boot problems-plz help

Computer Forum CPU, Motherboards and Memory
1

my friend of mine recently brought over a computer for me to fix, that is rather old p3 450mhz 384 megs of ram. he told me it wont boot , and if i did manage to get it to work, just do a fresh install of xp preferably. so i go to boot, and it wont boot, in no mode. so i use a win 98 boot disk ( 98 is whats currently installed ) and i use fdisk to delete all partions, and then create a new one using maximum disc size, 4325MB. then i attempt to boot using xp cd, but it turns out the drive is not even being recognized, so i crack open the pc to find out that the cdrom is located as slave on the floppy cable and controller!!! stupid. so i put it on its own cable on the proper secondary controller, and now its recognized. but, when i go to boot again via cdrom, i get the error “Boot from ATAPI CD-ROM : Failure …” i tried 2 different drives, one being rather old. i dunno what to do next, i am using a good cable for it, and a couple diff drives…what should i do? thx a bunch in advance.

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2

Sounds like the BIOS is either improperly configured for the ATAPI DVD drive (which should be just fine with ‘Auto’), or the IDE port (or controller itself) is on the way out.

3

Try setting the cd-rom drive as slave and connect it to the Primary IDE channel with the HDD as Master. The IDE cable normally has a connectotr for this pupose. Also, check the power supply cable that connects to the CD-Rom Drive and try swapping it with a free connector if there is one.

4

Try my favorite thing to do (I’ve told countless people to do this… look at my other threads), clear your BIOS. This is usually a safe thing to do because most people have stock BIOS settings. But before clearing it by way of the battery, try entering the BIOS and setting it to “Defaults” or “Fail-Safe Defaults”. If this has no effect remove the battery for a minute or so and put it back in.