Bootup problem

The enigma is having had a clicking noise HD prob I ran test found which one was going bad so powered down and disconnected. Powered up and nothing,no boot. Have changed PSU/Ram/CPU/Mobo Battery. Now when I am at the barebones state (ie no HD /Roms connected) I can boot into BIOS change settings and have rebooted several times and going through fully the post sequence but as soon as I add any hardware ie. a HD I only get as far as the Mobo splash screen logo and it the sticks. Pressing delete will bring up 'Entering setup' F8 'Loading Boot Menu' then Stick/Hang each time. Resetting CMOS jumper has no effect. Unfortunately there are no beeps etc. Sure got me a headache, any ideas Geeks. ??

ASUS PREMIUM SLI
AMD 64 420X2
1.5 GIG RAM
550 PSU

 

My guess is that the HDD you have removed has the boot sector on it.

 

The mobo has a boot sequence written on the board so to reach the bios settings no HD is required as I said it will not boot into the bios settings. Also I failed to mention that all lights on mobo are on and all fans CPU Front/Rear chassis. Activity Red light on case is on with no fluctuation.

 

Are the devices you are connecting IDE, SATA or both? Does the problem happen with just IDE or SATA devices connected? Does this happen with any IDE/SATA device or just a specific one/type?

 

I recently had this problem and it turned out to be a bad motherboard

 

Thanks voodoo3rd That's what I am thinking and actually purchased an identical one recently but that was knackered and am awaiting my money back. So me thinks I will look for another. It appears when post begins with no attachments ie. HD it will actually post but when extra information needs to be gathered when HD connected it fails on that process.

 

Just a bit more help here ... considering that the mobo is at fault would it be worth buying a new 'Bios Chip' have seen one available (new) on E-Bay ?? rolleyes

 

It would be incredibly hard to solder that in and it probably will not fix the issue.

 

I have just attempted booting again and further developements are that I have a stack of 4 Sata and 1 Pata, connecting the Sata 1 by 1, in the dos screen it is telling me the size of the drives and message 'NO VALID DEVICE' 500 gig It also gives me the number/reference of drive and press any key to continue into settings. On arrival in settings the Drive is not listed. Any ideas ? When the Pata was connected THAT DID show in the settings, incidentally I have booted into settings this morning a dozen times which is some progress

 

Collinsl you seem to be on the right track as now the problem is starting to narrow. I have a SATA and a PATA/IDE both with the same OS WIN7 ULTRA. If I boot with the Pata (no sata connected) it will be succesful and get into and fully run windows. Booting from the Sata (no pata connected) I get the same message as above NO VALID DEVICE and I go nowhere ie. No operating system found. Booting from Pata with SATA as secondary I get the dos message NO VALID DEVICE but it will continue to boot from the Pata succesfully but the Sata is nowhere to be seen not in Disk Management either. Is this a malfunction in the Bios Sata settings. When I went into Raid setup it is showing there as 1 Ter (SATA). I went to load drivers from disk but it is ancient and not compatible with Win7. Any ideas plz. ??

 

you have 2 500GB SATA drives, correct? It appears that RAID is enabled in the BIOS and it is searching for a pair of SATA drives to RAID. Have a look for that.

 

Hi again, I am using the Pata as the OS boot up the Sata when connected stands alone no other Sata connected. I looked in the Raid setup just as a precaution and the single Sata is showing, taking into account what you said collinsl it may be behaving as a Raid setup even though there's only the one Sata there. I shall connect and try again and see if I can somehow destroy a raid that's not there lol. What is strange is the dos screen saying No Valid Device! could this be looking for the Raid ?? :confused

 

That's what I think. Make sure in the BIOS that RAID is disabled.

 

Oh dear I gotta come in here backwards, apologies to all who gave there time in answering. I checked the Raid setup and that was a no go as there was only 1 sata drive. At one point I had a PCI card installed for extra HD connection so was about to put it back in and see if that would rectify error.. On placing the Rig flat I then noticed that I was connecting the Sata to wrong connectors on the Mobo. Reason I hadn't noticed before as when all HD's are in a stacked removable tray they cover the Sata connectors and I was now not using the stack just HD's laying outside the Rig. On this Mobo there are 8 Sata connectors 4 are for ordinary Sata Drives the other 4 are for RAID ONLY and that is where I had the Sata connected to, hence the message NO VALID DEVICE as it was looking for the Raid. 'What A Whalley' so as soon as I spotted this and connected to the correct Sata slots all is well. The initial problem with the failing HD and disconnection/Reboot failure seems to have rectified itself. Once again many thanks for your input

 

No problem. Sometimes the simplest things are worth checking first.

Glad you got it sorted.