BIOS Cold Boot Hang up!!! 1

[signatureisx]

Thanks in Advance! A previously flawless machine just started hanging up on a cold boot right after the BIOS message "IDE Drive Detection." this is where everything stops. When I press the reset button the system will boot normally. This is a repeatable problem (occurs on every cold boot). It seems ironic that the problem happened the day after I put a third 256 Mb RAM module in. I thought the RAM was the issue so I removed the new RAM and the problem is still there. I don't think the drives are the problem, the drive detection was set to "Auto," I changed that to "Manual" and the cold boot problem was still there but always works fine on a warm boot (by resetting or Restart from Windows).

System specs:
Gigabyte GA-7VAXP motherboard, Award Bios (ver F4)
AMD 2200XP+ processor
Crucial 768 Mb PC2700 333 MHz RAM (three modules)
Maxtor 60 Gb 7200 HDD

 

[franklin97355]

Could be the HD is not spinning up on a cold boot.

 

[Bobg1]

I would agree with franklin.
The drive may be spinning up, but not reaching full speed which it needs to do before its recognized.
What you might try doing is changing things in bios like the memory test, make sure its doing the full memory test not the fast or abbreviated one. you want to try to make bios take longer before getting to the drive detection.

 

[signatureisx]

Thanks folks, I will explore that avenue with the drive.
Thank again

 

[signatureisx]

It's the ZIP drive (IDE 1 secondary) causing the hang up, interesting the drive works fine, but regardless of which way I set the detection (manual or auto) the system hangs. If I pull the ribbon cable from the ZIP drive the system cold boot just fine. Now what spend money for a drive, I really don't want to gamble the money (my luck that will not fix the issue).

 

[bcastner]

Check the IOMEGA site. The drivers have been patched many times. See if a more recent driver version will help.

 

[Halfcan]

Have you tried having the BIOS re-detect the drive?

 

[mainegeek]

In the Bios set the Zip Drive (secondary) to NONE. You don't need it set as the OS will find it.

 

[signatureisx]

I had a on-line chat with one of Iomega's tech folks (Andy) and one of the many things he suggested that I do was to set the BIOS to "none" for the IDE secondary. MAINEGEEK I didn't read your reply until after I corrected the problem, but you were right on, good call. Thanks