P4C800E-D/L :"Reboot and Select proper boot device..." ??

  • Thread starter Thread starter MartinF
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M

MartinF

Hi everyone

This is my first PC build and I am baffled

Installed everything (list below ) and I had this message after the normal
POST test and single beep

"Reboot and Select proper boot device
or insert Boot Media in selected boot device and press a key "

The BIOS reports all my hardware ok but will not boot on either floppy or CD
drives

Checked and used other floppy cables in case of bad contact .

Exchanged the floppy drive in case it was faulty.

Following other advice I have put a boot disc into the floppy drive ,
disconnected the other hardware, changed the BIOS to floppy boot only
same error message:

Tried the same tactic with the CD drive and a WIN98 cd

Same error

It seems although the BIOS "sees" the floppy and CD drives along with the
other hardware they cannot be recognised when I put media in them.

Any suggestions ?

Thank you for any straws I can grasp at


Martin

Hardware is:
Motherboard ASUS P4C800-E deluxe BIOS v1014
Videocard ASUS FX5200 128mb
P4 2.8 Prescott
1024mb Crucial pc3200 DDR400
Maxtor DiamondMax 9 SATA 80gb
generic floppy drive
generic CD drive(IDE Master on IDE socket two)
blue IDE socket is empty ( have tried cd drive on this socket as well )

please remove spam trap when replying direct
 
"MartinF" said:
Hi everyone

This is my first PC build and I am baffled

Installed everything (list below ) and I had this message after the normal
POST test and single beep

"Reboot and Select proper boot device
or insert Boot Media in selected boot device and press a key "

The BIOS reports all my hardware ok but will not boot on either floppy or CD
drives

Checked and used other floppy cables in case of bad contact .

Exchanged the floppy drive in case it was faulty.

Following other advice I have put a boot disc into the floppy drive ,
disconnected the other hardware, changed the BIOS to floppy boot only
same error message:

Tried the same tactic with the CD drive and a WIN98 cd

Same error

It seems although the BIOS "sees" the floppy and CD drives along with the
other hardware they cannot be recognised when I put media in them.

Any suggestions ?

Thank you for any straws I can grasp at


Martin

Hardware is:
Motherboard ASUS P4C800-E deluxe BIOS v1014
Videocard ASUS FX5200 128mb
P4 2.8 Prescott
1024mb Crucial pc3200 DDR400
Maxtor DiamondMax 9 SATA 80gb
generic floppy drive
generic CD drive(IDE Master on IDE socket two)
blue IDE socket is empty ( have tried cd drive on this socket as well )

please remove spam trap when replying direct
Click to expand...

The floppy is controlled by the Super I/O chip. The IDE and
SATA drives are controlled by the Southbridge. It is unlikely
that they have failed at the same time.

To boot the Win98 CD, you might need to set the BIOS to
"Compatible" mode, and select the sub-mode to go with it.
Under Win98, only four of six drives can be recognized off
the Southbridge. Basically, the two SATA plugs are equivalent
to a PATA cable, so it is like there are three PATA cables.
By selecting a sub-mode, you are selecting any two of the
three "PATA cable's" worth of drives. If you were booting
a WinXP install disk, you could try "Enhanced" mode, with a
sub-mode of [S-ATA], to make all six drives work on the
Southbridge. (This is documented, sort of, in the manual.)

I presume you've set up the "Boot Device Priority" ?
The AMI BIOS has had its share of problems with boot order,
where drives have "moved around" in the order, the order
is ignored (i.e. if a drive has a MBR on it, it might
get picked up and booted before a device specified in
the order). It is even possible a half-prepped hard drive
could so confuse the BIOS, that it won't boot from anything
else. I presume this is why you've been given the advice to
try connecting only the desired boot device, in the hope
that issues like that would be avoided.

In the last year, there have been some motherboards, where
the owners had to change floppy drive brand, to get them
to work. The implication is that some level of compatibility
is missing, but what exactly the issue might be, or which
brands are recommended, I have no idea.

For the PATA (IDE) interfaces, try to use 80 wire cables,
rather than 40 wire cable. There is one report in Google,
where both the IDE and Floppy started to work after the
OP changed from a 40 to 80 wire cable. (The connectors
still have 40 pins on them, it is just the number of
wires is doubled, to make room for 40 ground wires, to
improve the signal quality.)

HTH,
Paul
 
Paul,

Many thanks for sucj a helpful & measured reply.

As a newcomer to self build it has given me a number of avenues to explore.

I was beginning to think I had perhaps damaged the hardware in some way
although I wore a grounding strap etc whilst assembling everything.

kind regards

Martin
 
There may a head alignment problem on the floppy drive, that's why it can't
find the boot files. Buy another floppy drive, install in another PC, and
create the boot diskette there. Then move the floppy and diskette to your
PC.

Not all 98CDs are bootable.
 
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