OS won't load after BIOS upgrade

[robroy55]

My original pc bought in '99 has been upgraded many times with memory, CD/RD, video adapter, ATA-100 controller, a new HD, wireless G adapter, and upgraded from Win 98 to Win XP. It has been working fine although a bit slow!
A few days ago I downloaded the latest BIOS revision (Vs 2 to Vs 10), loaded it on a bootable floppy and proceded to install it. The install semed to work fine and it rebooted ok and I reset my settings to the original BIOS settings. After exiting the BIOS (after saving the changes) the pc started the POST checks, all H/W seemed to be there but after checking the ATA-100 controller to find the 80 GB HD on it's Primary Master slot it hangs. It does nothing with no boot. I have the BIOS set for booting from Floppy 1st, CD 2nd and HD last. It won't boot a bootable floppy, bootable CD or win XP on the HD. There is no KBD or Mouse action. When I remove the power to shut it down and then add power minutes later, it starts to run the POST checks. Previously if I removed power, it shut down and I had to push the Power Button to start the pc. I downloaded (with my newer Dell pc) an older BIOS rom build (Vs 6) and put it on the original floppy to replace Vs 10. I thought I could load it from my floppy drive and flash another BIOS in case the Vs 10 was bad. BUT, it won't boot from any device.
What can I do now?
I read somewhere that one could remove power and the MB battery and wait for a while then restart, go to the BIOS settings, reset to default, save & exit to fix a non boot problem. Anyone have success with this?

Thanks, RobRoy

================================================== =======
The NCC computer, Bought March, 1999
Motherboard = Intel KR632 PII 4X AGP, PCI Chipset = Intel 440LX/EX, FSB = 66 mhz, AMI BIOS DMJ Vs. 2.0 Aug 24, 1995
Memory = 320 MB (327,680 BY) [256 + 64] PC-100 SDRAM
CPU = 233 mhz PII MMX 4X, OS = Windows XP Home SP2
Power Supply = 300 watt standard, Video = AGP NVIDIA GEF 3 TI 200/64
IDE Controllers = Intel 82371 IDE, CMD ATA-100 Ultra PCI-0649 Bus Master
CDs = Acer Atapi CD ROM 56X, LG CD/RW 24 x 10 x 40X
Floppy = standard, ZIP Drive = Iomega 100, USB 1.0 = 2 ports
Monitor = 19" KDS VS-195, Modem = Harmony K56 Flex PC Voice Modem
NIC = 3Com EtherLink PCI TDO, Cable Modem, Hard Disk = C: 80 GB
================================================== =======

[Sterling_Aug]

Right now you are stuck with a boat anchor.

[rockinup1231]

In case you didn't get that, he means your computer is dead.

[robroy55]

You mean my pc can float?
What about the procedure to remove the mb battery for a while and try to "reset to defaults"?
Well at least I can run the BIOS setup and play with that!!

Thanks

[Rocketmech]

Not sure clearing CMOS will resolve the problem , but give it a try.

Disconnect the power cord from the pc . Press and hold the power button for 5 sec.
Normally you look for the Clear Cmos jumper next, but removing the cmos battery for awhile works also. Just reverse the procedure to power on , enter bios setup and load bios defaults , save and exit .

If your lucky enough to have a removable bios chip...

http://www.badflash.com/
http://www.bioschip.com/

[Sterling_Aug]

Hmmm, I never heard of a boat anchor floating. They usually sink to the bottom of the ocean.


You can do a google search and buy a replacement BIOS for your system for around $30 or so, or you can take that same $30 and buy an entire new spare system that should be even faster than what you have now. You should be able to find something on ebay around 400 MHz or check your local computer repair shops for used PCs. No one wants to buy systems that old anymore, so there shold be plenty of slow PCs for you to pick from.

[robroy55]

Thanks Gurus,

I found the problem with the halt It's the CMD ATA-100 Ultra PCI-0649 Bus Master which controls the 80 GB HD to give me the IDE-0 "C:" drive where winXP is stored.

I tried the "remove battery" and it worked ok. I removed the CMD controller, inserted the battery and BIOS got into the bootable device section. I had a bootable floppy inserted and it proceded to boot from it. Now I can flash a new bios from floppy.

I dn/lded version 06 (previously I tried Vs 10) on my Dell pc and put it on the "boot bios" floppy, put the floppy in the old pc and started it up without the CMD controller. It flashed the Vs 06 BIOS update correctly (I think). It then rebooted and I entered the BIOS settings and set the correct values. I shut down, installed the CMD controller, booted up but the POST process still stopped after it recognized the 80 GB HD as IDE-0 on PRI-MAS port on the CMD controller as previously done.

I tried to move the 80 GB HD to the SEC-MAS port on the CMD ATA-100 controller with the same result: "Dead in the water".

I will try the process with the original Vs 02 BIOS which is still available for download from the BCMCOM.COM website.

I will be back with results.

[robroy55]

I refuse to abandon my boat anchor!
I dn/lded BIOS Vs 2.0 files, loaded them on "bootable bios" floppy and flashed it on the old machine. Changed the BIOS settings to my original values and exited from BIOS run. Rebooted, POST reported the BIOS as Vs 2.0, it recognized all the H/W including 80 GB HD reported as drive 81-H. After the POST display which summarized the H/W devices it started the boot process. My sequence was floppy, IDE-0 then CDRom. With no floppy or CD present it could not find a boot section on the IDE-0 drive so it asked to put a floppy in the diskette drive A: and press any key.
I did it and it rebooted to the floppy DOS in drive A:. This is an elementary DOS with minimal commands available. It could not do a Change Directory (CD) command to C: to check if the HD is ok. Removed "bootable bios" floppy and inserted a "bootable CD" in the CDrom drive and the system booted OK to the CDrom's DRDos 7.03. I did a DIR command to A:, C: (80 GB HD), D: (CDrom) and E: (CD R/W). All H/W looked ok.

After removing the CD and rebooting, the BIOS software still can't find the "boot" section of IDE-0 and requests a bootable floppy be inserted. I can't boot to Win XP (yet)!

Is the 81-H drive designation the same as IDE-0?

Could my HD's boot section be bad? If so what do I run to reconstitute it?

Thanks Gurus.

[Sterling_Aug]

You need to boot to the Windows XP CD, choose the recovery console repair, then type fixboot.

[joecoolsvette]

Thanks Robroy55. I've been trying to do that for a couple, who has an old 'boat anchor' also. Your computer's dead. uh? Way to go dude!



3.2GHz,1024DDR,Dvd/R/RW, Dvd-rom,19" LCD

[robroy55]

Hey Sterling Guru, the Recovery Console (RC) was not installed on the HD on this old pc. I did it on my Dell, enabled the SET command and changed the 4 main environment variables to TRUE and can do a lot of work there.
The RC on this pc must be obtained from the Win XP CD-ROM. It has a limited set of commands and access to H/w. I read an article that had the following steps which semed to work well for the author and others:

fixmbr c:\
fixboot c:\
copy d:\I386\ntldr c:\
copy d:\I386\ntdetect.com c:\
bootcfg /rebuild

My problem is one can't use the COPY command on this RC! I tried the 3 commands without the copies and the rebuild ended with some questions which I did not know what to answer.
One was:
"OS boot option?"

Thanks, ... boat still sinking!

[Sterling_Aug]

Ok, so give us an update on what works and what doesn't work.

Can you boot to the Windows XP CD and do a repair install now?

[robroy55]

I did boot to Win XP CD and tried the repair install and as I said above:
>> I tried the 3 commands without the copies and the rebuild ended with some questions which I did not know what to answer.
One was:
"OS boot option? <<
I tried to answer "?" to see if there was a help but it closed on me.
Thanks

[Sterling_Aug]

You should not be doing the repair from the recovery console as you have been. It won't help you.

You should select install Windows and after pushing F8 to acknowledge the EULA, then you should select to do a repair install. All of the Windows files will be replaced and you will need to install the Windows Updates and service packs and patches again.