mobo\cpu not passing boot control 1

[mrboodog]

Greetings!

I have just built a pc for a friend, but have run into something that I cannot seem to get resolved: I cannot get the system to boot with a Windows 7 dvd or even a different hard drive that already has a installed operating system.

POST looks good, I can get into BIOS fine, sata hard drive and dvd are both recognized. I have tried changing boot order, I have used the f12 boot menu, and I have used different Windows dvds. Message is "boot cd\dvd..." After a few moments, it comes back with no boot device available. This is same message I get when I popped in a known bootable hard drive(and changed boot order).

I have changed SATA cables, power cables, and used different SATA ports on motherboard. I have checked motherboard\case connections, tried individual memory chips. This is such a barebone situation, I am at a loss.

I am not an expert on bios\mobo stuff, but I have built a few hundred pcs over the past 15 years. There is always a reason for something not booting properly. This one has me stumped.

What the heck am I missing? It is like bios just won't hand over boot control to a hard drive or dvd.

Right now, this is all that the machine has:

***Thermaltake A4022 92mm CPU Cooler
***GIGABYTE GA-M68MT-S2P AM3 NVIDIA GeForce 7025/nForce 630a chipset Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
***Seagate Barracuda Green ST1500DL003 1.5TB 5900 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
***AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition Heka 2.8GHz Socket AM3 95W Triple-Core Processor HDZ720WFK3DGI - OEM
***G.SKILL Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBNT

 

[DrB0b]

Pulling a hard drive from a known good working system of completely different hardware and expecting it to function in a new environment is a very bad idea.
What Power Supply are you using with this setup? Have you tried a different PS? Also reset the BIOS back to factory and try to boot a random bootable cd like Ultimate Boot CD. Does it boot fine? If not after you have reset the BIOS back to factory change the boot order to the Optical drive first.

Does the motherboard have bloated capacitors next to the processor?
Do you have any USB devices plugged in?
Link to Ultimate Boot CD:

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...

 

[Freestone]

Wild guess, but have you tried hitting the spacebar when the "boot cd\dvd..." message is displayed? When booting from a Windows DVD, a key must be pressed in order for the DVD to continue to boot.

 

[mrboodog]

thanks for the notes! The only reason I tried to plug in a known working drive is just to see the boot process. I wasn't planning on it to get the system up and fulling running.

I so have a usb keyboard plugged in, but nothing else. This is really barebones; mobo, cpu, memory, hd.

Freestone, I understand what you are getting at for pressing a key when booting a dvd. I tried enter, space bar, "any" key. keyboard is lit up, but it doesn't go anywhere; such as spinning up the drive". Disks eject fine, they don't seem to be locking up the machine.

I tried multiple windows 7 dvds, and just for the heck of it, an XP SP2 disk.

I will try resetting the bios.

I am not sure what is meant by "bloated capacitors next to the processor.

 

[Freestone]

Bloated capacitors" is in reference to the plaque of electrolytic capacitors used on earlier motherboards that were defective to the point of bulging, and in many cases, splitting open on their tops. Search for images with words "bad motherboard capacitors" and you'll see what is meant. These bulging caps caused various and random hardware failures. In your case, your motherboard appears to be using newer cap designs so it's not likely the cause of your problem, though it can't hurt to look.

Do you happen to have a PS/2 type keyboard to try in place of the USB? Again, a wild guess as from your description everything appears to be configured correctly.

Definitely reset the BIOS and check for any BIOS updates.

 

[rclarke250]

What are the sata ports set to? try compatibility mode or auto.

 

[mrboodog]

guys,

Thanks for all of the recommendations! Given everything I changed out and tried, including resetting the bios, trying a ps\2 keyboard, I was not getting anywhere.

When it wouldn't boot to a cd or dvd, I tried a couple of different hard drives that already had an OS. I still got nothing.

Even though it recognized the dvd drive, I gave it one final shot and swapped the dvd drive out. Stupid thing booted first time to the install disk. I didn't think of changing the drive out since the hard drives weren't booting either.

Embarrassing...

Cheers!

 

[Freestone]

Persistence pays off. Thank you for letting us know the resolutio! Hindsight said we should have thought of trying a different DVD drive, ha ha. Have a star!