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HDD not booting

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I have computer that I just asembled out of spare parts. I can fdisk and sys the HDD but it will not boot off the HDD. I’ve set the partition active, tried 3 differt HDD and two of board controlers in cluding a promise ultra33 that detected the HDD. The Atapi CD Rom boots the floppy boots but no HDD will. Does any one know what it could be? By the way the MB has an AMI bios with a pentium 100 and 24MB of ram. The MB Might be a FIC or coperable board.

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HDD not booting

In reply to HDD not booting

A few things to double check first are:
1. CMOS setting for boot sequence is C:,A:
2. Jumpers on drive are set to MASTER
3. Hard drive cable is connected to IDE 1

Good luck 🙂

HDD not booting

In reply to HDD not booting

good first choises. But it looks like a an issue with the MB. I gave up and found a used Mtech R542 MB.

HDD not booting

In reply to HDD not booting

Did you used to have some kind of non-DOS partion on here that was active? Try using a new boot disk with fdisk and use the following command:

fdisk /MBR

this will restore the master boot record. If you have multiple HDs make sure that none of them are set to active.

HDD not booting

In reply to HDD not booting

actualy my goal is to load slackware on this box. dos was just to test with a standard OS. I gave up and found a used Mtech R542 MB.

HDD not booting

In reply to HDD not booting

set your cmos to autodetect your hdd.next format your hdd with the /s switch after running fdisk.

HDD not booting

In reply to HDD not booting

I’m a tech, this is the first thing you do I know. It looks like the mother board is not finding the boot sector on the HDD. I gave up and found a used Mtech R542 MB.

HDD not booting

In reply to HDD not booting

The problem might be easier than that. are you sure your drive is matching the controller, Ultra33 vs. Ultra66. Take one controller out and match it up w/ the right HDD once you’ve done that swap controllers and do the same procedure again. This should get you started in the right direction.

HDD not booting

In reply to HDD not booting

only one of the HDD that I tried was any were near new enough to work at 33. Looks like the MB cant find a boot sector on the HDD. I gave up and found a used Mtech R542 MB.

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