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by ameliapumo

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New Motherboard problem
Further to my previous questions, I gave up

(I run a charity that had a PC donated to it, which would not boot up, except in safe mode (which is why the owner got rid of it))

After trying all usual solutions I gave up and replaced the motherboard which did not solve the problem

So I put a hard drive from one of my boyfriends PC's in, incase the problem was with the original hard drive (even though all diagnostic tests shoed no problem with hard drive)

To cut a long story short, even if I use a boot disk from Win 98, I get a message saying that windows has ncountered a problem and cannot find a fixed drive

This is despite when on boot up it says "detecting IDE Drives" and the CD and HD are listed correctly

If I don't use a start up floppy, it says "invalid boot disk"

From: ameliapumo@yahoo.co.uk Date: 06/24/2004 Status: Answered Points: 500

Comment from ameliapumo@yahoo.co.uk on 06/27/04 :
Checked all possible problems as suggested.

things are now going from bad to worse

I now have 2 pc's that don't work and 2 hard drives I cannot access in ANY Pc (including the 5 others we use)

I've tried everything

Memory, motherboard, leads, cables, etc

Could it be that somehow a virus has got into the originalmotherboard such that every time I boot up it somehow destroys the boot sector on the hard drives

I don't know whether this is possible, but I can't see how 2 hard drives which initially would boot up in safe mode only on PC #1, but worked on the other PC #2 will now not work on either, both PC's report that there are no fixed drives present. I cannot even go into safe mode, and using a floppy boot disk eventually reports too, that there are no fixed drives present

10 replies

by cabal1208

this is a small chance that this will fix there two things.
1.
it may be the win 98 does not support the drive you have and in safe mode it only uses the most important services that it need to run and it does not require a fix drive.
2.
the pins for the hard drives may be bent or destroyed from someone that forced a cable that did not fit in the hard drive's pins
sorry if this does not help

by cg it

I've followed your problems since the first post in which I think TheChas gave you the most info on what solutions might help.

if you've networked these computers together disconnect them. Eleviate the possibility that the computer is getting infected from a unknown that's on the network. If you connect them to a router for internet connection, disconnect it. It's quite possible that within 10 minutes of a internet connection, the computer can be compromised.

Next is to stop using the startup disk your using. It is quite possible that that disk is infected and causing all your problems. Make another one you format just before creating the start up disk. Make sure that boot disk has the fdisk utility.

If at all possible get a 3rd party partitioning program like partition commander and use that [is bootable from the CD or can create it's own boot disks with the partitioning program on it].

Next is do you make the partition you create to install the Operating System on ACTIVE. Just creating the partition doesn't make it an ACTIVE partition. The partition has to be active to install the O/S and then boot to that partition.

Yes it's possible that a virus can get into the BIOS of the mainboard and cause a boot sector corruption so that the disks can't be used. You would need to rewrite the master boot record OR delete ALL partitions on the drive so that there are no partitions including any extended partitions and logical drives in the extended partitions. Then start over from scratch AFTER reflashing the BIOS to remove any possible virus there.

by cg it

The only times I've seen no fixed drives present on a computer is when either the power cables weren't connected to the drives but the data ribbon cable was or a user is using a SCSI drives, an on board RAID controller or a Serial ATA controller and the user didn't specify in the BIOS boot sequence boot SCSI or didn't create an array and specify the RAID arrary in the Boot sequence. The mainboard will look for a bootable drive in the sequence specified. If you have a SCSI controller card, a Serial ATA controller or Promise RAID controller, those are seen by the BIOS as SCSI and must be specified in the boot sequence. if they are not and not drives are connected to IDE channels 0 & 1 the O/S will report no hard drives as that is what the BIOS will report to the O/S during the handoff.

you HAVE to give us very detailed information on what you do preferable step by step sequence including how you configure your drives e.g. master slave, how you connect the cables to em, e.g. end of the cable connector goes to master, middle connector to the slave drive, how you fdisk your drives STEP by STEP. Whether or not you flashed your BIOS

by cg it

last but not least is NTFS partitions Windows 9X/ME can NOT see NTFS partitons. You can only use FAT partitons with W9X/ME. If you format em to NTFS and try to install W9X/ME they will report not disk present to install em on as they can't see the NTFS partitions.

by cg it

also give us the O/S your trying to install. Give us your mainboard mfg, model & version #. Need the BIOS version as well.

by ameliapumo

I will be adding a more detailed comment 29.6.04 pm GMT giving all specs and step by step of what I have tried so far (that's if I haven't thrown it out the window by then!!!)

If anyone (TheChas, D.R The Corporate Group especially please) could help me further much appreciated

NB - It is now at the stage where I could just go and replace all parts but I've spent that long trying various solutions that I NEED TO KNOW!!!

by grump

With 22 years on PC's, lets lay out a few points.

It is common to remove the IDE cables from HD's simply by pulling on the ribbon cable itsef.

Also removing the power cable sometime causes the MOLEX pins to spread and not make good connections.

So, lets start with the basics.
Connect ONE HD to the system, when you power on the pc listen and try to hear if the HD spins up.

If you system detects the HD and it will indicate the DRIVE by MFG specs. If you system does not ID the drive and you know the drive is spinning power off and move the IDE cable to the SECOND IDE on the system board. Power on again, if system detects HD, power off system and put IDE cable back to the orginal IDE on system board, power on and if system does not DECTECT, (you guessed it!) the IDE channel controller on the system board is faulty. IF system did not detect on either IDE channel try a different IDE cable.

As you indicated you have tried MEM,MBD,LEADS,CABLES,etc. This is refered to as the BLIND shot gun method.

If you move a working HD from one system to another there are time that the new system with different BIOS will not reconize the previous format of the dirve due to the term of Master Boot Record (MBR for short).

On your orginal statement the the system would only boot up into safe mode. This is due to Hardware drivers and issues with hardware, not stating which version of operating system you were dealing with makes soultions to the problem multi guess work.

Let me leave you with some simple advise. If you are working on a problem and you change a part and you problem changes go back stick to the orginal problem. GOOD LUCK!

by brian.davison

Get two NEW floppies. On a "clean - non-virus" computer using windows 98 run the "create emergency boot disk" (you could possibly download this from http://www.drd.dyndns.org/fr_index.html?/disks.html) on the other clean disk make an emergency antivirus boot disk. (Try http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php) I think it will allow you make a boot floppy.

First boot with the windows 98 disk, make sure it is write protected. (make sure it has fdisk.exe on it) choose command prompt only.
at the prompt type "fdisk /mbr" with out the quotes. turn off the system. leave to settle for a few mins. boot with the emergency virusscan floppy.
Let us know how you get on. There are other things to try, but this is the easiest.

by sojrner

I had the exact same problem. I wrote zeros to the hard drive to completly clean the HDD. Then I fdisk/format the drive and reinstalled the OS from a KNOWN good startup disk in order to install windows. Before doing the zeros though, I checked the pins to make sure that none of them were bent or missing. This fixed my problem. Go to the MFG of the HDD to obtain the proper utility for writing zeros and you should be ok. Good luck and I hope this helps!

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