Totally Hosed! Cannot access bootable floppy.

[lckystar]

I have been assembling a new computer with the following components: Antec SX840 case, Soyo Dragon Plus MB, Sansung 950p monitor, 512 mb Crucital DDR SDRAM, AlthonXP1700+, Gainward CardExpert GeForce2 MX400, Seagate Barracuda 60GB hd, Toshiba DVD/CD-ROM. Ran into problems with video, only being able to enable vga. Only identified monitor and enabled full video modes on first boot; after that it detected default monitor and locked to 640/480 resolution. Tried installing drivers and everything else I could imagine. Finally made mistake of unchecking vga block under a properties tab. Now, everytime it goes to windowsXP, it ends in a blank screen. Have been totally unable to boot in any variation of safe mode or from any floppy. Safe mode runs a bar across bottom of screen and stall. Another variation prints a series of hd partitioning information all down screen and stops. Tried a Windows XP boot disk, Dell partitioning software disks, put XP boot on a CD-R, nothing works. Set bios 1st, 2nd, 3rd to boot only from floppy; it still goes to the hd and runs windows. At wits end. How can I access C prompt so I can reformat hd and start over? Or, once WindowsXP runs and the screen blanks, is there any way to reactivate vga. Even boot in Safe Mode with VGA does not work.

John

 

[btvillarin]

When you go to the boot options by pressing F8, did you try the option of "Last Known Good Configuration"? Try that first. If you're able to get in, install the 21.83 drivers from <A HREF="http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?PAGE=pg_20010907751234" target="_new">here</A> (unless those are the ones you tried). If you've tried those, try them again.

If nothing else works, just use the Windows XP CD to boot your computer. It's bootable...just set your BIOS so it reads the CD drive before the hard drive.

<A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/btvillarin" target="_new">My Website</A> - updated basically everyday.

 

[Guest]

You may also want to check that AGP is enabled in your BIOS, if there is such a setting on your Dragon+ board. Also, if you get back to Windows, you may want to use the following procedure for updating your graphic drivers:
1. change drivers to Standard VGA PCI.
2. Install the chipset patch if there is one on your MB CD.
3. Install new display drivers.