered cd's. I tried both with the same results.
What am I
| forgetting or missing? I had contacted Asus for
assistance with no help
| because the board does post fine. Help, I'm at a loss.
|
| Thank You So Much for any Responses
|
|
 
Thank You for the responses. I had tried that with both of the CD's. Do
you think I may still have a grounding problem between the cd drive and the
video card or some other path? Asus did not seem to be in any hurry to
respond to this possible problem that the board may have and closed the
ticket before I even saw the answer.
 
I had just recieved a response from Asus about the possibility of the xp cd
not recognizing the drive because sata drivers are not installed. If I
load 2000pro(i think it has these drivers) then upgrade to xp pro will that
work?

Thanks Jim and R.C.
 
Hi, Parker.
not recognizing the drive because sata drivers are not installed. If I
load 2000pro(i think it has these drivers) then upgrade to xp pro will
that work?
Click to expand...

No. Win2K does NOT have SATA drivers. SATA is newer than even WinXP, which
is 20 months newer than Win2K. I was hoping you would get some clues from
the Usenet group I suggested.

If it's just a problem of missing drivers for the boot device, then it's a
well-known problem that I first ran into when installing Win2K in February
2000 and have seen reported in these newsgroups dozens (hundreds?) of times
since. The usual symptom was a BSOD complaining of Stop 0x7B,
Inaccessible_Boot_Device. The WinXP (and Win2K) CD-ROM has enough smarts to
boot the computer from CD and copy all those dozens of files to the HD.
But, when the text portion of Setup has completed and the computer tries to
boot from that HD for the first time, it fails because the proper drivers
for that HDD/controller are NOT on the WinXP CD-ROM. The only way to
install those drivers is from a floppy diskette!

So, get the proper SATA drivers onto a floppy. If a floppy did not come
with your mobo or HDD, then you will need to find the drivers on the ASUS or
WD CD or website and put those drivers onto a floppy. With that floppy at
hand, boot from the WinXP CD-ROM and watch for the invitation, early in the
Setup process, to Press F6 to install drivers for a SCSI or other mass
storage device. Press F6 quickly and wait while Setup seems not to notice
but continues to copy all those files. When it finally stops, there will be
instructions onscreen for how to use that floppy to install the drivers.
After that, Setup will be able to boot from the SATA drive into the GUI
phase of installing WinXP.

Please post back and let us know if this is the solution. That will help us
know what to tell the next person with a similar problem on similar
hardware.

RC
 
Accoring to my experience, this issue should be related to the mainboard
since when the machine boots up, it read the configuration from CMOS, when
it sees the first the boot sequence is CD-ROM, the machine finds the CD-ROM
to read the XP boot up disk. I assume your CD-ROM works, WinXP installation
CD are OK all configuratinos->Boot up sequence, jumpers are correct as you
have stated. The only factor is the mainboard BIOS. I understand you have
contacted ASUS with no avaliable, however, the hardware manufacturer will
provide more accurate information on this, such as the BIOS version.

In addition, Aother way to isolate this issue is to disconnect all drives
except CD-ROM, I mean you only connect CD-ROM, what the result when boot up
the machine? If the system can use CD to boot up, you need to check your
BIOS configuration as well as the jumpers.

HTH!


Best regards,

Rebecca Chen

MCSE2000 MCDBA CCNA


Microsoft Online Partner Support
Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

=====================================================

When responding to posts, please "Reply to Group" via your newsreader so
that others may learn and benefit from your issue.

=====================================================
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 
We have joy. I took the HDD connection off and it did boot to the CD. So I
hooked up the HDD as the master and the CD rom as the slave on the same IDE
cable and made sure the jumpers were correct and it boot to the cd fine and
loaded the O/S properly onto the HDD.

Thank You for all of You Help
 
Hi, Parker.

Congratulations! And thanks for the report back.

Did you need to load any SATA drivers? Or has ASUS built enough "smarts"
into the mobo/bios to be able to boot from the SATA HD/controller with only
the native drivers on the WinXP CD-ROM?

My own mobo (EPoX 8KDA3+, new in July 2004) has the usual 2 IDE connectors,
plus 6 SATA connectors, but I have no SATA drives yet. So my two IDE HDDs
(and 2 DVDs) are connected in the familiar configuration that is - until
now - practically standard. When I do get a SATA drive, I'll need to know
how to boot WinXP (or Longhorn?) from it.

RC
 
It did have the SATA drivers built in with the chipset that was in it. I've
forgotten the chipset version however. The "smarts" are in the board, it was
a matter of finding out why it was looking at the HDD to boot instead of
cdrom. This seemed to go back to the old school of thinking when you only
had one IDE connector. My other Asus board did not require this type of
connection to boot and load the O/S. This board is about a year old now and
running great.

Thank to All Again
 
Back
Top