Issues booting off HDD with SN45G

iLLiZT · nFHQ Member

My computer recently stopped booting off HDD, and I tried rebuilding MBR and bootsector, but none of these solutions worked, the NT Bootloader is also working as it should and I've tried using linux too without it making any difference. Computer will boot from hdd if I boot with Windows CD in the DVD-ROM and just let it go pass the "press key to boot from CD" prompt. I've also tried re-flashing the bios without luck.

Specs:

XP-M 2500+
Shuttle SN45G rev.1
2x256 MB Corsair XMS 3200LL rev. 1.2
2x160 GB Maxtor DiamondMax9 7200 RPM 8 MB Cache
Club3D Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB
"Windows XP SP2 ENG" and "Ubuntu Linux 5.10 stable (Breezy)"

MiniMax · **Jabba the Hutt** Ultra nForced

iLLiZT · nFHQ Member

Um, it loads an operating system? However, since the computer won't boot from hdd, it won't get access from start.

About linux: I've installed grub, and it also works fine, it just won't start by itself, I have to boot from cd.

About delayed boot: that won't make any difference, and the disks works fine actually, they just won't boot.

MiniMax · **Jabba the Hutt** Ultra nForced

iLLiZT · nFHQ Member

Well, I've run full sector tests on both disks, no errors, they also function just fine running both Windows and linux, they just won't boot.

One drive is jumpered as Primary Master, the 2nd is jumpered as Secondary Slave, DVD-RW is jumpered as Secondary Master, I've tried switching the drives/DVD around though, without any difference. I've tried flushing cmos and I've also tried flashing a few different bios'es, no help. The Boot order is currently hdd0, hdd1, cdrom, but I've tried other settings as well.

All drives show up at post, and everything seems to be working, except boot.

MiniMax · **Jabba the Hutt** Ultra nForced

Have you verified that the boot partition still has the active flag on? Any partition tool, or even FDISK should be able to tell you if t he active flag in on or not.

iLLiZT · nFHQ Member

yeah, the partition containing the boot loader are marked as active.

MiniMax · **Jabba the Hutt** Ultra nForced

Hmm

I am out of ideas then..

Tried a repair install of Windows?

Tried ripping out the Maxtos and install a cheap 20-40 GB disk and see if/how that would work?

iLLiZT · nFHQ Member

I'll probably give that a try when I get a chance, and yeah, I've tried repairing the install and I've tried doing a complete wipe, nothing seems to be working, so I'm out of guesses too.

Thanks for trying btw, it's appreciated.

iLLiZT · nFHQ Member

It was the IDE cables after all, I forgot ATA33 cables don't support drives larger than 127 GB or something like that, and that was why it didn't work when I switched cables the last time, rather odd issue though since it booted when I had a bootable cd/dvd in the optical drive.