first motherboardectomy gone wrong

[0zzie]

Hi,
performed my first MOBO replacement last night, had to change the PSU too and it turns on OK - bios comes up beautifully but it wont boot beyond that - it goes to a screen which lists the disks, display data, bus details etc and at the very bottom it says verifying DMI pool data .... followed by a blinking curser. I have an MSI mobo with a D bracket which shows 4 green lights which i understand means loading operating system.
The hard disk is from my old PC - it has windows XP on it.
Any ideas why it wont boot - the hard drive is receiving power and is plugged into the appropriate slot on the MOBO and is marked as primary (and auto/cable detect on its jumper I beleive).
Help please

 

[zwaarst]

that indicates that there is someting wrong with your hardrive or the connection to it. First try to set your floppy drive as primery boot divice and put an old win98 rescue disk in it, and watch if you get old dos running. if that works go furter and connect your hardrives, and watch if you can see them. If they are NTFS you can see if they are there with fdisk, beceause you cant acces an NTFS disk from DOS.

<font color=red>duk-tape is like the force, it has a bright side and a dark side, and it keeps the universe together.</font color=red>

 

[0zzie]

Thats not what i was hoping to hear. How sensitive is the HD - i turned it on while it was on its side (in the pc) could that damage it?
My floppy is my primary boot, followed by HD then CD.
I dont know much about dos - dont think id be able to establish if my HD was operating or not from within dos - is it simple? The HD has win XP loaded on it. My Bios managed to recognise the HD size, type, primary/slave status etc - would that not indicate the cable and drive are working or not?
Once again - thanks

 

[Woodman]

Actually it sounds to me like you just need to reinstall XP.

 

[zwaarst]

no, i dont ment that you should fix your operating system from DOS. But that is an OS that will alway work. If you can boot with that, you know that your system works.
after that you plug in your hardrive. Set all the ide diveces on "auto" in the bios and look close to the bootup screen if the bios detects you primery hard drive. Also check the power cables to your harddrive, beceause there will hapen odd things when you connect the ide but the HD has no power. (I dont meen that you have not connected the power, but it just happend to my self that the red wire from a hard drive got lose from the power plug, and then you will search for a long time to find the error)
When that is all OK, you would probebly have to install windows agian.
The chance of destroing your hardrive with a mobo change are verry small (unless you removed the old mobo with a hammer)

<font color=red>duk-tape is like the force, it has a bright side and a dark side, and it keeps the universe together.</font color=red>

 

[0zzie]

I'll give that a go tonight. I also have another cable that came with the mobo I could use instead of my old HD cable.
I thought there was something significant in the "verifying DMI pool data" message that it hangs on

 

[zwaarst]

no, there is no info in that. that is a message you alway get. The info is in the next message that you dont get.......now booting windows xxxx

<font color=red>duk-tape is like the force, it has a bright side and a dark side, and it keeps the universe together.</font color=red>

 

[0zzie]

Oh ok thanks 4 the clarification

 

[zwaarst]

Hee Ozzie, in this coversation you just became a journeyman
do you know how muts you need to post to become something more than a journeyman ????

<font color=red>duk-tape is like the force, it has a bright side and a dark side, and it keeps the universe together.</font color=red>

 

[0zzie]

So i did!

I wasnt keeping records but jeez at a guess - say 50 posts maybe 100 - I really would be hazarding a guess

 

[jlanka]

see the <A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=faq" target="_new">FAQ</A>

<i>It's always the one thing you never suspected.</i>

 

[pIII_Man]

You could leave your hard drive connected and boot from a win 98 rescue disk
It will prolly tell you that no hard drive was detected...thats ok cause ntfs is not supported by dos
next type FDISK
then say yes to the 1-2 questions that come up next go to menu (4)Veiw partition info (or something like that) and dos should recognise a Non-dos partition that is the size of your hard drive and thats it! The same thing happened to me when i swapped only my mobo, i got freaked out but then i remembered hearing something about a piration protection in xP that would stop it from booting if MAJOR system hardware was changed (very helpful feature).

 

[ChipDeath]

you say it 'has windows xp on it'. So I assume you haven't reformatted your pc? Changing a motherboard is a major upgrade from the point of view of an operating system - the fact it's still expecting all the old hardware is probably the problem. if you can boot from a DOS boot disk, try this:

There are some files in \<WINDOWS DIR>\System32\config\ which are called:
SYSTEM
SAM
DEFAULT
SOFTWARE
SECURITY

copy these files somewhere safe, just in case.
Then copy the same 5 files from the \<WINDOWS DIR>\repair\ directory over the top of the ones in \<WINDOWS DIR>\System32\config\

This essentially will replace the registry with a blank, default one. you will lose all of your settings, but the HDD will still have all your data on it, and you may well need to re-create shortcuts etc.

That's IF it works of course....

HTH.


---
$hit Happens. I just wish it would happen to someone else for a change.

 

[0zzie]

I reformatted my HD only a few days ago and there is nothing on it other then the operating system so I think ill just have a crack at reformatting the disk or just reloading xp.
Thanks for all the advice guys - its really urking me to be so close and yet so far

 

[0zzie]

Guys,
nearly went insane last night trying to get the ah heck to boot.
Tried a repair on XP which didnt help so i went back to the BIOS and cabling for hours.
Finally - I reloaded XP - and reformatted the hard drive and whaddaya know - happy as Larry.
Brilliant
Thanks for all your assistance guys