hard drive recognized but won't boo
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Original Message
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Name: Jeremy
Date: August 30, 2002 at 16:09:06 Pacific
Subject: hard drive recognized but won't boo |
Comment: Hello folks. I picked up a couple 486's at a thrift store today, finally got a couple problems fixed and now I'm presented with a new one. I've tried two different hard drives (older ones - 200 and 250 Meg respectively) and a couple different controller cards and the drives are recognized by CMOS right away. Problem is, the computer won't boot past checking the floppy drive. The floppy drive light stays on and it won't go to the hard drive. OK, so I try a boot disk but the disk drive just keeps churning and doesn't try to read it. OK, I disable the disk drive in CMOS and by physically removing the cable. Should go straight to the hard drive but still nothing. Like I said the hard drives are being recognized by CMOS but they won't boot independently and I can't use a boot disk. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Jeremy
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Response Number 1
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Name: Hmmm
Date: August 30, 2002 at 16:58:10 Pacific
Subject: hard drive recognized but won't boo |
Reply: (edit)Jeremy you probably have the fdd ribbon cable fitted around the wrong way.
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Response Number 2
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Name: Petit Jean
Date: August 30, 2002 at 17:00:15 Pacific
Subject: hard drive recognized but won't boo |
Reply: (edit)If you have booted this PC with a known working hard drive ,then those 2 drives have a defective controller. This part is the electronics circuitry that you probably noticed on one side of the hard drive.What you call controller cards are the IDE ports.These old PC's that do not carry all on motherboard circuitry are more prone to defects and will give you a lot more problems troubleshooting.If you buy some more look for those with video and IDE ports on the motherboard.You can spot them easily by looking at the back and trying to find video,serial and parallel ports etc all in line on one row.Those with VGA video have three rows of holes on the connector.Those with two rows of holes are older CGA or monochrome.The 486's that I have used from Compaq,AST or ALR are well built and easy to maintain .
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Response Number 3
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Name: Jeremy
Date: August 30, 2002 at 17:10:18 Pacific
Subject: hard drive recognized but won't boo |
Reply: (edit)I don't think its the cable or CMOS wouldn't have detected the drives at all. Tried a couple different cables and made sure they were on properly. I know all too well about how 486's and their independent IDE controller cards are a major headache. I tried two different IDE cards too and I'm not sure its the IDE. As I mentioned, what problem would cause the drive not to work but at the same time be so easily recognized by CMOS?
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Response Number 5
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Name: jeremy
Date: August 30, 2002 at 20:17:28 Pacific
Subject: hard drive recognized but won't boo |
Reply: (edit)The jumpers seemed to have been properly set but to be sure I tried all 3, no luck. I'll keep plugging away. Thanks for you help folks.
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Response Number 6
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Name: fred6008
Date: August 30, 2002 at 21:18:53 Pacific
Subject: hard drive recognized but won't boo
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Reply: (edit) Another place to look is that when a boot process is hanging on the floppy drive the power supply is often going bad.
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Response Number 7
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Name: James
Date: September 1, 2002 at 10:46:14 Pacific
Subject: hard drive recognized but won't boo |
Reply: (edit)Hi
I have one 486 that will not boot when I let the computer set the harddrive by Auto.
I can go into BIOS and set the drive manually and it works fine. Try setting your drives manually and see if it helps. Good Luck
james
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