Hi i am fixing up a pc well in the process and I get this error when booting. 'No drive is attached to Fastrack controller the bios is not installed'. Earlier it says Fastrack 378 Bios version 1.00.0.16 Promise Technology. I am am ameteur and this is some old hardware that someone gave me a few months ago that wasn't booting up until I found a pci graphics card that worked with it so I am pleased I am getting something on the screen. Anyone got an idea what I should do next.

"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama

Your PC apparenetly has a Promise IDE controller card. If you're not gonna use it, take it out. Otherwise, read up on it:

http://www.promise.com/product/pd_l...

Where would that be located? Is it in a pci slot? Sorry I don't know what that card is. I looked on that link but could not see anything that I could understand. I did a google image search and it seems if it is pci then I don't have it. If it is something onboard I haven't been able to identify what it is yet. I did get a diagram of this motherboard from the net so I am trying that. It is a A7V8X.
Ah yeah it is onboard http://www.sharkyextreme.com/img/20... .
"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama

I wouldn't consider an Asus A7V8X to be "old hardware". I figured you were working on something from 10 yrs ago like a socket 7 board.

The Promise Controller is built into the board. You should be able to download the manual from here:

http://support.asus.com/download/do...

You should also be able to disable the Promise Controller in the BIOS.

The message is normal if you have an second onboard hard/optical drive controller (though you can't connect connect an optical drive to some IDE drive controllers, including Promise ones, because they aren't ATAPI compatible) - I have an Asus A7V133 that displays a similar message - it's embedded in the bios code. If there is no drive connected to it it doesn't load the bios for the controller. Just ignore it.

i had a asus a7v8x that always gave that message. i just ignored it, I always assumed it was because i was only using the IDE connections and had nothing connected to the SATA socket. I made this assumption as there was a chip on the mobo that said on it SATA and PROMISE

So what happens after you get those messages? Does it eventually boot to an OS? If not, you may not even have a hard drive in the thing.

jam-Oh sorry I just get used to people saying to me that anything that is 6 months old is OLD....I don't know how to find the manual on that site I am afraid. I don't know what socket it is. I am really not that experienced. I just mess around with stuff I find or people give me and I am trying to get better at it.
kx5m2g-ok will look at the bios soon.
Tubesandwires-ahhhh I just discovered something. I may have an optical thingy on a card afterall. I am not sure. On the soundcard there is a plug in a port and the port says 'digital out'. It is an aureal vortex 2 card that I put in so maybe that should go as I have soundonboard anyway. I just wanted the system to work better as I was thinking of using the machine for making music but I am probably going to concentrate those efforts on my Linux pc anyway. MMMMmmmm. This is a pic of it http://www.enter.pl/archiwum/ent200... .
cliffpage-well I am going to investigate further as the machine doesn't boot.
DAVEINCAPS-No it doesn't boot. That message just stays there.

OK well it seems clear to me now that I will pull out the soundcard as soon as I get some ram I will do that. I was testing this machine with the ram from my main box but I am not going to take that risk again as when I put the ram back in my main box it was misbehaving. I clean the ram and the slot. It still would not boot properly and I had to rest the pc for a while. Then I tried to do it again. Clean it again. Hassles. Too much time. So will get another stick and make that machine independant. Thanks I will report what goes down unless you guys have any other suggestions? :0)

"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama

"'No drive is attached to Fastrack controller the bios is not installed'"

If you have no hard drive connected to the second drive controller, ignore that message.
It has got NOTHING to do with the computer not booting if there is no drive connected to it.
The situation will not change even if you do disable the Promise controller in the bios Setup - that would probably disable the message though.

"wasn't booting up until I found a pci graphics card that worked with it "

If it doesn't have onboard video, it won't boot if there is no video card in a slot. If you have the case speaker hooked up so you can hear mboard beeps, in that case of having no video card you will get a pattern of beeps then the computer does nothing, assuming compatable ram has been installed.
(e.g. for an Award bios - often a long beep, two short beeps.)
If it doesn't have onboard video, if you have a card in a dedicated video slot (e.g. AGP) the card must be compatible with the slot - e.g. if you insert a card that has AGP 2X only capability, it cannot work in this mboard; if you insert a card that has AGP 2X/4X or 2X/4X/8X capability, some mboards are incompatible with the 2X capabilty and you will get no dislay and can possibly damage the circuits connected to the slot.
If it does have onboard video, there is no video output from it's port if a video card the computer recognizes is installed in a slot - only the card has video output in that case - the bios auto disables the onboard video in that case.

Even if you have something proper connected to the monitor:
If no ram is installed, you will get no display and a different pattern of beeps, often continuos, never ending.
If you have ram installed, if it is incompatible with the mboard, in the worst cases the mboard will not boot, you get no video display , and you often get no mboard beeps at all.

"No it doesn't boot. That message just stays there."

Do you have anything connected from which you can boot?
A bootable floppy? A bootable hard drive?
Have you tried booting from a Windows CD in a CD drive?

Do you have any hard drive connected?
If you do, it is recognized by the bios? If it isn't you don't have it's jumper set correctly (selects master, slave, or cable select - I never use cable select - should be master if it's by itself on a data cable, or if cable select, in that case it must be on the END connector of a three connector IDE data cable, the opposite end from the blue one that goes to the mboard, and/or you don't have the data cable connected correctly.

If you do have a hard drive connected, does it have Windows installed on it?
If it does, Windows XP (or 2000) probably won't load, if the Windows installation was done on a computer with a mboard that has a different main chipset. That's normal. You can run a Repair Setup to fix that situation if you don't want to lose the data already on the drive.

"I was testing this machine with the ram from my main box"
"So will get another stick and make that machine independant."

1. Check whether you have the RIGHT ram FIRST:

Trying ram in this mboard that works in another mboard , or trying any ram you buy or have lying around, may not work properly - it has to be compatible with the mboard and it's chipset.

See response 5 in this for some info about ram compatibilty, and some places where you can find out what will work in your mboard for sure:
http://www.computing.net/hardware/w...
Correction to that:
Mushkin www.mushkin.com

2. If you run a memory test, do the following BEFORE you run the test, or any bad results will probably be FALSE! :

3. A common thing that can happen with ram that worked fine previously, or in rare cases with new ram, is the ram has developed a poor connection in it's slot(s).
This usually happens a long time after the ram was installed, but it can happen after moving the computer case from one place to another, and I've had even new modules that needed to have their contacts cleaned.

See response 2 in this - try cleaning the contacts on the ram modules, and making sure the modules are properly seated:
http://www.computing.net/hardware/w...

4. Make sure you have the ram in the right slot(s) - see your mboard manual - e.g. matched pairs of ram capable of running in dual channel mode must be installed in specific slots, often ones of the same color.
........

"...when I put the ram back in my main box it was misbehaving. I clean the ram and the slot. It still would not boot properly and I had to rest the pc for a while. Then I tried to do it again. Clean it again. Hassles. Too much time"

Is it working now?
If it isn't, or if it is sometimes, and if you're SURE you put the ram back in that was working fine before, properly working computers don't need to "rest".
If it sometimes works, the most likely thing is your power supply on that computer is defective.
Failing power supplies are common and can cause your symptoms.
Check your PS.
See response 4 in this:
http://www.computing.net/hardware/w...
.....

I don't know why you brought this subject of the Creative sound card, and optical and digital outputs on it.
It's sometimes suggested to unplug all cards in the slots except for the video if applicable when the computer won't boot, or if Windows Setup from a CD won't complete successfully, but the sound card being in a slot probably has nothing to do with your problems.
Windows can recognize more than one sound chipset source no problem in most cases, but it can only be set to use one at a time, and the drivers for whichever one you intend to use must be installed in Windows.
That sound card is probably far superior to your onboard sound.

I have a hard drive attached with windows that was installed on another machine and it is set correctly as a master via the jumper/cable. I am sure I have set that right.
The graphics card. There is no onboard graphics and my friend gave it to me without a card. I tried quite a few cards prior to the one that is in there now and I do get graphics on the screen now. I tried agp in the agp slot and pci cards in the pci slot.
The promise thing is all about the reference to the soundcard as promise has something to do with something optical and I think the soundcard which is not a creative brand, has a optical thing in it. All i know is that diagram showed it. I do not know anything about optical things. So I thought this was a conflict. Yes I agree that pci soundcard would have been better than the onboard one and that is why I put it in. The original owner of this computer didn't have that soundcard in there. She always had problems with this machine and did not know how to describe it to me. I think she said it would overheat but having seen her apartment and where she had the pc before it is no wonder. Sunny position near the window. There is a graphics that comes up at some point that shows what ram is compatible with the pc and the bios recognises it correctly so I knew that the ram I had in there was ok. I can't remember the exact specs right now.
I did clean the ram in order to get it working back into my main box. I think the slots in the other machine might be dirty though so I will have to clean them again. I will wait until I score some ram exclusively for the spare machine. i have had too many problems with my main machine to risk another box stuffing it up. That is why the box I am fixing will run windows and the main box Linux. Windows stuffed everything royally before. Yep the main box is working well now.
MMmmmm will definately try what you are saying about the windows setup as it would be good to see the drive as before. I don't know if I backed everything up before things went wrong but if worse comes to worse I will reinstall windows on the drive.
Yep I knew that about the soundcards and that windows can see more than one. I have a pci soundcard in my main box and I just disabled the onboard one in the bios. I do music production and that is why I have that setup.

"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama

I downloaded the manual for your mboard and looked at it.

"I have a hard drive attached with windows that was installed on another machine and it is set correctly as a master via the jumper/cable. I am sure I have set that right.

I assume it must be an IDE connected drive since SATA drives don't have master/slave/cable select jumper pins.
If you have another drive connected to the same data cable it must be jumpered as slave.
Does the mboard bios detect it?
If it does, you will probably see it's model number displayed while booting on the first screen.
If it doesn't the bios won't find a bootable hard drive, which it is because it already has Windows on it, and may stall booting.
If one end of the data cable is backwards (it's possible to do that with some data cables that don't have an external projection on the connector on one side) the bios won't detect it.
The striped side of the data cable should be beside the power connector on the drive, and towards the pin one end on the mboard header (or both can be opposite to that - as long as one isn't backwards the drive will be detected.

If you're sure the jumper(s) is(are) correct and the data cable is not backwards on one end,
- if the drive is not detected at all, check the data cable - see 3. in response 9.
- if the drive is detected but doesn't boot, check the bios Setup settings and make sure thge boot order is set to boot an IDE drive first - some bioses are set to boot from a SATA drive by default.

Which IDE connector/header is it connected to?
Normally you connect a single IDE hard drive to the blue connector - Primary IDE - beside the ram. You can connect to the secondary IDE there, or the blue connector by itself, but you may have to change settings in the bios Setup to be able to boot from it in that case.

The Promise controller has one IDE and two SATA connectors/headers.
According to the manual:
- you can only connect one IDE drive to that IDE connector, jumpered as master - therfore it will not recognize two drives on a 3 connector data cable.
- It does not support the ATAPI standard, so an IDE optical drive (CD or DVD drive) cannot work when connected to that IDE connector.

"The promise thing is all about the reference to the soundcard as promise has something to do with something optical and I think the soundcard which is not a creative brand, has a optical thing in it. All i know is that diagram showed it. I do not know anything about optical things. So I thought this was a conflict."

You're comparing apples to oranges.
The Promise controller doesn't support recognizing optical DRIVES - CD and DVD drives - they use a laser - light - to read DATA on the CD or DVD.

The optical output on the sound card is an optional type of digital AUDIO (only) output, that sends signals via an led or laser through an optical ( fibre optic) cable.

You could try removing the Creative card but it probably has nothing to do with your problem.
......

Once you get the hard drive to boot....

"I have a hard drive attached with windows that was installed on another machine "

Windows XP probably won't load, if the Windows installation was done on a computer with a mboard that has a different main chipset. That's normal. What you typically see is you get normal screen displays till Windows starts to load, you see the first bit of Windows graphics, then a black screen with a blinking cursor top left, and nothing further happens.
You have two options if Windows was loaded from a regular CD.
- Run a regular Setup from the Windows CD - this will delete the contents of the partition Windows is installed on and you will lose all personal data and ptrogram installations you added, unless they are cfopied someplace else first.

- If you don't want to lose the data already on the partition Windows is on......

In that case you need to run an XP Repair Setup.

An XP Repair Setup will not harm your existing Windows installation. In the case of drastically changed hardware, it will set Windows to the new hardware situation.

You will need a Windows CD of the same version as the one of your Windows installation, and the Product Key, preferably the one that was used to install it, but it can be one for the same version as the one of your Windows installation.

How to do an XP Repair Setup, step by step:
http://www.windowsreinstall.com/win...

NOTES:
- the above assumes the original Windows CD has the Repair Setup option.
- I have found some older XP Home CD's without SP1 or SP2 updates (e.g. made in 2001 - see the date on the CD) DO NOT have the screen with Repair Setup option! In that case, you can run a regular Setup, or make yourself a slipstreamed CD that has both the contents of you original XP CD and the SP2 updates integrated into it (more details available) which has the Repair Setup screen.
- If your Windows CD did not have SP1 or SP2 updates included (if it does it is printed on the orignal CD), and you updated to SP1 or SP2, you may have to install that again to get SP1 or SP2 working properly again. SP1 or later is required for USB 2.0 and hard drives larger than 137gb (manufacturer's size; 128gb in Windows and most bioses)
- if the hard drive you are installing is larger than 128gb in Windows (137gb manufacturer's size), if your Windows CD does not have SP1 or SP2 updates included, Windows will only see a 128gb drive. In order for it to see a drive or partition larger than that, if it is drive you are installing Windows on, you must make a slipstreamed CD that has both the contents of your original XP CD and the SP2 updates integrated into it.
- if certain Microsoft Updates (2007 - summer?) have been installed on the existing Windows installation, you will find Microsoft Windows Update can't install new updates after a Repair Setup - it downloads them, but all or most fail to install. In that case, you need to re-register some Windows Update files (some wu*.* files) - I can tell you what you need to do.

The bios correctly sees the hard drive. Id's the model and size. Yep it is IDE. It is the blue primary slot thing that the ribbon cable is connected to and I am sure the cable is the right way round.
OH ok I get what your saying about the soundcard...well I will leave it out for now.
Yeah I have done an XP repair before on two other friends machines so hopefully that will work on this one. The machine(my main box) which I took the drive out of is an AMD also but the MB is a K7VM4.
I have SP2 on a separate cd as my winxp cd doesn't have it. I got the SP2 from a computer shop as back in those days I had dialup and it would have been impossible to install SP2.
I think the hd is 40gig? or 20gig? That is all I need.
Wow that is great advice about the updates. Thanks you have been very patient with this beginner.

"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama

I have the official SP2 CD too - I got it to use with someone elses original XP Pro CD. It would take all day to download SP2 on dial-up, and hours even with a high speed connection.

If it was your XP CD you used to do a Repair Setup then obviously it has the option. If it wasn't it should have it if it has at least SP1 updates included.
If you don't have that option, I could point you to info about how to make a slipstreamed CD so you do have SP2 updates on the CD - you can use a major file on the SP2 CD to do the upgrade.

After Setup or Repair Setup is finished, you must load the drivers for the mboard, particularly the main chipset drivers, so that Windows has the proper drivers for and information about the mboard hardware. If you have the original CD that came with the mboard, you can use that. The Asus web site has possibly newer software and driver downloads for your model, but they may not have the main chipset drivers. In that case, for this mboard, go to
http://www.viaarena.com
Drivers - Chipset or Platform
Download the Hyperion (4 in one) drivers and run the download.

Your mboard has:

- support for up to 6 USB 2.0 ports (and probably 3 USB 2.0 controllers, two ports for each). The USB 2.0 hardware won't be recognized by your XP CD if it doesn't have at least SP1 updates included. In that case there will be three unknown USB controllers or USB devices in Device Manager. That will be resolved after the SP2 updates have been installed, though you may have to install the main chipset drivers again if they were already installed.
USB 2.0 is backwards compatible with USB 1.x, the chipset includes support for both, so you will probably have USB 1.x support, at least generically, even before loading the drivers for the mboard.

- three ram slots that support up to 3 1gb ram modules. However, only two PC2700 (333mhz) or one PC3200 (400mhz) are supported (if you install more of those modules the total amount of ram will be recognized but they will all run slower, at 266mhz?)
256mb is the minimum recommended for XP to run as it's supposed to; 512mb is more than enough for XP for most people; 32 bit XP, which is what most people use, doesn't utilize more than 3gb of ram.

- 8X AGP video card support.
No PCI video card can perform as well as an AGP one. Your computer will run video in Windows much better and faster with an AGP one.

You need an 8X AGP card, or a 4X/8X AGP card.

A 2X, or a 2X/4X, or a 2X/4X/8X or a 4X card will not work on this mboard.

This mboard cannot use AGP cards capable of 2X AGP (requires 3.3 v in the slot) , and the mboard has a red led on the mboard that lights up if you install one, and the mboard will not boot when one is installed - it does this to prevent damaging the mboard circuits connected to the AGP slot.
E.g. Some cards with older chipsets are actually 2X/4X/8X capable, even if specs or ads don't mention it (they may only mention 4X/8X, or 8X).

If you need help choosing an AGP card that will work, we can help you with that. They can be quite inexpensive.

- a Vcore Overvoltage jumper
Make sure the jumper is in the normal position.
On a slightly newer Asus mboard (KT600 chipset, the next step up in Via chipsets from your KT400) with a similar jumper I installed for someone, that jumper was in the overvoltage position. The Vcore voltage in the bios Setup was normal, but was actually more than that, and the cpu got a lot hotter than I expected. When I discovered the jumper was in the wrong position and moved it, the cpu temp dropped 10 degrees C or more in all situations.

If the hard still won't boot after checking out the above stuff (it may not boot into Windows in any case but screen displays should be normal up until that point)
- if there is a second drive on the same data cable, some hard drives, e.g. some WD, must be jumpered differently than they are when only one drive is on the cable - as master with slave present or similar.
- Since it is not a new mboard, the bios Setup may have some non-default settings set that are not appropriate for your present system.
Go into the bios Setup and load Defaults.
To get into the bios Setup press the Del key repeatedly in the very first part of booting, don't hold the key down.
Click on Exit in the top bar, select Load Setup Defaults - select Exit Saving Settings.
The computer will re-boot. See if the hard drive then boots.

I managed to get a good deal on dsl now so that is cool but I have a 2mb usage limit as that is all I could afford. I do have a wifi card in my laptop so I can go to the local pub where they have free access if I really need to download something large.
Ah yes I forgot about the drivers. Will have to get them soon. MMMmm can't remember what usb support that xp cd has. Will see if it is sp1 or 2. Yeah I have a 512mb ram stick in before and will get the same amout as your right about xp needing that.
Yes I was looking for an AGP card last night while out and about. They have council cleanup days every sunday night nearby and I get a lot of stuff that way.
I scored anothe dvd burner last night so I am very happy!
So where is that jumper you are talking about on the board? That is a good point as my friend that gave me this machine said it was always a problem. I put it down to her having it in direct sun a lot fo the time.

Cool that sounds like some good advice. Still trying to track down some ram.
Thanks for reminding me too on somethings that I had forgotten about. A lot of what I do is guess work but I have learnt by trial and error too. Oh and googling after writing down was is on the chips of whatever item.

"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama

"I have a 2mb usage limit"

That's megabits, not megabytes.
All network related devices, and your internet max speed, is/are rated in bits rather than bytes.
There being 8 bits to a byte, and with error correction and other network overhead that is required, it works out you can divide the megabit rating by 10 to get a good approximation of what the max data transfer rate in megabytes is, ignoring any possible data compression etc. involved, which doesn't always apply.

When you are downloading something on the internet, if the current data transfer speed is shown, it's by default rated in kilobytes per second, not kilobits or megabits or megabytes per second, so it's often never more than 1/10th of your rated internet max speed in bits.

When you connect to the internet, the max data transfer speed of your internet connection is the bottleneck and it doesn't matter much what the max rating of your network adapter is - tyhe spped is determined by how good a connection to a web site you are getting, and what the max speed of your internet connection is.
In your case that's about 200 kilobytes/sec.
Even a wireless B or a wired 10 megabits per second adapter will handle that easily.

"I do have a wifi card in my laptop so I can go to the local pub where they have free access if I really need to download something large."

While wireless has it's convenience advantages, there are drawbacks.
Wired network connections are much more reliable - some say don't download anything critical with wireless, especially if it's wireless B or B/G rather than the newer wireless N, because it's more likely there will be errors in the download.
If you are connected to a wireless router then to a high speed modem, or to a router/high speed modem combo, almost all of them also have one or more wired network port(s) - you will have a more reliable internet connection if at least one computer is connected to the router via a network cable rather than all computers being connected wirelessly.
.....

The following only comes into play between computers or network devices, not when you are on the internet.

If the wireless in the laptop is G (B/G), it's max speed is 54 megabits per second, about 5.4 megabytes per second max data speed.

If the laptop or other computer or network device has a wired network port, it's probably at least 100 megabits per second, max 10 megabytes per second data transfer speed, if not 1 gigabit per second, max 100 megabytes per second data transfer speed.

Only a wireless N or a gigabit wired adapter can transfer data as fast as the max the hard drive can.

.......

"can't remember what usb support that xp cd has. Will see if it is sp1 or 2. "

If the CD has SP1 or SP2 updates integrated into it, that is printed on the original CD.

All the XP CDs support detecting USB 1.x controllers. All USB 2.0 controllers are also USB 1.x backward compatible, so USB 1.x support for a USB 2.0 controller is detected and enabled by Setup.
Whether or not the SP1 or SP2 updates are integrated into the CD, Setup detects USB 2.0 controllers as unknown USB controllers or unknown USB devices.
If it has SP1 or SP2 updates included, Windows itself can detect USB 2.0 controllers, but Setup still detects them as unknown USB controllers or unknown USB devices - they are not detected until the mboard drivers have been loaded.

Any used AGP card you get needs to be fairly recent - 8X capability has only been around for 4 years or so.
E.g. I am familiar with ATI chipset cards mostly.
For this mboard you can't use a card with a Radeon 7000 chipset or older (e.g. the Rage 128 bit series) because they aren't capable of 8X, or a card with a chipset newer than that that is capable of 8X but has 2X support as well - e.g. 8xxx, 92xx, 95xx; you need a card with Radeon 9600 or up chipset.
The older chipset cards are inexpensive to buy new.

"So where is that jumper you are talking about on the board?"

If you mean the one in response 14, it's on the back of the hard drive, same place as the master/slave/cable select jumpers. Not all hard drives need to have a different jumper situation if another drive is slave on the same data cable, and I've never seen such a situation on an optical (CD or DVD) drive. See the label on the drive or look at the jumper specs for the drive model on the drive manufacturer's web site.

If you do have another drive on the same data cable, it must be set as slave if the other drive is set as master - if one is set as cable select that situation may not work.

You're not supposed to mix CS and master/slave jumpering on the same data cable - some situations will work anyway, some won't. Sometimes a drive is set to CS by default when you get it new, sometimes Master.

I never use cable select (CS) anymore because it can't always be used without a hassle.

If you do use cable select, both drives must be set to CS, the drive on the end connector on a 3 connector data cable opposite the blue one to the mboard is master; the drive connected to the middle connector is slave.
If which drive is master is important (e.g. you usually want a single hard drive to be master on the primary IDE), if the positions of the drives in the case makes connecting them to the proper connector impossible, you have to move one or both drives in the case.
If the drives are set to master and slave it doesn't matter which connector on a 3 connector data cable you connect to as long as the cable reaches them and the connectors can go on in the right direction.

"Still trying to track down some ram."

I advise you to get it new - it's not expensive - because you can check out whether it is compatible before you buy it on the manufacturer's or ram distributor's web site.
If you want to try used or generic ram that isn't on a compatibilty list somewhere, whether it will work is random. I recommend you DON'T buy it online in that case, and take at least the assembled case and it's power cord with you to a local place, and a monitor if the place isn't likely to have one you can borrow, and test the ram on the spot - if the computer doesn't boot with it in, or if the actual amount of ram found while booting is not right (other than 1 mb may be deducted for conventional memmory), don't buy it. HOWEVER that doesn't allow for whether it will still be compatable when other modules are installed - it may NOT be.

Um not sure sure about what you mean about my comment about my usage limit. Sound like you are talking about speed of connection. I am talking about limit of what I can download. It might not exist in your part of the world. We do have half the speed here as per the rest of the world because of the lame ass prime minister we just voted out this weekend and the new PM said he will bring our broadband technology up with the rest of the world. I hope! We pay huge prices for broadband here and all I could afford was one with the 2gig limit. Ooops I just realised...did I say 2mb? Ouch sorry.

I have been fairly lucky with getting large downlown files via the wireless connection at the pub but that might be because I have Ubuntu Linux on the lappie. I do know what you mean though about the connection being up and down....well unstable kinda. It definately is that but linux is good at keeping things together if you know what I mean. I definately would not have wireless at home.

Ok will keep those things in mind when I find some more agp cards and ram. I can't afford to go and buy either item. I am on a pension and Xmas is coming. Pity the relatives don't buy me anything...he he. Well mum and Dad slip me a tiny bit of money but not enough.

My next opportunity to get more things is on sunday and I have checked out the prices of ram on ebay. If I make more sales on ebay I might get the ram but I hate spending money on something I am not 100% sure is working.

"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama

"Sound like you are talking about speed of connection. I am talking about limit of what I can download."
"...all I could afford was one with the 2gig limit. Ooops I just realised...did I say 2mb? Ouch sorry."

Whatever your connection speed is, the info applies.
Most internet accounts have limits of how much you can download in a given time. I haven't found it to be a problem since I don't download things such as music or movies.

I'm in Canada myself.
Regular ADSL, 30gb Downloads/Uploads /month, 1.5 megabits/sec speed, $31.95/month.

"I do know what you mean though about the connection being up and down....well unstable kinda. "

That's common with wireless B or B/G. Wireless N is supposed to be a lot better.
That applies nomatter what operating system you use.

"I hate spending money on something I am not 100% sure is working."

Exactly why you should buy ram that is on a compatability list somwhere.

Wow that is so cheap compared to Australia. I knew it. I can't remember my connection speed. I don't download much really. I have been building the system the last two weeks on my linux drive/box. You get a large download limit too.

No the pension is very restrictive and I need money to go towards good food so I stay alive. Sounds drastic but true.

I checked the compatibility of the ram and the guy that is bringing it over works in some field of IT. He is a very giving person. I met him while he was donating pc's and parts to a community centre and I was giving them some parts too. Hopefully will see if it all works tomorrow. Gee I should ask about the AGP card too. I will copy this link over to him so he knows what I am talking about.

"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama

Good news some techie friends(2) have offered me two cards and one may come to my place to tinker with the machine. Damn so many helpful people! All happening next week. I sent them the info about so they were about to deduct wether they had the right card. Will post whe we get it done. Thanks for all your kind help!!!

"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama

"some techie friends(2) have offered me two cards"
"I sent them the info about so they were about to deduct wether they had the right card."

Did you include the video card info in response 13 and 16?

"Thanks for all your kind help!!!"

That's why we answer.
Glad to help.
Good luck.

I just sent them the url of this page so they could read the lot.
Picking up one of the cards tomorrow and the ram I am getting early next week.

"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama

Hi I hope this thread is still considered current. I just got ram and the graphics card is working well. I have 512mb of ram btw. The only thing is that is saying that there is no bios and then it tries to boot into the os(got ubuntu on it now) but it just stalls with 'Ubuntu' on the screen and the progress meter if you will is only maybe 5%. I can get into the bios with some boots which is odd but I am not sure where to go from here. Someone said I might need dos but I thought XP doesn't run on dos???

"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama

OK this is exactly what it says 'Fastrack 376 (tm) Bios Version 1.00.0.16 C 2002-2005 Promise technology inc all right reserved....No drive is attached to the fastrak controller, the bios is not installed.' Sometimes I get this instead when booting 'S3 86C375/86C385 video bios versiob 2.01.16 copyright 1996 inc M60'.
Then it stalls when trying to load into Ubuntu.
I tried booting from a win98 bootdisk floppy, a cd with partition magic on it, win98se cd and a bootable Ubuntu installation cd but no go.

"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama

So you now have ram that works fine and proper video - good.

"The only thing is that is saying that there is no bios..... "
"it says 'Fastrack 376 (tm) Bios Version 1.00.0.16 C 2002-2005 Promise technology inc all right reserved....No drive is attached to the fastrak controller, the bios is not installed.' Sometimes I get this instead when booting 'S3 86C375/86C385 video bios versiob 2.01.16 copyright 1996 inc M60'"

Both those messages are normal and having nothing to do with the computer not finding a bootable operating system on a drive, or not - the second one is for your video. As we have said several times, you can ignore the Promise message and it's not loading the bios message - that bios is only for the Promise controller - it may on a separate chip near the Promise chip, or integrated into the Promise chip, or it's code may be a separate part of the computer's bios on it's chip - that Promise bios is loaded automatically if you have a hard drive connected to the IDE header for the controller. That controller probably doesn't recognize IDE optical drives properly so don't connect them to it.

You need to start using your "little grey cells" and make some logical conclusions based on what things you have discovered.

".....it tries to boot into the os(got ubuntu on it now) but it just stalls with 'Ubuntu' on the screen and the progress meter if you will is only maybe 5%."
"it stalls when trying to load into Ubuntu."
"I tried booting from a ..........cd with partition magic on it, a win98SE CD, .......and a bootable Ubuntu installation cd but no go."

You're contradicting yourself - the Ubuntu CD is recognized as bootable and is loading, at least at first.

What's the problem with the PM CD?
The Win 98SE CD?
I'm assuming you pressed the key it specified when prompted to boot from the CD - you must.
If it's a copied CD, or even if it isn't, SEE You may be having problems reading the CD(s) below.

If you have a PM 8 CD it does take a while to load - several minutes, or longer if there is a problem with the hard drive - but you should see a blue screen during that time if it was recognized as bootable, and an hourglass.

That sounds like a problem with Ubuntu - I know nothing about that

You may be having problems reading the CD(s).
- CD-RW disks often will not work properly in a drive they were not made in
- CD-Rs work fine in nearly any CD or DVD combo (DVD and CD) optical drive
- try a laser lens cleaning CD in the drive
- make sure the CD is clean and free of major scratches
- try another optical drive
.....

"I tried booting from a.....win98 bootdisk floppy but no go.

Did you try the floppy on another computer to make sure it works?
If it doesn't work on another computer, it's quite common for more recent floppy disks to develop bad sectors on them for no apparent reason.
Sometimes a floppy that boots on one computer won't boot on another one if either of the drives are aligned improperly and the two have different alignment - that's more common with newer floppy drives that it is with old ones; the latter were made when floppy drives were a lot more expensive that they are now, and quality control was a lot better.

Obviously if the bootable floppy won't boot the computer you either have something wrong with your bios settings, or there is something wrong with the floppy drive or it's connection to the computer.

Look in the computer's bios Setup.

"I can get into the bios with some boots which is odd but I am not sure where to go from here."

NOTE that if you have something connected wrong or there is something wrong with the floppy drive or other drives, it may be a lot more difficult to get into your bios Setup.
If you start pressing Del repeatedly (don't hold down the key) right after the monitor led lights up steadily (usually green) after booting, you can usually get into the bios Setup regardless of whether or not you have a hardware problem.

If you think settings might be screwed up in the bios Setup, you always have the option of loading DEFAULTS in the bios Setup to reset everything to default settings except the time and date. If you flashed the bios, or think someone may have, you MUST load bios defaults after that in order to make sure what you see in Setup matches the bios version.
In any case, it does NO HARM to load bios defaults, although you may have to correct a setting or a few of them afterwards.

The floppy controller is usually enabled by default in the bios Setup -
in that case, most bioses will detect a floppy drive automatically if it is correctly connected and nothing else is wrong. If your connection to the floppy drive is okay, you should see that a 3 1/2" floppy drive has been detected. If you see None for the first entry, someone may have disabled detection of a floppy drive - try selecting 3 1/2" 1.44 mb floppy drive there, save settings, it will reboot the computer, go into the bios again and see if it is now 3 1/2" 1.44 mb . If it now says NONE for the first entry again, your floppy drive is not connected correctly or has some other problem.

- the boot order in the computer's bios Setup. In a computer as recent as yours, you should be able to set the floppy drive first, then a CD drive, then a hard drive. If you can set it that way, most people never have to change the boot order when they do certain things after that - it's an all purpose boot order for most people. It may be set that way by default when the computer was new, or if you load bios defaults at any time, and may already be set that way.
NOTE - if a floppy drive isn't first, you must make it first - e.g. CD then floppy drive WILL NOT allow a bootable floppy disk to be detected in ANY computer bios I have come across!
Some bioses also have a place where you specify which hard drive is booted first, listed according to their model name, if you have more than one hard drive attached - if the first one listed is not bootable because it doesn't have an operating system on it, some bioses will not go to the other drives in the list and you get the message no operating system found - some bioses will try all the drives in the list in the order they are listed until they find the first one that is bootable.
I have also found in some bioses it may also list CD or DVD drives by their model name in the list of drives, rather than just hard drives - a bootable hard drive must be first in the list if it isn't already.

Connections.

Standard stuff:
- Your floppy drive must be connected properly and the drive must be working properly in order for you to boot from it.
A single floppy drive must be connected to the end of he data cable that has the flipped over wires just before the connector.
If the led is on all the time, one connector on the data cable is backwards in it's socket on the drive or on a mboard header or socket - if it doesn't light up at all, the data cable is damaged, or you haven't got it's power connector on properly, or the floppy drive detection or floppy controller are disabled in your bios Setup, or much less likely the drive is dead.
A drive may light up it's led normally yet it can be defective and can't detect a bootable disk or work normally - try it on another computer if in doubt.
.......

This was written about IDE data cables, but the same thing applies to floppy data cables, except they always have only 34 wires, and the connectors are 34 "pin".

It is common to un-intentionally damage IDE data cables, especially while removing them - the 80 wire ones are more fragile. What usually happens is the cable is ripped at either edge and the wires there are either damaged or severed, often right at a connector or under it's cable clamp there, where it's hard to see - if a wire is severed but it's ends are touching, the connection is intermittant.
Another common thing is for the data cable to be separated from the connector contacts a bit after you have removed a cable - there should be no gap between the data cable and the connector - if there is press the cable against the connector to eliminate the gap.

........
You have an alternate way of loading PM

There is a Setup on the CD in \RescueMe (I'm assuming you have PM 8.x) that makes a two floppy Dos version of PM, if you have the CD on a working computer. You use the first floppy to boot with - it will not boot from the second floppy
......

There has been no indication in your posts so far there is anything wrong with your hard drive, but you could test it anyway.
Check your hard drive with the manufacturer's diagnostics.
See the latter part of response 1 in this:
http://www.computing.net/windows95/...

There is a bootable floppy and a bootable CD version on most manufacturer's web sites. Obviously your floppy drive must work properly or your CD drive must work properly. Burn a CD-R if you make the CD version for the greatest chance of readability.

OK no it is not booting from the Ubuntu cd(factory cd btw). Ubuntu is already installed on that hd when I had it in another machine.

Nothing at all happens when I use PM, Win98 cd or bootdisk. It just shows the errors said at the top of the page and that is all...tries to load into ubuntu and stalls. So it is not using any bootable media. The win98 cd, bootdisk and Ubuntu are factory made and I am using a dvd drive. Should I use a cd drive?

I dunno this time round I couldn't get into the bios at all. I tried so many times.

Nothing is scratched. i am careful with all my cd's and floppies and yes everything has worked on other machines.

Checked all the connections as I did have it wrong when I first put in the ram and the machine told me so. I copied what my other amd machine has and then I got what i am getting now.

Yeah I have accidentally bent pins back on a drive once and now I have learnt my lesson about connecting cable with care.

PM-I have version 7. I actually haven't used it before but I thought it might be a good way to get windows installed on this drive but it is not doing anything.

The hard drive to me is fine. It has had several os's on it. I think I pulled it out of a new machine about a year ago. I used it for a while and now it is intended for the machine I am referring to. When I first got it no os had been ever installed on it.

OK will try those later suggestions and change to a cd drive as well.

"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama

"...no it is not booting from the Ubuntu cd(factory cd btw). Ubuntu is already installed on that hd when I had it in another machine."

I know nothing about Ubuntu.
I do know if you install XP on a drive on one computer, then try to boot that same drive on another computer that has a mboard with hardware (the most important of which being the main chipset) that is more than a little different, when it starts to load Windows, XP often can't deal with the change in hardware and all you get is a black screen with a blinking cursor top left. In that case if you don't want to lose the data on the partition Windows is on you have to run a Repair Setup procedure, using the XP CD, then Windows will load normally on the second computer.
You may need to do something similar with Ubuntu, with the Ubuntu CD.

"Nothing at all happens when I use PM, Win98 cd or bootdisk."
"The win98 cd, bootdisk and Ubuntu are factory made ...

OK, that clears that up.

You should always be able to boot from a bootable floppy disk if there is nothing wrong with it, if the bios settings are correct, and if there is nothing wrong with the floppy drive and it's connection to the computer, regardless of whether there is anything wrong with the hard drive or its software or its bootability or whether a hard drive is installed at all.
See the info about how to check that out in response 25.
.....

"It just shows the errors said at the top of the page and that is all."

THOSE ARE NOT ERRORS!!
Those messages have NOTHING to do with your problems!
How many times do we have to tell you!!

"...and I am using a dvd drive. Should I use a cd drive?"

UH......what kind of DVD drive? A DVD-rom (only) drive CANNOT READ CDs!

(Later)
Background:
When DVD drives were first available starting in about 1999?, they were only available as DVD-rom drives (a.k.a. DVD players or readers, only) - there were no DVD burners and no DVD recordable media - DVDs were only available as prerecorded (a.k.a. "pressed") read only disks - mostly movies. They were very expensive at first, and so were the DVDs, so many people put off buying them until the prices dropped a lot, if they bought them at all (I never bought one - why would I want to watch a movie on a computer when I could buy a DVD player and hook it up to a TV with a much larger screen?).
Some makers (e.g. LG) eventually came out with combo CD burner/DVD-rom drives, which read CDs and DVDs and burn CDs but can't burn DVDs. Those eventually became more numerous and were installed on many el-cheapo models of brand name systems and especially brand name laptops until quite recently.
Much later, DVD burners were available, which also read DVDs of course, but earlier models may have still have not been able to read CDs or burn them. They were very expensive at first, so many people opted to buy cheaper combo CD burners/DVD-rom drives, and/or much cheaper DVD-rom drives.
DVD combo drives are relatively recent - they, of course, read and burn both CDs and DVDs.

Therefore.......
there are a lot of DVD drives "out there" that can't read CDs.
If you are using a DVD-rom (only) drive, or possibly an earlier DVD burner drive, it can't read CDs.
You can find out for sure by looking up the drive's specs using it's model number on the manufacturer's web site.
....

(original)

If it's a DVD combo drive that can read and burn both DVDs and CDs, or a later DVD burner drive, it is having major problems reading the CDs - in that case see the suggested things in response 25, or try another optical drive, one that CAN read CDs.

"I dunno this time round I couldn't get into the bios at all. I tried so many times."

Did you see my NOTE in response 25 about pressing Del right after the led on the monitor goes on steady - usually green - while booting? If you did and tried that....
In that case, the ONLY time I have seen that problem is when the bios is detecting a hardware problem. It is very likely you have the floppy drive wrongly connected or it is not working for some other reason, but it is likely enabled in the bios.
See the info in response 25.

Or it could be because of a card in a slot, but that's rare - you could try removing all non-essential cards in the slots.

(Later)
A side note: Do not install any card in the last PCI on the end nearest the center of the mboard, with the possible exception of a PCI video card, unless you have no other choice - that slot is forced to share the IRQ of the video, whether it is onboard video or a card in a dedicated (AGP or PCI-E) slot, even if there is no card in the dedicated slot, and that frequently causes prolems.
If you have no other choice, try switching which card is in which PCI slot, but that may not help - you may have to remove one card.

(original)
I have to go. More later.
...................................

(Later)

"PM-I have version 7."

I have version 8 and 5 on CD, and several earlier versions.

Some of what I know about PM:

PM 8 will boot the computer into the Dos version of PM from the CD.
Conjecture:
PM 7 probably will too, and it probably also has the utility to make a two floppy set, but the folder name where it is may be different.

It was definately released long before XP came out, and probably before 2000 came out but it may support 2000 okay, and it probably supports the later versions of NT.

PM 8 can deal with any size of hard drive or hard drive partition.
It is the only version recommended for use with 2000 and XP for any hard drive size situation.
It supports 2000 but was first released before XP came out - however most software that supports 2000 properly can be used for XP, no problem, and it MAY (I'm not sure) have been designed to support XP even though it hadn't come out yet.

PM 8.0 has lots of bugs.
There is a huge update/patch available for it on the Symantec web site, and elsewhere.
Symantec bought out PowerQuest, who made PM and several other excellent programs, in 2000 or 2001. There was at first, but there is no longer anything substantial, support on the Symantec web site for PM versions previous to 8.x. The newest version available is 8.x and was released by Symantec - it already has the updates/patch applied to it - it's essentially the same as the PowerQuest version with the updates/patch applied but there may be slight cosmetic differences. I believe PowerQuest never released a 8.x version (higher than 8.0) on CD, but they had the updates/patch available before Symantec bought them out.
If you have the 8.0 CD, it's software can be updated with the Symantec (available only on the Symantec web site as far as I know) or the PowerQuest (available only on the web) updates/patch - the 8.x version it updates to may be different, but that produces the same functional result.

Conjecture:
Going by what I know applies to PM 5 (see below),
PM 7 may not handle any drive or partition larger than 128gb properly (in Windows, most computer bioses, binary size e.g. 1 kilobyte = 1,024 bytes, 1,024 kb in a mb, 1,024 mb in a gb; = 137gb manufacturer's size (and some computer bioses), decimal size e.g. 1 kilobyte = 1,000 bytes, 1,000 kb in a mb, 1,000 mb in a gb), but it should work fine for drives smaller than that.
The hard drive manufacturers have always used the decimal size.
No Microsoft operating system uses the decimal size, and as far as I know neither does any other operating system.

I don't recall whether PM 5 will boot from the CD, but you can make the Dos floppy set too - I'm not certain whether you can make it from the CD, but it can be made by using files installed in the Windows version - the folder it is in is different.
I know for sure PM 5 can't handle any drive or partition larger than 64gb properly. It seems to work fine as long as the drive or partition is not larger than that. It was released before long before 2000 came out, and probably before the later versions of NT came out.

Ok well the latest is that the floppy drive and dvd drive are awake and working now. Phew I changed cables so many times that I finally got it to work. The error is still there but the system boots from the floppy which is a win98se bootdisk. I tried to install winxp after I got the bootdisk to do it's job. I selected the dvd drive and tried to run setup but it said 'This program cannot be run in dos mode'.

I know what you mean about putting a drive in a different machine. I think once I was able to get it happening in another machine without doing the repair thingy and that was a surprise but not after that. maybe the two machines had similar hardware I don't remember.

Ok I don't know what errors are what are not. I just blame what I see on the screen for the problem....he he.

The video card is pci in this machine and it is in the first pci slot. MMmmmmm should I try an agp instead? Or move the pci down once more slot? There is no onboard video.

I have a 40gig hd in this machine I think....MMMmmmmm trying to remember. Could be 20?
Btw I tried to boot from the winxp disk but it didn't. Even though I can now get into the bios and I set the first boot device as the dvd drive.
Seems to like booting from the floppy drive now after the cable change. Maybe the other one was dead. I also changed the floppy drive previous to that but things worked when I change the cables.

More good info about PM....OK I don't know how to use it though. Seems like this machine won't boot from the dvd drive and I also tried a cd drive even though I set the boot sequence in the bios to do so.

Is there a specific bootdisk just for winxp? Ah OK I am looking at this http://www.bootdisk.com/popfiles.htm
Oh they want me to use paypal now...ok haven't visited this site in ages. Can I somehow just use the win98 bootdisk I have?

"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama

When you said you were a amatuer with computers you certainly weren't kidding.

Since you can now read CDs, your "DVD drive" is probably either a CD burner/DVD-rom drive, or a DVD combo drive - that can burn and read both CDs and DVDs. I don't think there's any such thing as a CD-rom/DVD-rom drive that only reads both.
If it's a DVD combo drive, if it is capable of DVD +R or DVD -R 16X or grater, the data cable must have 80 wires in order for it to be detected as a burner drive properly and work properly.

It sounds like the boot order in your bios must be okay, at least some of the time - floppy first, CD second, hard drive third.

"Btw I tried to boot from the winxp disk but it didn't. Even though I can now get into the bios and I set the first boot device as the dvd drive."

As I said above, and in the last post or previous, the floppy drive should be first in the boot order in the bios, NOT the CD drive! You cannot boot from a bootable floppy if in is listed after a CD drive! If the floppy drive is first, a CD drive second, and the hard drive third, most people don't ever have to change the boot order again!

Your computer bios should boot a bootable CD fine, but will ONLY do that if there is no bootable floppy in the floppy drive when the floppy drive is first in the boot order as it should be.
You should see a prompt something like "Press a key to boot from CD" or similar while booting - you press any key or the key it specifies while you still see that on the screen - the CD should then boot fine.

Note that if you get the XP CD to boot, and you then run Setup, you press the key to boot from it only the FIRST time you boot, otherwise Setup starts from the beginning again!

"Btw I tried to boot from the winxp disk but it didn't......"

Not all XP CDs may be bootable - e.g. Upgrade version CDs may not be.

If the PM CD and the Unbuntu CD boot fine, the XP CD is not bootable.

In that case, try getting and using the 6 floppy XP Setup set (see farther on).
If it is an Upgrade CD you will probably need to provide proof you have a previous eligable operating system and will have to provide at least the CD of one for it to examine (e.g. 98, 98SE, ME, 2000).
If it is an Upgrade version, that is printed on the original CD.
If it is a Full version, that is printed on the original CD too, and it should boot, if there is nothing wrong withe "DVD" drive.

If you're sure you did that right, your "DVD drive" may defective or it may need cleaning. Often the first thing to not work on a drive that has been used a lot is it's ability to have the bios detect a bootable disk, but you could try using a laserlens cleaning CD in the drive - it may just be it's too dirty inside the drive.
It is VERY important for the laser lens(es) to be clean when you are installing your operating system - e.g. Windows Setup is very sensitive to even tiny errpors reading the CD and you will get all sorts of messages such and such a file cannot be found or it is missing or corrupted or simliar if the laser lens is dirty, or if the drive is defective otherwise.
If you don't have a laser lens cleaning CD, get one. Any place that sells computers or audio or computer CDs and DVDs probably has it, and even some "dollar" stores have them, cheap.

"Seems like this machine won't boot from the dvd drive and I also tried a cd drive even though I set the boot sequence in the bios to do so."

If it boots from the PM and Ubuntu CDs there's nothing wrong with it - it's the XP CD that isn't bootable!

The probabilty of two drives not booting the XP or any CD, IF it is bootable, is remote, unless both drives need to have their laser lenses cleaned.

"I tried to install winxp after I got the bootdisk to do it's job. I selected the dvd drive and tried to run setup but it said 'This program cannot be run in dos mode'. "
"Can I somehow just use the win98 bootdisk I have?"

NO. You obviously can't install Windows XP using the 98 bootable floppy. You can't install it using any single bootable floppy.

"Is there a specific bootdisk just for winxp?"

NO, but there is a free set of 6 you can make yourself.
It's for Setup only or so you can use an XP CD that isn't booting only.

If you tried a laser lens cleaning CD and it didn't help, IF the CD is bootable, the drive may no longer have the ability to signal to the bios it detects a bootable disk.
In that case NONE of your bootable CDs would boot!

If all of them or just the XP CD won't boot.....

You can get the files to make the 6 floppy XP Setup set here, FREE:

How to obtain Windows XP Setup boot disks
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310994

You place the XP CD in a drive, then boot using the first floppy in the set, and load the contents of the 6 floppies. Setup proceeds normally, running from the XP CD from that point. Using the set does the same thing as the initial loading of files from the XP does when you are able to boot with the XP CD.

If it is an Upgrade CD you will probably need to provide proof you have a previous eligible operating system and will have to provide at least the CD of one for it to examine (e.g. 98, 98SE, ME, 2000, or XP Home if it's a XP Pro upgrade).
OR it may quit Setup without asking you for proof because you didn't have a previous installation of Windows on the hard drive.
If the latter is your case, you must get either a Full retail or an OEM XP CD, which is always a Full version. OEM XP Home CDs can cost less than $100.

"The video card is pci in this machine and it is in the first pci slot. MMmmmmm should I try an agp instead? Or move the pci down once more slot? There is no onboard video."

As long it's a video card and there is no AGP card in the slot it's fine where it is - it will also work in other PCI slots. If an AGP card is in the slot, yes, you need to move the PCI video card away from that slot if it is still installed. AGP video is always superior to PCI video, but whether you actually need it depends on how good and recent the PCI video chipset is, and what you want to be able to do with the computer. If it's an really OLD PCI card, you are much better off getting an AGP card because even standard stuff in Windows may not look good.

I sort of figured out most what your saying about the dvd/cd drives but I don't know how to find out each drives capabilities. I can't remember this drives history either as too many machine pass my hands. It's a sort of gamble with me that has paid off really well in that I can give machines to people that can't afford them. The dvd drive is being detected correctly in the bios now. I mean that the model is listed correctly so I presumed that the cable would be good?!

Well the floppy drive might not have been working or connected properly when I made that statement. I dunno I can't keep track now. All I know is that I was trying to boot from the floppy because I can't boot from the dvd or cd drive. I dunno I think this bios might not allow it but I rang my uncle and he said when I make the boot sequence change I should save and then turn the machine off. Well put the winxp disk in the drive before I turn it off and then after turning off the machine...turn it on...then he said it should see the winxp disk. If you know what I mean. I can't try it yet as I only have one monitor at the moment and well can't be using this machine. Plus it is a public holiday here and no time.
I don't have the floppy in the drive when I try to boot from the cd or dvd drive.

Mmmmmm I read many pages that said I can use a win98 bootdisk to install winxp....well ....geez it is too hard to do anymore today. I better try tomorrow. When there is a public holiday and too much socialising I can't concentrate plus a friend is sleeping on my couch. Will try again in a day or two.

"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama

"...I don't know how to find out each drives capabilities."

You can confirm what the drive is capable of by looking up the specs for its model on the manufacturer's web site. If you don't know the manufacturer, search using it's model number, and that will be apparent in the "hits".

"....I can't boot from the dvd or cd drive. I dunno I think this bios might not allow it"

I got the impression from your last post you can boot from the PM CD - are you saying you can't?

Your bios is perfectly capable of booting from a bootable CD, if it is bootable. If you can't boot any bootable CD, the problem is the drive can't boot one because it is dirty inside or it is faulty, not the computer's bios can't, as long as you have a CD drive in the boot order in Setup, and preferably listed second, after a floppy drive, not first, a hard drive being third.

It's not unusual for an optical drive that has been used a lot to no longer recognize a bootable CD - I have encountered several of them. It's worth a try using a laser lens CD in it - that might fix the problem.
In any case XP Setup will not work properly if the laser lens(es) is(are) dirty, or if the drive is otherwise having reading problems.
Simply inserting the laser lens cleaning CD in the drive, closing it and letting the drive spin in it a couple of times, is usually enough to clean the lenses enough.

"The dvd drive is being detected correctly in the bios now. I mean that the model is listed correctly so I presumed that the cable would be good?!"

That only indicates the bios is detecting it. It will be detected whether you are using a 40 wire or an 80 wire cable, but if it's new enough that it needs a 80 wire cable, if it is connected to a 40 wire one it may not be detected as a dvd drive or as a burner drive in Windows, and in any case even if it is, it cannot run at it's faster speeds in Windows connected to a 40 wire one.
How to tell the difference?
- you can count, can't you?
- the wires in a 40 wire one are about the same size as the wires in the floppy cable - an 80 wire one has much smaller wires.
- 80 wire cables have at least two if not three different colors for the two or three connectors - at least the one to the mboard is different, usually blue. (The connectors are always 40 "pin")

The bios detecting the optical drive doesn't necessarily indicate the drive is working properly. The most common thing that makes a much used optical drive not work properly is the drive motor can no longer spin as fast as it should, or it won't spin at all. However, if it doesn't spin at all, or if it spins but can't achieve 1X speed (standard conventional audio CD speed) , usually you get a LONG delay while booting if there is a disk in the drive while booting, and the bios won't detect a bootable CD because the drive can't spin fast enough.

In any case it's a waste of time using an old optical drive that doesn't work properly - try another used drive, or new optical drives are very cheap - I can get a CDrom drive for about $25, a DVD combo drive that will read or burn CDs or DVDs for $40 and up, locally.

Hi well I have tried a few things since I last posted. Phew sorry I am really unwell at the moment and my patience/memory are not working well....like the machine...he he.
Ah that is good info about the cables. I know you mentioned it several times and I am realising you are right and it is probably why this is not happening.
The reason I am saying that is that I put in the dvd burner that is in my main box and it starts to want to set up win98 from the cd(factory made) but just stops. Also I tried Ubuntu (factory made) and it did the same thing. The other drives never got this far but also the cable that my dvd burner uses in my main box is pulled out out of either the box I am working on or another machine that I have. I didn't anylise why but I change the cable when I originally put in this dvd drive because I thought the cable was not working and now you have told me about the 40/80 wire thing I know why the thing didn't work before.
I have never used the PM cd and it never worked on the box I am working on. Could be a bad burn? I have never used it so I don't know. A friend gave it to me for a different machine ages ago but I managed to do what I needed to do before I got the program.

OK I am not sure about the info on drives and hits. I have looked up specs many times but I look at them when I have found drives just to know what is the capacity as sometimes they don't say much on the drive so the model number yes is the source of that info. I found two more hd's tonight so I will be looking that info up soon.

Oh yeah I got an email back from the motherboards manufacturer and they have provided me witht he direct link to get the bios, flash tool etc
This is part of what they said:
Sir, for "bios not installed message", that is correct, because your a7v8x has a Promise SATA/IDE controller on it, if you have no devices connected to the Promise controller, you will see that message.

For latest bios:
http://dlsvr01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb...
and flash tool:
http://dlsvr01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb...

For drivers download please visit here:

http://support.asus.com/download/do...

So anyway will get to changing the cable and drive and report what is happening tomorrow!
Will look at the rest of your advice as well after I recover from the dentist tomorrow thanks.

"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama

"...I put in the dvd burner that is in my main box and it starts to want to set up win98 from the cd(factory made) but just stops. Also I tried Ubuntu (factory made) and it did the same thing."

That doesn't tell me much of anything. You need to describe what happened a lot better.

"Sir, for "bios not installed message", that is correct, because your a7v8x has a Promise SATA/IDE controller on it, if you have no devices connected to the Promise controller, you will see that message."

That's the same thing we have told you many times!! It's NOT an error!! It's NOT an error!!

Sorry that is the best I can do to explain. It all goes too fast for me to make notes. Anyway I got myself some cables 80 wire and going to give it a go now. Oh what i did mean by I put in my dvd burner is that that drive works for sure so it was still not functioning the way is should so it looks closer like it is a cable issue. Anyway will try and see what happens soon if I do not get any interruptions. Time is hard to find at the moment.

Yeah I did admit it wasn't an error. :)
I was just pointing out that now I have a direct download for the bios as I wasn't able to find one on that site. That is why I contacted them.

"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama

As we have told you several times, if you don't want the "bios not installed" message from the Promise drive controller to appear at all while booting, disabling the Promise drive controller = the Secondary IDE drive controller - in the bios Setup will probably stop the message from appearing.
In your case, the setting is the bios Setup on the Advanced page.
Scroll down the list, select Onboard PCI IDE, change it's setting to Primary instead of the default Both.
Press Esc.
Press F10 then Y to Save settings.
The computer will reboot.
.....

Those Asus supplied links are for the motherboard's bios and the Aflash flash utility. There is nothing wrong your motherboard's bios. It has nothing to do with your problems.
You should NEVER flash the bios unless you find specific information in release notes for the update on the same page where you get the update that that update will cure a problem you are having.
You are taking a big risk when you flash your bios - if the flash fails, and/or the flash chip physically fails while flashing (this is COMMON - these cheap flash chips can only be flashed an unpredictable small number of times), you will have a mboard that will not boot.

If the flash fails, but the flash chip is physically okay, you can follow a specific Recovery procedure, according to the brand of your bios.
Asus doesn't use a standard Award flash utility - it uses Aflash. You may not be able to use the Aflash utility to do a Recovery procedure - you may need to use an Award one, and get the right version of it.

If the flash chip physically fails you will have a dead mboard until that is fixed, and you need to obtain a new flash chip, already flashed.

Yep I haven't got to that part of things yet. I wasn't going to flash the bios either. I am taking my time. I just wanted the info from that website. Especially the drivers for all the things needed. Sorry I am tired after many hours of trying different things with this damn machine and it is just too hard to explain things in detail.
What I was able to achieve tonight is that win98se is installed on the machine but with problems. I still can't get anything else to boot from their cd's like winxp and well ubuntu just stops at a certain point. I changed the cables to the 80wire ones as I went past a shop today and thought I would try that but geez it sounds like a deeper problem.
Tomorrow late I will try and report on the things that went wrong ....what happens when I boot into win98. Too tired to do it now and anyway everything is hooked up to this machine. I don't have 2 monitors, kb and mouse so can only use one pc at time.

"The meaning of life is to be happy and useful" Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama

Further info-Still haven't had time to work on the other machine but I used the winxp disk to see if it would boot on my main/primary machine and it didn't so it sounds like it is a bad cd.

The