asus A7N8X-E deluxe cmos problem

hi all and thanks in advance to anyone who can help me.
the cmos battery back up failed and wiped all the cmos settings all went to defalt which i am not 100 percent sure what they used to be that is one problem that started everything not working it now boots up to the screen that says last known configuration, start windows normally then when you press enter it reboots and keeps going round like that.when i go into the cmos it is not seeing the hard drive which is a sata one it only has one main drive it is shown on one of the boot screens and when you go into the raid section it has a maxtor 6y120m0 117246mb

on one boot screen it says the following
geforce fx57
bios version 4.36.20.30T2FD
copyright 99-03
nvidia corp
128mb ram

i think the computer is a amd athlon xp 1250MHZ

phoenix-award bios V600PG
i dont know where to start with this at all please make any instructions as simple as pos for me please thanks again if you need anymore info please reply and tell me where to find it and i will post

 

Replace cmos battery

 

Sorry forgot to put that I have put a new battery in

 

Yes I have done the battery but what info do I put in the bios/CMOS and why is the hard drive not seen in the bios what do I have to do to fix it thanks

 

Hi,

I'm not sure your problem is with BIOS if Windows is starting then it must be finding the HD. Can you clarify that you only have one HD in that computer and that a second one is not missing in BIOS?

 

Hi it is not seeing any hard drive in the bios section but when I press the f key to get into the raid section it is shown there I do only have one primary drive a Sara one connected to the main motherboard I do think the drive is working I think it might be a setting in the bios or are you ment to use a start up disk of some kind.
It does not get to the the windows logo page only upto last known configuration or start normally page

 

Hi,

I don't think your problem is CMOS/BIOS. The drive is being seen and Windows is trying to start. You are stuck in the XP boot loop which is very difficult to get out of but it doesn't appear to be a BIOS problem.

I have never had luck getting through that loop so I help someone else can advise.

I would consider backing up your important data using a Live Linux CD. That way you would have a copy of important personal documents, pictures in case you have to eventually reinstall XP.

 

Agreed. This is a great little mobo an is the one I had before my current one. It was rock solid for me. The reason why you cant see the HDs is because they are SATA. They are basically treated as raid drives.

I think your best option here is reformat and re-install... Asuming you have a windows disk? before you start though, you will need to download the SATA controller driver and copy it to a floppy disk. when you begin the install keep your eye on the bottom of the screen as it cycles through a load of messages. One will say something about to install Raid controllers push Fsomething (I think it is F6 but not sure, im going back 6 years)make sure you push it as that will then let you install the SATA controller so that your HD is visible when you come to install.

Assuming that you dont have any backups then you will need to put your drive in a caddy and copy to another PC or as sach2 says get a Ubuntu live CD and copy it all to USB.