Insert System Disk

[antho]

I'm having trouble booting my pc after installing a new motherboard. It won't detect the primary master or slave master - says there is none. It continues from that and says 'disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter'.
Anyone know what this is? This is the first time I've done this and I need help!
Thanks

[MaxVal]

Have you done an autodetect of the Hard disk in the systems CMOS settings? You need to do this or specify the hard disk settings manualy.
Next, if the H.D. is new you need to partition it using Fdisk (should be found on your boot disk). Last, if you partition, you must format so the operating system can use it.
On rereading your post, it looks as if you have tried to detect without success.
Check to be sure that the marked side of the ribbon is toward pin one on the M.B., and toward the power connector on the HD's.

[This message has been edited by MaxVal (edited 07-30-99).]

[antho]

As you suggested, I have tried autodetect but nothing. Everything seems to be connected okay as well.

[MaxVal]

Did you try a diferent IDE cable?
You might try reversing the cable so the last connector is on the MB, and the middle one on the master disk.
Are the controllers enabled in Setup?
Max

[SB]

Also check the jumpers on your drives...how many?

[antho]

New problem!

Floppy A doesn't work. Computer boots up and says 'invalid system disk - replace and strike any key to continue'.
The floppy is plugged in proplerly
The green light comes on to suggest that it is trying to read the disk
I've tried 4 different floppy drives and same thing happens
I've tried different disks eg Windows boot disk and same things happens.

Anyone know what I'm doing wrong??

[Bleep]

It definatly is not seeing the hard drive. The floppy is not the problem. Unplug everything from the motherboard including the hard drive, Leave only floppy,video card. see if it will boot to the A drive. If it will shut the machine down and plug in the hard drive. Turn the machine on. Go to the bios and manually put in the HD parameters. Exit with save. Reboot. When up to the A prompt change to C: if it will see the C drive type in Dir. Be sure and check the jumpers on the HD if it still wont go move it to IDE 2 you may have a no good IDE controller on the MB.
Post back your results.
Bleep

[smokin1]

check cmos to see if check for floppy is enabled and doule check the ribbon connection also make sure the floppy
cable is connected to "a" after the twisted part http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[This message has been edited by smokin1 (edited 08-01-99).]

[This message has been edited by smokin1 (edited 08-01-99).]

[antho]

when i have the setting (in cmos) 'boot up floppy seek - enabled', when the pc boots it sounds like it is going to work. but then 'floppy disk fail (40)' message appears.

[toms111]

Does the floppy green light stay on? If it does, you have reversed the cbable for the floppy!

[awwall]

Had a very similiar thing happen on a machine at work. Machine was running an AMD K6-300 processor. Machine would attempt to boot from floppy but would either give us the fail message or attempt to load and tell us that operating system was invalid on the floppy. Very strange stuff. We thought we might have contracted some strange new virus. Boot up to bios all looked normal. You could go into bios, change setting, save and exit, and all looked perfectly normal, except you could not load from hard drive or floppy. Pulled all cards out of machine except video and floppy. Still no good. From trial and error trouble shooting, we finally decided to replace the processor( it was the only thing left, besides the M/B). Well, what do you know? That was the culprit, a bad processor. Did some of the stangest things I have ever seen, one would never have suspected the CPU, since the machine would boot to bios and act like it wanted to boot from disks. By the way, we put back the old CPU and problem re-occurred. Thought it might have been CPU seating or something. Nope, it was a defective CPU.

aw wall

[topflite51]

Disable Boot Up Floppy Seek. If you enable this, the system checks the tracks on the floppy drives at boot time. Don't enable unless you have an old 360k, 5.25" floppy drive.

Also if you have Trend Chipaway Virus protection built in disable it, my new MB wouldn't recognize HD with it enabled.

TP51

[antho]

The green light only comes on when it tries to read the disk and then goes off again when the message 'Invalid System Disk - replace disk and press any key'.

Do you think it could be the processor? The hard drive I had in it ran Win95 and worked properly. But then I formatted the disk (little did I know the floppy didn't work). Wouldn't Win95 not have worked if it was the processor being faulty?

All the cables are connected properly.

You know the sound the floppy makes when you are booting the PC, it only makes this sound when 'boot up floppy seek' is enabled. When it is not, you cannot hear it although the light still does come on, for a period.

What next???

[DHatAVI]

Make sure that the floppy is connected to the last connector on the floppy drive cable and not the middle one, (that one is for a 'B' drive) and that the bios is set to the proper type of floppy drive (1.44 or 1.2 meg.).

If the processer was dead, you would not even get a post message. Also, I would leave 'floppy seek at boot' enabled until you resolve your HD problem.

If your CD-ROM and HD are on the same cable, make sure that the HD is set as master and the CD as slave. You might even unplug the CD drive cable until you resolve the HD recognition problem. Go back to your bios setup and check the 'C' drive settings, or go to autodetect again and see if it finds your drive.

David

[This message has been edited by DHatAVI (edited 08-02-99).]

[This message has been edited by DHatAVI (edited 08-02-99).]

[awwall]

DhatAvi, if you read my post above, you will see that I stated, it was a "defective" processor, not a "dead" processor. The machine would post but would not read the floppy or hard drive. Weirdest problem I have ever seen on a machine. New processor fixed the problem. I am hear to say, you can have a "defective" processor.

aw wall

[DHatAVI]

Sorry aw wall, I stand corrected. That would seem to make a little more sense.

David

[Mike H.]

The best way to find out what is the culprit is to try each in a Known Good Machine. If you don't have a spare, or you don't have a friend that has one, take them to a computer store (mom & pops) they should check them for you. People here could help you alot better if you listed your hardware. Sounds like to me you got a bad Mobo. Try loading Bios Defaults. This should reset everything, but you will want to go through and re-enable certain settings one at a time to increase performance if you get it going.

Good Luck

Mike H.