Broke something nicely - looking for repair ideas

[GSalisbury]

[this might be a smidge long but please bear with me]

Alright, I've been mucking about my system (AMD K6-2 500; Tyan S1590 m/b; WinXP SP3; IE7...) lately (it wasn't broken so, of course, it needed to be fixed) and after fooling with it this morning I can no longer get it to boot up. Somewhere along the line my eyes weren't paying attention to what my hands were doing and I screwed something up and I'm looking for some WAG's on what to look for.

The short story is the boot up starts; the bios idents itself etc.; shows memory count etc.; shows the ide connections etc. (CD-RW/DVD-RW only - HD's on separate card); Award Plug-and-Play announcement yada-yada-yada appears; screen is cleared; then nothing else - just sits there. The disks on the controller card should come next; then the display of what's where then Windows should start... Nothing! I can stop the memory count with <ESC> and can go into the bios with <DEL> - so something is awake but eventually it goes brain-dead.

I have 3 HD's [Primary w/Slave & Secondary (no Slave)] on a separate Controller.
That's what I've been fooling with.
I've been working on replacing my Promise Ultra66 with a Promise Ultra133 TX2.

I hadn't gotten it to come out quite right yet so have been trying different combinations of connections and always having to set it back to the 66 and try again another day.
Today - well oops!

What I ended-up with today is, regardless where the HD's are attached, the bootup never gets to or past the point of detecting them. I went as far as pulling both the 66 card and 133 card out of the box and plugging the primary/slave cable into the primary port on the m/b - still no joy.

I started out originally with just replacing the 66 with the 133 and rebooting.
Of course I didn't read the manufacturer's instructions first (who does that<g>).
That [sort of] worked.
The bootup cycle seemingly went normally: the new card was seen and it identified itself correctly; it, in turn, saw the disks and identified them correctly (it even saw two of them as over 137Gig which is one of the things I was looking for); Windows started (the Windows XP Start Screen came up with the "something's happening" scroll...) but then, after a bit, it tripped over something and we automatically rebooted again...

I pulled the 133 and put the 66 back and all booted okay.
I tried the 66 out/133 in again but same thing - automatic reboot.
The manufacturer's instructions said "install" before putting the 133 into play.
Tried that (right-clicked on an INF and chose Install).
Still no joy - automatic reboot.

Had exchanges with Promise and they suggested having the 66 in effect but the 133 in a slot.
Tried that but bootup woundup saying "nothing attached so ignoring..." and continued on into WindowsXP (again seemingly okay) but, once there (Desktop presented and everthing clear...) the disks continued to hammer away and a "services" had the cpu pegged in Task Manager. A Shutdown/Power-Off would complete and a reboot w/o the 133 in place would be okay.

Now today when I started trying to vary what was attached to which card is when I got in trouble. Once, somewhere along the way of unplugging and plugging in I bent a pin in the 133. I eventually saw that and was able to straighten it. The two slots in my m/b that were being used have become problematic. One is a ***** to take something out of and the other seems to sometimes feel loose.

Those times when I'm satisfied that one or the other or both cards are properly seated I still end-up with the "nothing happens" result. And, as I noted, I've gone as far a eliminating both cards and connecting directly to the primary ide controller port on the m/b. Again "nothing happens".

One of my last attempts was to be boot from the XP CD and doing an Repair Installtion but it never gets far enough along to do that.

So now I'm stuck.
I don't think I know what to check next or what to "reset" in order to at least get to the disks to do something - I don't know wehat.

Could I somehow or other have irrecoverably broken something?
What could that be?
What options might I have?
Anyone have an insight on something to try next?

Thanks for your thoughts.
Geo. Salisbury
Long Valley, NJ

[Sterling_Aug]

I sounds like all of the mucking about has borked the MBR on the boot drive.

Try burning a BartPE or Ubuntu Linix "Live CD" and see if they can see the hard drives. If they can, then try a Windows Repair with the XP CD.

[Ol'Tunzafun]

Given the random nature of the problem, one would have to consider the PSU as the source of the problem. Rebooting and/or freezing at various points in the boot process would be consistent with this. As I recall, that board could be set with jumpers to use either AT or ATX power supplies. You're not still using AT, are you? All those drives will be consuming a lot of power. Do you have another, preferably larger PSU that you can swap in, to test this?

[GSalisbury]

Sterling and TunZOfun...
Thanks for these thoughts and ideas.
Using wife's laptop at home and system at work only gives periodic opportunity to come back here...

Anyway, I'll look into the "nix" CD option but am uncertain of that as the box just seems as it doesn't want to get to "the next step" (whatever that should be). Yes the mbr could be toasted but the bios doesn't even see the drive at all (unless I'm doing that wrong).

Yes I do still use an AT p/s (actually a new one from a month or so ago).
Anything's possible I suppose but it was powering everything okay; and at this point the only thing I have that's "active" is the primary HD on m/b primary port.

Interestingly, one of yesterday's variations was with only the floppy drive attached and a Win98 Boot-Floppy inserted and "bootup floppy seek" active in bios. It "clicked" when it found it but then still got to the doing nothing state. The interesting thing was the floppy light stayed on (connections are correct) but when I booted again w/o the floppy in drive it quit with the "no floppy..." error.
Go figure.
I may have to yank the HD and take to work to ensure I can see what's [now] on it. My taxes (un-filed of course<g>) and Quicken and some lawsuit stuff are there and those kind of things really matter.

So I think I remain stuck for now.
Any other options?
Thx.
Geo.

[Sterling_Aug]

If the BIOS doesn't see the drive then there is NO NEXT STEP. The drive is toast and needs to have a disgnostics run on it.

[awwall]

Try going into "Setup" on boot and see if the bios sees your drives. Nice place to start.

[fatpete]

Another possibility could br the mobo battery. If possible. switch to a working one.
But frankly, I would also check the PSU, see if all connectors are firmly in.
PS: do that with the power cord unplugged.

[GSalisbury]

Thanks for the various ideas and suggestions.

I wound-up solving the problem by [temporarily] ignoring it and just running out to Staples and buying whatever they had on-the-shelf. I was jammed - I had to get finances/taxes going and didn't have the luxury of some period of trial and error.

Initially, the bios on the broken box wouldn't see the drive when plugged into m/b.
At one point I didn't have anything connected (no floppy, no HD, no CD...) expecting some sort of a "I don't know what to do..." message but still got only the beginning displays and then the clear screen and then nothing.
Scary!
To say I was stressed puts it mildly.
I had to believe (was hoping) the HD was actually okay.

I got the new box and an IDE to USB adapter and Vista (64) on the box was eventually able to see the three partitions - boy was I a happy camper! That IDE/USB adapter is pretty cool.

Once I get back up to speed taxes etc. are out of the way I'll return to fixing the broken box - probably by just closing my eyes and getting some sort of an upgraded m/b and reloading everything from the top.

Thanks again.
Geo. S.